#@gantoscomics

[mocsbylexan]

Zaren and “Construct”

***

Zaren sighed. She was cold.

The timid Vo-Matoran shuffled her feet as she watched the waves roll on to the icy, desolate shore of Voya Nui. She was waiting for a dark hunter.

Zaren was the only one on the island who knew he was coming. She had slipped away to watch for him when Dezalk had come calling for everyone’s attention. Something about the “toa” wanting the matoran to gather together. Too bad, she had an appointment to keep. She didn’t trust the toa anyway. She knew who they were.

Life wasn’t easy on Voya Nui, even before the great cataclysm. Sure, back then they were part of the southern continent, but all the normal matoran on the continent lived by the coast. The matoran of Voya Nui were in the middle of the wilderness, isolated from other communities. Trade was difficult, and food not easy to farm or find. So Turaga Jovan, unbeknownst to his own people, had cut a deal with the dark hunters. They would bring supplies to the village; crop seeds from distant lands that grew even in the arid soil of the region; sturdy tools for farming and mining, not like the weapons of war Karzahni gave them. In return Jovan maintained a safe supply stop for hunters travelling through the center of the continent, hidden in the woods a few miles away from the village. He had built and ran the outpost with the help of a small team of trusted matoran, the only ones who knew about the deal.

After the cataclysm, Zaren had been the only survivor from that group. As she watched her friends struggle not to starve, she had contacted the hunters again. Now, more than ever, her people needed aid. But as contact was reestablished and Zaren began to send monthly reports on events on the island at The Shadowed One’s request, she realized she had revealed too much about the vulnerability of the island’s position. The supplies never came. The responses went from promises that they would arrive soon, to orders to shut up and keep writing, to veiled threats, to silence. Voya Nui could no longer offer what they had before, so The Shadowed One had redefined the terms of the deal. Zaren was now his unwilling spy. She had stopped writing once. The day after her second skipped report was due her best friend was found dead behind her home, his armor shredded to pieces. It looked like a rahi attack, but not by any rahi known to live on the island. It could have been a coincidence. Zaren had resumed her reports anyway.

When the six skakdi had arrived a month ago Zaren recognized some of them instantly. The black one and the red one. They had stayed at the Voya Nui outpost before the cataclysm. She immediately sent a report to The Shadowed One, telling him six hunters had arrived on Voya Nui and asking him what they were doing there. Maybe, just maybe, this time she would get some supplies. As a reward for reporting rogue hunters.

She was shaken out of her memories when she saw a steady glow through the mist. A tiny boat with a lone figure standing in it. In his hand a deep, violet colored beacon. That was the signal.

She tapped her twin magnetic hooks together and they began to emit a faint hum. She threw one of them out into the mist. She could hear a dull thud as it landed in the boat and latched on to something inside, then she felt a pull from the other as it suddenly tried to return to its twin. She dug her heels in and held on fast. The boat slowly drifted towards the shore.

As the boat emerged from the fog she could see its occupant. A tall being clad in blue and green armor with a Kanohi Mahiki and… a belt and a scarf? No, a strange cloak of some sort. He carried a long staff, and the source of the purple glow was a beautiful flower growing right out of the palm of his hand. A toa of plant life.

He stepped out of the boat and pulled it to shore before removing Zaren’s hook and letting it return to her. Zaren looked hopefully into the boat. Empty. No supplies.

Swallowing her anger and disappointment, Zaren turned to her new associate. “H-hello sir. My name is Zaren. I’m your contact here.”

The toa didn’t respond, as he was scanning the horizon. Zaren took the opportunity to get a better look at him. Something was… off about his body. Were toa supposed to have feet like that?

“I…” She coughed and picked up the heavy hunk of metal at her side. “I have this for you. It’s a prototype launcher of some sort, and some ammunition. I stole it from the rogue hunters’ base. Thought it might be useful to you.

The being that was once a toa of plant life looked down at her. He seemed to be pondering her for a moment. He took the launcher and nodded to her curtly. Then, without a word, he turned and strode off towards the green belt visible in the distance. Zaren stood there stunned for a moment, then picked up her grapplers and hurried after him.

As she walked behind him, she looked closer at his legs. She saw it now, at the joints… crooked weld lines, exposed wiring, chipped corners. Features every Voya Nui matoran was all too familiar with: the signs of an amateur repair job. They were all over him. His legs, his arms, his torso… half the parts in his body were replacements. But those parts… she’d seen them before, and recently. It couldn’t be. Six sets of parts just like these had arrived on Voya Nui a month ago.

