#Skakdi

[makutaservaela]

The Gang is on the Loose

[toacody]

Orodramir, the Golden Skinned Being

SHINY, SHINY! PRETTY, PRETTY!

Source

Creator: Antak3000

[yodawgiheardyoulikemecha]

PITtober 2024: The Siren of Zakaz by The Underscored Double Via Flickr: “Banished for her sweet song” Inspired by outcasts from the depths of Bionicle history Gallery Pit Brutaka Trench Wanderers False Tuyet The Siren of Zakaz Pit Roodaka

[djibs]

VEZOK 💀

HAPPY 810NICLE DAY TO ALL WHO CELEBRATE

[randomwriteronline]

"Strange colors, this one," the female said. "Earth?"

"Sonics," the other replied proudly. "Very rare. Usually their element kills them before they can turn."

The Toa's head lolled about, quiet, his silvery Hau hung low; he did not respond when his possible buyer grasped his forehead and pulled it up to check his eyes - which he did not open.

"Blind?"

"Ah, no, no, he sees well! But we've had to knock the fighting out of him and now he's a little shy," the Stone Skakdi cackled. "Not that it was difficult. He's perfect cannon fodder, no will to complain, no thoughts of his own. Or he could make a good cabin boy for you or some other slave-like thing... Truly, you've just got to choose."

Xekul grinned sharply, her tone appreciative: "Not bad for his price."

A panicked sound arose from behind her: one of her sailors was rushing towards them, grabbing her arm, trying to pull her grip off of the near catatonic being.

"You won't fool me!" he was snarling, spine snapping like a whip, teeth bared, "Keep your cursed deals off our ship!"

She yanked herself out of his grasp with barely any effort; the smaller Skakdi tripped on his own feet as he was thrown forward, and she snarled: "What's gotten into you now?"

"He's cursed!" the male insisted, "They all are! All De-Toa, all of them!"

His eyes gleamed terribly as he set them on the being limply awaiting whatever demise the Skakdi would decide for him.

"They're harbingers of ruin - they're Mata Nui's own personal sirens, made to drag us all into the bottomless abyss," the spindly male hissed. His fingers curled tighter around his captain's arm, so tight he almost crushed her murky green armor. "He'll doom the ship the moment he gets on it! He'll guide us straight to Karzhani itself!"

"Bit unruly, this sailor of yours," the slave trader cackled nervously.

"Bit more than usual," Xekul agreed with a low growl.

The Ice Skakdi trembled harshly, gnashing his teeth together as he suddenly shrieked: "We need to kill him! It's the only way to save ourselves! We need to kill him now!"

Immediately the other male perked up, spine curving to make him seem larger as he barked: "Hey, hey! No touching the merchandise!"

"Then we'll need to kill you too!" the sailor howled back, cutlass all of a sudden in hand, the terrible strength of desperation lunging his pitiful frame forward to grasp the salesman's throat between his claws and plunge the blade right into his eye over and over and over and over and--

He gave a frightening yowl when his captain's fingers grasped skull, sunk into his sockets, and yanked him back to send him flying. His body hit the ground with a large clattering thunk and shrank into a pained curled position reminiscent of a boiled shrimp's posture.

A powerful shiver wrecked him. He clasped his head within his mangy hands as his superior's feet approached him.

"He's singing," he whined softly, sounding horribly in pain: "He's singing, singing to me, burrowing and writhing inside my brain like a worm... Captain, captain, he's singing, singing!... The siren, he's singing, singing, he'll drag us to our doom singing, singing... Captain, help me, help me, kill him, kill him! Kill him! He's singing, sing--"

Xekul crushed his head with a stomp: his body stiffened, jerked about, and finally stilled.

She kicked it into the waters.

"We'll need another cabin lad," she sneered.

The Stone trader swallowed air, claws still around his throat from the previous attempt at his life: "I think," he wheezed, "I think I could give you a discount."

The female twisted her lip in a mirthless grin: "Much appreciated."

-

They kept the Toa down, in chains, below deck.

First was the quartermaster. He accused the first mate to be whistling something shrill and malevolent in his ear on the second day; he claimed to still hear it on the fourth day; he stabbed the female in the throat on the fifth. They reduced him to molten scrap for his offense, but by the time they were done there was nothing else to do for her, and Xekul ordered both bodies thrown overboard.

