#trans bionicle

[pluralsword]

our trans robot aft needed something happier than some of the shit we've heard lately and wowee did other trans robot enjoyers deliver. the culmination of 23 years of Bionicle's (very much unintentional and definitely not completely congruous with some of the weird shit in Bionicle and Hero Factory lore and the creation process) legacy since its first release in 2001 led to people all over playing around with gender via building robots with bionicle kits (there is even an excellent essay out there about the bionicle to trans realization pipeline in regards to how media effected this also). we can all go home now Bionicle has been completed via a Hero Factory meme (which was originally conceived as far in the future of the Bionicle timeline, this was revealed a while back) this is G3.

dont have the faintest idea what the audio is originally from but feel like an animated comedy show was the source. (as has been pointed out this is actually the original audio because the HRT they're talking about is the Hero Recon Team. just goes to show we did not get very far in watching Hero Factory)

We basically never talk about Bionicle on here but we had to share this

[alienbycomics]

A comic explaining the internet phenomenon… why are so many Bionicle fans trans? 🏳️‍⚧️ Happy Bionicle Day!

[lemonylepid]

[hahlilvndr]

Maku’s first appearance in canon implies she transitioned since meeting Gali 🏳️‍⚧️

[celinethefeline]

[battery-included]

Throwback to that time i drew someone's moc like the old comics

[starryknight-dragonarts]

The average village characters are often an overlooked part of any fantasy story, who cares about what the Basket weaver is doing I want to see the cool things the Heroes are up to! That's not the case in Bionicle, the Matoran villagers that the Toa protect are just as interesting as the Toa themselves and this is explored heavily in the early series point-and click adventure game MNOG (Mata Nui Online Game) You view the Vast Island of Mata Nui as a Wandering Matoran named Takua who travels from village to village helping other Matoran with their problems and occasionally running into the Toa and getting to see them doing something cool and Heroic, also despite being a Browser based game from the early 2000's meant to sell Legos it's also one of the best pieces of interactive media! You are immersed in this world learning about lore and mysteries from this franchize and the Matoran villagers who make this world feel alive and lived in so you are just as invested in protecting the Island from the Evils of The Makuta as the Toa Heroes!

One of the Memorable characters is a little Matoran from the Air Village Le-Koro named Tamaru. When Tamaru is introduced the Le-Matoran are hiding because their home in the treetops of the jungle have been attacked by Giant Wasp Monsters called Nui Rama who have kidnapped other villagers! By playing a little tune on a flute you notify the village that it's safe to come out now. Kongu the Heroic Bird Rider swings down to meet you by swinging down a vine!...Followed by Tamaru who proceeds to fall and faceplant behind him.

Tamaru is not just a comic relief character, part of the appeal is that they do not fit in among the other Le-Matoran and some of these details though never explicitly stated have lead fans to the widely accepted headcanon that Tamaru is a Trans-Girl Le-Matoran.

A little bit of weird Bionicle worldbuilding is that all of the elements among Matoran, Toa, and Turaga are gendered. This was actually a sort of clever work around on the creators of Bionicle part because of some really stupid rules when it comes to marketing children's toys...as much as I wish decisions could purley be made for the benefit of telling a good story, Bionicle was made to sell Toys because Lego was going Bankrupt in the Early 2000s and needed an original action based franchise that could compete with Star Wars as their best seller before Bionicle were Lego Star Wars sets which means Lego had to pay royalties back to Lucas Films. Basically the reason Toys are so heavily split between Boys and Girls is because corporations want in that way, they split demographics so they are not competing with themselves for Toy sales. Bionicle was Marketed to appeal to boys, so usually with other kids media they would have all Male Hero characters, and a girl on the side who isn't as cool as the heros. By gendering the Elements they made sure that there would always be a girl member of the team who is an Equal member to the dudes. Just as Strong, just as Cool, and just as heroic as her male counterparts. 

I wish they had at least made the team equally split between Male and Female characters, of the 6 original elements only 1 of the tribes is Female, the Ga-Matorans (Water). I guess I gotta take what I can get...but then there is Tamaru. 

Most Le-Matoran are very agile and graceful living up in the trees, leaping from branches, swinging on vines, riding giant birds. Makes sense for a village with Air as their element. This does not come naturally to Tamaru though, Tamaru is scared of heights and gets dizzy looking down at a long fall, but Tamaru has something that the other Le-Matoran don't...She can Swim. Le-Matoran typically don't like water and don't like swimming, it just feels wrong to them for some reason, however Tamaru has no such problem with Water and is more comfortable in the water than she is in the air almost like she has the coding of a Ga-matoran not a Le-Matoran!

Despite being different from the other Le-Matoran, Tamaru is still Heroic. She joins the Chronicler's party and helps defend the Temple Kini Nui from being destroyed by The Makuta's possessed beasts and ensures the Toas safe return to the surface because sometimes Heroes need a Hero too.

This is why Tamaru is very special to me and many other Bionicle Fans.

[guttergator]

I scraped these together on my phone at work cuz someone on Twitter was being a transph0be and claiming to be a Bionicle fan. I wanted to show how easy it would be to "transition" Tahu and Gali and wanted to post them here.

Happy Pride

[biocrafthero]

"Man this toy robot thing seems really cool I like how you can make it look however you want it to look"

The Gender Counter: 11 YEARS REMAIN.

[risingshards]

My 3 B's of transgender:

1. Brisket

2. Bocchi

3. Bionicle

[alienbycomics]

Paid tribute 😌

[lemonylepid]

Hey so um.. I've been doing quite a lot of art recently. If you'd like to see your OC drawn by me in the same style, please please send me a message! Matoran are $60, Basic Toa are $80, anything more complicated than that is 85. (Transformers or any other unorthodox requests of any kind fall into a unique category that can depend on my confidence and/or the complexity) All with color and shading!!! Reeeeally tight on money right now so please do comm me and support a transgender bionicle artist!