That was when Zaren looked up and realized what his cloak was made of. She felt her blood run cold in her veins.

“E… e-excuse me sir!”

The being that was definitely no longer a toa of plant life turned to look at her with annoyance in his eyes. Zaren’s heartstone nearly stopped. She had met dark hunters that would kill a matoran for annoying them. But she had to know.

“I… just… I n-noticed…” She didn’t know what to say.

“W-why are your legs... like... that?”

For a moment the hunter looked down in confusion.

Then his eyes lit up with recognition. And he smiled. It was a smile that made Zaren shiver. The smile of a predator, full of gleeful pride that she had noticed.

“Upgrades.” he said in a voice far too gentle. “From the hunt.”

Then, still smiling, he turned and strode towards the green belt again, this time beckoning her to follow. “We’ll camp there. Good for my element.”

Zaren felt what little food was in her stomach threatening to rise as she remembered the message The Shadowed One had sent her a month ago.

“Thank you for informing me of the arrival of those annoyances on your shores. They are, in fact, rogue hunters who recently attempted to leave the ranks of my organization. Of course, I won’t tolerate that. Do not tell any of your fellow matoran about their true identity. I’m sending a hunter to you to reprimand them. His codename is “Construct”. He’s quite experienced at dealing with their species… and he enjoys doing so as well.

However, I have another task for you. I have heard rumors that my former hunters are searching for a particular artifact. One that could fetch a high price from the right buyer. Rather than punish them for their traitorous ways immediately, I would like to see if they will lead us to it. Watch them closely. Report their activities to me daily. Do not make your presence known to them. Do not apprehend or eliminate them until I order you to do so. You may need to… firmly remind your companion to restrain himself in this regard.

Stay close by my hunter’s side. Trust me… if I know those deserters, and if what I’ve heard about the artifact they are seeking is true… and who else may be seeking it… then by my hunter’s side is the safest place for you on that island.”

***

WHOOOOO okay sorry for the long post but I had to get that story out there.

I took a break from my usual story and characters to make these guys for @gantoscomics period piece MOCing contest! Yaaaaaay!

Also the first time I’ve tried writing something for this blog from an actual character’s POV! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Obviously I chose 2006 for my period. Not sure why, but that’s the year that always immediately comes to mind when I think of my favorite year of bionicle. Titans aren’t really my thing, and the canister builds alone are kind of boring for 2006, so I did a double feature: one Vezon/Inika inspired canister-sized set and one voyatoran. (Also, I just HAD to do a voyatoran because the original 6 are some of my favorite bionicle characters ever for personality, story, AND the sets). I’ve had the idea for years to have a character that wears a skakdi spine as some sort of grisly trophy, with their neck going through the mouth hole. The first MOC I tried to to that with was actually my interpretation of Lariska. I know someone’s probably done it already by now, but I was really glad I could get a MOC that used that idea out there.

Plus that zamor crossbow. It’s kinda lopsided and WAY too heavy. I feel like I could have made a better one if I had access to some pieces from later years, but it was a nice challenge to do it this way instead. Also the balls fall out if you so much as breathe on it the wrong way, but I figured that was more accurate to how the designers did things anyway.

[kai-borg]

Itek - Toa of Magnetism

Itek was originally your usual Fa-matoran, sure a bit optimistic and cheerful, with a tendency to act a touch like a watered down Le-matoran most of the time and a mild obsession on Toa and other ‘just’ beings, but still fairly average.

Until his defect emerged.

The first time nobody really knew what happened, he’d just been chatting with some other Matoran and suddenly fell over unconscious. As time went on his ‘defect’ was finally noticed, and with it his personality degraded.

He went from cheerful to a paranoid wreck quickly after it was puzzled out, constantly in fear of his life and doing near anything in attempt to prevent the attacks from happening as his work suffered severely from it.

From quite literally not moving for hours, to pushing his body past its limits in attempts to somehow strengthen his heart pump, he did it all. It took a nearly fatal attempt at self repair before the Turaga finally agreed to send him to Karzahni.

To this date he still doesn’t understand how it happened, for years he’d been fine, showing no noted signs of possible defect. Currently the best guess, both by Karzahni and his Turaga, and the reason he was sent to Karzahni’s realm, was that an internal part to his heart pump was improperly built and finally broke down from the use.