Second was a powder monkey. He began claiming the ammunition buzzed loudly in his ear, telling him to blow the hull; he was struck by convulsions whenever he stepped too close to the walls, vibrating at the same tempo as the blasted humming he swore had wormed into his brain; at last he blew up a fuse (accidentally or not, it could not be cleared) and took off a chunk of the ship and several gunners with himself. Xekul ordered his remains be scrapped off and dumped as chum, to catch some of the provisions he'd cost them.

Third was a sailor promoted to boatswain. He started stalking around the deck, turning his head left and right, barking orders more and more nervously and constantly looking around with a strange sort of fear in his eyes; he told of conspiracies of mutiny to his captain, enacting death sentences and banishments and imprisonments on her behalf, until the crew was so meager than they could not waste men by leaving them to the sharks anymore, becoming more paranoid by the day ever since; in the end, foaming through his jaws, screaming about a damned sound driving him insane, he slaughtered his way through most of the remaining sailors. Xekul had to break his neck to stop his infernal howling, and had to join her fearful males in throwing the dead into the ocean, as there were barely enough to handle half the corpses by themselves.

Fourth was one of the lads in the brig. It had to be, though they did not know who. By the time they went down to free them in exchange for work, they had managed to kill one another until the only one alive below deck - by sole virtue of being kept in a different cell - was the catatonic Toa.

Mere days before the third week, he was Xekul's only company.

Her claws were clutched to the helm tight, as though she feared someone might have lurched from the fog to rip it away from her as she steered cautiously.

She'd disposed of her last maddened sailor moments earlier.

He'd been singing too loud, too close to her ear.

The singing hadn't stopped.

It went on at a good distance from her, clear as day; a Bruiser song about a tower that never ends, always in construction, never to be finished, visible from a mio away in every direction, casting a shadow so impossibly long and wide that it made night fall during the day.

Each day we add a brick, and each day we lay the spackle; each day we work to finish, but the roof is never ready.

Each day we fix a wall, and each day the floor is done; each day we work to finish, but the roof is never ready.

It was a repetitive melody, sung in a dreadful monotone.

It was driving her mad.

It was completely silent.

She whipped her head around, to watch her back, tool unsheathed, limb ready to pounce, to kill: nobody. But she would have sworn there had been someone with her, a new voice, repeating the dull lyrics in a dull voice, just right behind her, right next to her.

It was completely silent.

Xekul tightened her grip on the weapon. The song continued from the empty space before her, as flat and nauseating in its spiral structure as it had always been, sinking into her head like a slow screwdriver digging deeper, and deeper, and deeper... She stared into nothingness and awaited another move as her vision swam.

It was completely silent.

Now the voice was tearing itself in two, duplicating, cloning itself through mitosis: all of a sudden there were three, and then a small group, slowly growing louder while never increasing their individual volume. The Skakdi violently jerked away from the helm as one of them suddenly came too close to her arm, so close she could have felt the breath on her armor if it had come from a mouth.

It was completely silent.

They kept multiplying. New voices kept adding up, taking over the area all around her, pushing her back, back, back, into the wall, into the corner, into the ground, pressing against her as if the room was caving in, crushed by an outside force; once she was completely curled up their pitch rose slowly, higher and higher and higher until the words were only shrieks sinking into her like scalding needles, and she screamed to cover them until her throat ripped apart.

It was completely silent.

A hand opened the door with a click.

Xekul did not see the being, at first, because the noise had covered her field of vision with a thick layer of electric grey snow flickering at terrible speeds.

She felt fingers sit carefully over her head as she convulsed in a state of complete hysteria - fingers light and quiet, pressing barely enough to take her out of the auditory torture, to let her begin to make out the vaguest shape in the static surrounding her. From them came something... Something like a liquid extension, of the heavy consistency of syrup: it dug into her skull and thoughts, curling around them far too quickly, leaving them behind when they did not find what they wanted. She hacked and spat in an attempt to stop them, but her body did not cooperate.

Then, something inside her brain gave a loud click: and it was all over.

"Thank you, madam," a voice said, sucking the thousand screaming litanies back into itself.

Her tremors quelled slowly, her eyes reaccustomed themselves to the world that had been encased in painful white noise. Xekul opened her mouth and heaved: the tension that had kept her jaws shut so hard her teeth had almost cracked was finally gone.

Something in her head felt different. Like a piece was missing... No: like a piece had been nudged, pulled out, and then placed back in. Like someone had put a bookmark amongst her memories.

Vaguely she recognized the figure now changing course at the helm. She recognized the black armor, the gun metal... The silver mask.

Her voice snarled out of her without words.

The Toa replied to her surprised, hateful gaze with pale yellow eyes.