0/5 slots filled

(shown art features characters from @hubrisunleashed, @0m3g4skanohiforge, and @endruv)

[randomwriteronline]

woe/rejoice. agori (and by extension glatorian) hcs be upon you

Agori exhibit subtle sexual dimorphism differently depending on which tribe they belong to (i.e. lebori males have brighter plumage, fezeri females are larger), while their bone structures are essentially identical. Gaquri are the only tribe able to naturally alter their bodies' production of their estrogen and testosterone equivalents. Actively transitioning and/or intersex individuals of any tribe can present dimorphic traits of one sex, traits of both sexes, muddled traits, or none at all

Their breasts are placed in the pelvic area, like horses, and the nips are the only visible part. To prevent chafing, lower garments have soft reinforcements at hip-height

They have short, nubby tails which have survived across their evolution despite having lost their original size and purpose. their movement is very limited and usually unconscious; since they remain the same length during all stages of life, they appear to "shrink" the more a person grows. children use them to better balance themselves when learning to walk

With the exception of Basari's and Fezeri's, Agori ears are very flexible despite their small size and can lean in almost all directions. Their shape varies across tribes

Their senses aside from touch are generally keener than humans'

Agori clothing tends to prefer function to form and does not have significant differences between masculine and feminine styles, although it wasn't always the case before the Shattering

Together with hugs, kisses and handshakes, each tribe has a unique display of affection or greeting pertaining to the head and/or face: Lebori preen each other, Gaquri rub cheeks together, Koniri gently nip ears, Fezeri butt the top of their heads, Basari scratch each other's nape, Potori shove temples against one another and Tapyri press the other's hand to their forehead. The gesture's intensity is usually toned down when done to someone of a different tribe to avoid discomfort or pain

If an object is in an enclosed space like a house, a vehicle or a box, Agori will point to it with their chins instead of their fingers

Vorox and Zesk still communicate in an extremely simplified version of a strict Basari dialect, although the phonetics had to be heavily changed to adapt to the shape of their mutated mouths. Malum has learned it and is currently the only fully sapient being somewhat fluent in Bara Magna Basari

Other tribes tend not to know Tapyri have hair

Koniri fur keeps warm, but becomes stiff in great quantities; Lebori down feathers are very soft, but struggle to retain heat on their own; Potori wool offers great insulation in most climates, but risks growing mold easily when humidity increases

After they (almost) went extinct, the sturdy carapaces of dead Bara Magna Fezeri were pillaged to make very durable high quality armor. because of this there are no intact pieces or Fezeri remains left, and the few plates that have survived since, no matter how worn or outright broken, are either made into family heirlooms or sold at exhorbitant prices. Sahmad has a large number of them (almost all buried) as he made a habit of targetting and capturing anybody who wore them specifically

Tapyri are unique when it comes to cleaning since their protective mucus naturally catches dirt and other particles for easy removal, meaning they only need to scrub or peel it off. Gaquri, Koniri and Potori take water baths while Basari, Fezeri and Lebori take dust or sand baths

Agori children are addressed with the pronouns ti/tir until they choose their own. its highly unusual for someone to use ti/tir for tir whole life, and the set is often used as a playful jab when a person exhibits childish behavior

Pregnancy is a very taxing endeavour: the process takes around a year and a half, but the parent's body will additionally need two or three years to recover from the strain of the experience as a whole, during which it will be physically unable to produce the necessary material to make another child. sudden spikes in stress or a constant stream of it during pregnancy is almost sure to produce a stillborn, and its very easy for older individuals to simply not have the energy to make it through childbirth once the time comes. this used to not be a problem, since Agori are very long lived and the whole planet was full of them, but the Core War drastically reduced their numbers and the hazardous conditions produced by the Shattering all over the planet made for a very dangerous environment to attempt having a child in, so births became extremely rare in the 100 thousand years before Mata Nui's return. the so called "children of Bara Magna" (which include Gresh and Berix) are few and far between, commonly having significant age gaps from one to the other

A wide number of male MU beings is perceived as feminine or adjacent by Agori, partly due to sexual dimorphism not being A Thing for most species, partly due to voice and countenance: Tahu, for example, is considered to be very lady-like. in his specific case this perception might however be also affected by the fact that he was modeled after Ackar, who used to be much more overtly femme in his youth* (check tags)

this is what ive got so far. peace and love on spherus magna.

[couldtransitionsaveher]

TAKUA THE CHRONICLER/TAKANUVA from BIONICLE

JUSTIFICATION:

"Listen, there is a reason every young trans girl related to her when watching the movie lmao." - Anonymous

Reminder: Submissions are always open!

[kitsune-pop]

Bionicle intimacy headcanons!

holding hands is like, a big deal. that's their equivalent to kissing

if you're unfamiliar with someone, guiding them with gestures or by their shoulders would be the polite thing to do

you can tell how close matoran are by how close their hands are to touching. grabbing someone by the wrist? JUST ADMIT YOUR FEELING OMG

the next step up in intimacy would be removing your mask in front of someone. I like the idea of it being taboo seeing someone's face without their permission

especially since mask users in the MU are greatly weakened without their masks. it's adding vulnerability to a dynamic. a couple holding hands without their masks on? highest intimacy right there. literally saying I trust my identity and my ability to express myself to you

I like to think tombstones would be decorated with a carving of the deceased's mask, and caretakers would make sure there wasn't any weathering on it out of respect

on the flip side, if someone kills someone else and steals their mask that's considered a desecration of the highest degree. you've already killed someone, and now you've stolen their identity (looking at you, any piraka)