To say he was horrified when he learned the truth of Karzahni’s realm upon his arrival is putting it lightly.

He was devastated.

To suddenly find out the place designed to repair his kind was in truth a prison ruled by a madman and filled with his failed and twisted attempts at doing his work nearly broke him, Karzahni’s own failed attempts at repairing him, resulting in his additional color and twisting him form, ending with his heart-light, the only thing that could warn him of an attack, being sealed off in frustration after Karzahni’s multiple failed attempts at repairing him, didn’t help his mental state.

If anything, the only thing that kept him going was realizing that he could bring some form of comfort to the others in the realm, his obsession coming into play, by acting as if nothing was wrong or at least providing a cheerful visage.

This was when his false personality started to develop.

If anything, these attempts are what allowed him to continue to survive until he was sent to Voya-Nui, being included in one of the last batch of Matoran sent, those he comforted keeping an eye on him in case an attack hit.

After his arrival on Voya-Nui he kept up the act, both exploring the island in search of supplies and trying to keep the others spirits up.

Despite these acts he always managed to remain a fairly unnoticeable, background character, only one prevalent, notable story existing for him.

It was fairly well known to the Matoran that Voya-Nui was frequently enough used by the Dark hunters for varying, typically unknown reasons, usually keeping interactions with the Matoran to very few or none.

Of course, there were always those odd few who didn’t. One was a Suletu wearing ex-Toa.

She’d taken to bothering the villagers, projecting indecipherable whispers, taking supplies and just generally pushing them around. After she’d been doing such for a few days Itek returned to the village, having been out on another expeditions, and quickly learned of the bothersome ex-Toa, seeking her out and asking for a chat.

It’s unknown exactly what happened during the chat, having been taken outside of the village, but afterwards the Toa… didn’t exactly become kinder but stopped interacting with the Matoran, leaving soon after.

Itek’s transformation into a Toa was actually a fairly unexpected one. During one of his expeditions he’d managed to come across what seemed to be a supply chance/drop, probably Dark Hunter related. Originally he was just going to leave it alone, preferring to not risk angering any Dark-Hunters, until he noticed a Toa stone within the pile.

After that all bets were off.

He quickly nabbed the stone, rushing off as he attempted to activate it, his paranoia and old personality re-emerging from the single thought of the the change possibly fixing him.

While he did eventually get it to work, his body was not repaired as he’d hoped for. While it did lose much of its previous deformation, actually becoming surprisingly different than he expected, leaving him to believe it was caused by past, quite vague memories of some other being, a massive, powerful titan of sorts he’d probably seen carvings of, his defect remained, his heart pump as damaged as before.

After his change he quickly informed the Matoran that he was planning on leaving to search for help to fix their living conditions and island, finally having the power to properly survive in the outside world.

He left before the Piraka and their invasion, an event he’d be torn to hear he could’ve helped prevent after learning of it, instilling a growing feeling of failure in his abilities, and returned just a touch before the island was fixed and sent back, bringing with him the items he believed could help the island, now fairly useless that everything had been done without him, only increasing his sense of worthlessness as a Toa.

Gender: Male

Personality: Itek has always been cheerful, even sometimes to a seemingly false point, always the first to try and lift others spirits, try to find the good side of things, and always the last to finally admit things were just as bad as they seemed and break down.

He’s always been good at masking his emotions, showcasing a false happiness which he uses to comfort others. This was a skill he taught himself, and slowly perfected after being sent to Karzahni for repairs, learning the truth of his realm, and eventually arriving upon Voya-Nui.

Due to this, and how long he’s been doing it, its formed into a nearly instinctive habit, causing it to actually be difficult for him to show negative based emotions and nearly impossible to break it.

While breakdowns are rare they’re devastating to Itek, acting as a release to quite literally all of his walled off negative emotions, typically leaving him in a despondent, nigh-comatose-esque state of depression.

Despite how cheerful and optimistic an impression he puts out he considers him a useless Toa no matter what personality is present.

Element: Magnetism

Kanohi: Rebounding

Weaponary: He carries a shock spear strapped to his leg.

The shock spear is a throwable weapon given to him by Karzahni when he was sent to Voya-Nui.

The faster the spear is thrown/moved the greater the amount of electricity released upon impact.