He hummed in tone with a Skakdi's sailor song while she remained still temporarily paralyzed, unfurling from who knows where a tube-like tool, never tearing his gaze away from hers.

He set a tempo by hitting his weapon on the floor.

"Captain, my captain, we're off to a good start!" he sang.

Then the staff struck harder against the metal; the sound pierced her head like a bullet, and Xekul blacked out.

[lee-the-yeen-art]

Back to your irregularly scheduled Reivak-posting!

[polygonalfish]

A swarm of protodites that believe they are the Piraka Zaktan

[matau-the-228th]

Our friends from the Acromion of Stelt have warned us to stay away from the Voya Archipelago for the time being.

The "Kourarex," Aurumenez, has begun work on something that involves his whole kingdom, and none of the Steltan trade ships have returned from any of his islands in the past year. The Steltans believe that he's preparing for war, and has taken their ships and crew captive to prevent them from warning anyone.

It always made me feel uncomfortable when a Matoran or Skakdi from Voya came to visit with the trade-ships. Their eyes seemed hazy, fogged over by some strange power. They would make wild promises, saying that they could give us anything our hearts dreamt of, but only if we came with them back to the Archipelago.

They always smiled, too, and only ever stopped if their offer was turned down.

The Steltans are going to warn our sister-island Okoto next, then move on to the smaller charted Islands before heading back to the Acromion. They say that it's entirely possible that this may be the last time we see a trade-ship from them for a while, but most of our resident Steltans have decided to stay with us instead of returning to their homeland.

What I don't understand is that the people of the Voya Archipelago have never been violent or aggressive, despite their strange nature. I can't really imagine them seizing the ships violently, especially if their Kourarex (which, as far as I can tell, is just a fancy word for 'King') is as all-powerful as they all claim.

Something else must be going on here.

Songs: For Narmer (Warframe), Eiyuu Ou (Fate/Stay Night), Ante Meridiem (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)

[thereadingaddic7]

Pumpkann

I apologize if this joke has already been made.

[crystaltoa]

I've seen people criticise this exchange in light of romance not being canon by this point in the story. And yeah, Lariska's line is a variant on "You say that to all the girls", which is usually used in a flirty context. So some people take it as Lariska interpreting Hakann's reaction as flirty, or even Lariska straight up flirting with Hakann.

There is another explanation that makes more sense in-universe though.

(From BS01)

If this is the case, then females are likely dominant in Skakdi society and as a result the males are probably socialised to be more respectful or even subservient to females, even of other species. Skakdi probably have a reputation for this, and to someone like Lariska, who might come from a species/culture where gender isn't a big deal, it may come across as quaint or silly.

There's other evidence of this in the other Piraka's interactions with female characters.

There's also Thok complimenting and trying to recruit Hahli:

Even this exchange between Vezok and Dalu. Vezok isn't nearly as dismissive or mocking of Dalu as the other Piraka are to other Matoran:

This is probably the sort of advice young female Skakdi are given, and Vezok treats Dalu as though she is more than capable of amassing an army and conquering the island. (He does slam Dalu with an attack and vaguely threaten her after that, yes, but only once she's moved out of close combat range)

There's also this from Vezon...

Though that might be more to do with Vezon's intermittent self-preservation instincts deciding to kick in... for once.

[that1cactus]

Some BIONICLE heads

[Ko-Fi]

[makutaservaela]

Bio-Parenting: Toa

[rrbobani]

- Z A K T A N -

Skipping ahead again for a bit, but I just REALLY wanted to design Zaktan. Yes, I made Zak here she/her. I was reminded of how there were female skakdi and how they were "more vicious" than the males.

SO

Yeah, Zaktan is gorl :')

(ButalsoIreallyenjoyedmakingallthegoldchainsandpiercings)

[toacody]

Irnakk the Nightmare

"Of course [he's] real! As real as a nightmare!"

Source

Creator: Sparkytron

[djibs]

AVAK 💀

[irradiated-imp]

Random Mocs

Title, just a bunch of random MOCs I've made recently.

Top's two renders of a Scorpion-esque Toa who actually gave me the idea to make the Toa Sinis.

Second are some updates to Dark Hunter Brute, both in color and build. He's larger, has a handful of changes I made to fit in with my current building style, and gave him three weapons, his blaster, his hammer, and his sword. Might give him more later.

Next is a random Skakdi I made, I posted him before in one of Ohtto's pics, but here's a proper look at him.

And lastly, Mata-ified, kinda, Toa Mahri Kongu.