If the spear stops moving before an impact releases the shock it will continue to carry the charge, slowly draining as time goes on (level of charge dependent) or until the blade impacts against an object.

Handle is shock proof.

Fighting style: Usually Itek fights using his shock spear, starting off the battle with a  throw at his opponents, using his elemental magnetism to manipulate its direction and/or speed and rebounding it back to himself using his Kanohi before physically battling, using the leftover charge from the rebound for one last powerful shock before being left with only the small bursts it gets as he swings it.

When not fighting with the spear he typically fights in a hand-to-hand combat style he trained himself in, showcasing many moves similar to basic martial arts, and using his elemental ability through physical contact, from reversing the polarity of their fists to his armour, to magnetising differing parts of their armour, greatly restraining/slowing down their movements.

Other attributes: Itek suffers from a defect in his heart pump that causes it to at times function erratically, causing hm to either pass out at random, his heart pump having temporarily stopped, or enter a state of debilitating pain, the erratic functioning causing weakness, blurred vision, lack of ‘breath’ and leading to an eventual black-out.

These attacks used to be forewarned by flickers in his heart light, allowing some preparation before it hit, but after Karzahni’s choice to replace his heartlight with a silver plate, which remained ever upon his Toa-ization, from the frustration caused by Karzahni’s inability to fix it that option no longer remained, leaving him in a permanent worry, which he masked with his usual cheer, over when the next attack would hit.

====================

Hey hey! Finally got my entry to @gantoscomics contest written out and put up!

This is Itek, a Toa of Magnetism and previous Voya-Nui Matoran, a 90 piece Moc submission for the 2006 period.

So yeah, chose to upload this guy over the 2003 Rahi ‘backup’ moc (who willing be shown).

Now, I can already tell people are going to find him fairly Axonn clone-y, but here’s the thing, that ain’t the aim, it’s all due to what I built him with.

As some of you may remember I’ve recently come by the Kardas Dragon trio and built my favourites bad-@$$ winged lizard, a build which leaves behind barely any loose parts, but enough forcmy bored mind to get a basis for a build.

Yep! You hear it right! Itek is nearly 100% made from the parts you on the Kardas dragon! Besides his lower arm pieces and Hordika arm lower legs, all other parts can be found in the kardas dragon... if I can different colors for his upper arms...

For the most part his upper legs and chest build/armour are (besides a few extra ‘hand’ pieces, different coloured Visork leg, and second one of those axle poles) near fully made from the leftover parts.

[binkybonkles]

I finally got motivated to make this moc for @gantoscomics ‘s contest but I’ve had this planned out for a while

anyone ever noticed that Matoro Mahri’s hunched posture, clawlike weapon, ribbed forearm(s) and large thigh armour bore a striking resemblance to Onua Mata? No? Just me?

well anyway, I dug some oooold parts up, and made a moc of Onua Mata if he was released in 2006, with some extra detailing due to him not having a weapon gimmick 

[origsmocs]

Kazranekk, once a name that put fear in the hearts of even the mighty Makuta, now a ghost story to scare the small ones.

Kazranekk was once a skakdi warlord who had a personal vendetta against the Brotherhood of Makuta, after Spiriah’s failed experiment that turned the skakdi into the violent beings we know today. When Spiriah left the Island, he left an army of Visorak in his place to try to keep the Skakdi down, but they were unsuccessful. Mostly. Kazranekk was captured and placed in one of the Visoraks’ cocoons and mutated as a result of the Hordika venom, turning them into a four armed monstrosity with strange abilities. When the Visorak were eventually beaten by the skakdi, Kazranekk started aggressively fighting anything it laid eyes on, and was eventually forced off the island as well. But this did not stop their blood thirst. They went on a killing spree against all manners of Visorak or servants of the Makuta. Kazranekk even managed to slay a member of the Brotherhood itself, which made them a target. After some time, the Makuta Mutran hired a large team of Dark hunters to track Kazranekk down and bring them to him alive. Mutran did this because he knew of their ferocity and thought that Kazrenakk was potentially useful as a weapon of the Makuta.

After Kazranekk was brutally captured by the Hunters they endured numerous painful experiments and mutations inside of Mutran’s lab. Kazrenakk’s hatred of the Brotherhood grew every day. But one day the holding cell was empty, with no sign of where they had gone. No one knew how they could have escaped, but they did, and even today Kazranekk plans their revenge against the group that took everything from them.

There has been multiple accounts of a large four armed being similar to a skakdi being spotted throughout the Matoran universe, and even on Voya Nui, but it seems to be nothing more than a rumor. At least that’s what the Brotherhood hopes.

This is my entry to @gantoscomics ‘s period contest, and it’s supposed to be from 2006 (The story reads from that point in time as well).

[mattronomicon]

Hello! Today I have a creep from the deep, and an entry into @gantoscomics contest! This guy is named Kitrikk, he is 47 pieces and (as you can guess) is based on the 2007 Barraki line.

Backstory time: Kitrikk was once a mighty Toa of Stone, belonging to a Toa Team on one of the southern islands. Life was good for him for a while as he saved Matoran and was hailed as a hero, until the massacre. Two Skakdi Warlords who were at war with each other, decided that the little village of Matoran would be a perfect place to set up an outpost, and descended on the village in waves and waves of Skakdi warriors, the Toa did their best to evacuate and protect the Matoran, but the Skakdi were too much, and almost all the Matoran were wiped out.

This crushing blow was too much for Kitrikk, and he slowly but surely became unhinged, until one day he murdered his fellow Toa, having blamed them for the deaths of the Matoran. Now completely insane, he took to prowling the islands looking for anyone and anything to kill, all the while muttering and twitching, haunted by the voices of those he has lost. Helryx took note of this, and decided that maybe having an insane Toa rampaging across the islands wasn’t the best thing to have around, so she had him taken to the pit, where he was mutated by the mutagen.

When the Barraki escaped, Kitrikk escaped too, eager to find and kill anything he could. Unfortunately he began hearing whispers of a Mask so powerful it could control life, and Kitrikk made it his mission to claim this mask for himself, so that he may restore the Matoran he lost, and once again be named a Hero.

So yeah that’s about it for this guy, he’s pretty simple but I think it works, either way I’m happy to have been a part of the competition. :)

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

On a photo of baby spiders...

gantoscomics said:                                                                                                                            This made me scream look at all of the adorable spiderlings I want to cry     

and

  kiironekolady said:                                                                                                                            so many little eyes, how cute!                                                

I’m so glad other people like them too! I know some folks are badly afraid of spiders, but I just love them.

 Actually, I’m terrible about hating any sort of animal. I hate ticks or mosquitoes biting me, and yes I will kill them,  but I don’t think they are ugly either. You know, I just don’t get the concept of “ugly”! LOL

Now ugly personalities are a totally different matter....

[mocsbylexan]

Update

Remember when I said I was gonna take a break and “post some random stuff” and then I disappeared off the face of the earth for 2 months?

Yeah. School kicked my ass this semester.

So about the elephant in the room. Like many others, I am not happy about the tumblr purge of nsfw content. Since I’m an sfw blog, and since none of my posts have been flagged yet to my knowledge, I have no plans to completely jump ship as of now. However, I will be backing up my blog, and I will be participating in the log off protest on the 17th. I’d like to ask that you do the same, whether or not your blog is nsfw. This purge affects the whole tumblr community and whether or not you want to view or post adult content on this site it’s an incredibly messy and poorly implemented move that doesn’t solve any of the most pressing problems with the platform and shows how little tumblr cares about their userbase.

I am probably eventually gonna make a backup blog on another site, I’m just not sure which yet. Twitter and Insta scare me, and I don’t wanna lock my stuff behind pillowfort’s paywall. Right now mastodon is looking like the most appealing alternative to me, I just haven’t seriously looked into it yet. I might also end up on wordpress or even just make a discord channel. If I do make a new blog, I will announce it here. I’m also on two bonkle discord servers: @bioniclehyena and @binkybonkles‘s server here, and @gantoscomics’s server. You can always find me in those places if you wanna talk bonkles (currently I tend to be a bit more active on hyena’s server), and if I make an alt blog or discord server I will probably plug it in those places as well.

In cheerier news, I am home for the holidays and I once again have full access to ALL OF MY BONKLE PARTS (except the ones I brought to college and left there). Which means that hopefully REGULAR UPDATES WILL BE STARTING AGAIN SOON!!!! I think I’m probably just gonna dive right into posting my next major project, starting this next friday, so tune in for that!

Thank you all so much for sticking with me so far. Happy holidays and I’ll see you around!