There is no problem with Lariska mimicking a female body, though
Female proportions and NSWF art isn’t the same thing. However the drive to make NSFW art of a entry may affect how people vote.
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The problem with Lariska “mimicking” a (stereotypical) female body is that there’s no reason for it. Women in BIONICLE do not have proportions that match those of a stereotypical real-life woman. They do not have breasts, they do not have butts, they don’t have hourglass figures or thick thighs. The only thing that making a “female-looking” Lariska shows is that the MOCist considers the stereotypical male body - long legs, broad shoulders, rectangular torso - to be “default”, and that “female” is a modifier on that body. BIONICLE does not have sexual dimorphism like real life does, and, most of the time, you cannot ascertain a gender just by sight inside the Matoran universe - the only thing gender affects is a being’s voice.
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Watch out, using logic doesn’t work here for the people who just want to make every female in Bionicle look a certain type of way
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At the end of the day, a bionicle character can have all sorta of different proportions: tall and lanky, short and chunky, upside-down torsos, etc…
There’s nothing wrong with leaning into feminine proportions for a build. Nobody complains about Gali or Nokama in the movies.
And temperament, according to the Great Beings
(Edit: toa of psionics are female because the GB believed that females were less brash after creating Orde)
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I’m not sure if this is part of “temperament”, but Greg has also stated that the different genders can have different attitudes and body languages:
(Admittedly, though, there are multiple cases throughout the story where a character doesn’t necessarily conform to their gender’s “expected” attitudes)
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There’s nothing wrong with building a MOC to appear proportionately feminine. At the end of the day, we’re discussing appearances here, and a key part of the character can be building with a similarity/callback to real life. Canon can go to heck.
The issue is sexualization, the objectification of the character/gender. I’m not sure whether people are unaware of the issue or just don’t care, but you don’t exactly see tons of Tahu MOCs with defined codpieces, right?
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There is a massive, massive difference between a MOC/art having feminine features, and a MOC/art being NSFW. Not being able to tell the difference is a huge problem, and I am saying this about MoCists, artists, voters, and just, like…people in general.
Obviously, this is a conversation that, for a long list of reasons, probably shouldn’t happen on this website. But, for the bigger side of the problem of MoCists/artists not knowing the difference: there is a rule in place for that. When it needs to be enforced, it will be pretty unambiguous.
EDIT: just so that I’m not pointing at some vague concept of “the rules”, I’m looking at these here:
A combination of these two will probably knock out any entry who’s sole purpose was an NSFW lariska. Not a feminine lariska, because, again, it’s a categorical difference.
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Also marking her as a “fem fatal” like she’s depicted in many mocs is just incredibly inaccurate to her character. In each of her media, she is shown to be a cold assassin who deserves respect from a clan of mercenaries. None of these attributes can be associated with a fem-fatal like Roodaka. Others may point to when she convinced Nidhiki to join the DH but not only was that of his own full volition but Lariska was much more sincere in their conversation which again feels less like a fem-fatal.
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Your mileage may vary, but, to me, it appears that the story went out of its way multiple times to contradict that. Hahli, Dalu, Kiina, Chiara, Gorast, Roodaka, all of the lady Skakdi, all have personalities that run counter to the GBs preconceived notions, and I think that that was on purpose.
Pretty much exactly it, but I’m still against physically coding Lariska as a human woman for multiple reasons. To continue on your point about Tahu with a codpiece, the reason you don’t see that is because male bodies are “default” to many people. A “normal” body with no augmentation is male. Once you pinch the waist, broaden the thighs, and emphasize the chest, it’s female. Sort of like bathroom signs? You’ve got “normal” for male and “normal with dress” for female. It’s subtle objectification, reducing the complexity of sex and gender to a few visual signifiers (plus some patriarchy thrown in with the perspective of male as default).
My big point, though, to reiterate, is that feminine does not exist in the Matoran universe, and neither does masculine. Those are pretty much just voice descriptors, and they are definitely not physical identifiers. Most first-time BIONICLE fans likely would not immediately recognize Gali Mistika or Helryx as female, and there are probably some male characters that’d be clocked as female at first, too. The Shadowed One has a massively emphasized chest, and all of the Vortixx have the same implied-breast setup that Roodaka has, including the men. There is just no reason at all to try to make female MOCs look “feminine” - that’s not to say it should be banned (because it’s subjective), and not to say you shouldn’t (because you should do what you want with your art), but I’m still going to look sideways at entries with an intentionally human-woman-coded Lariska or Tuyet and think “now why would they design her this way?” Because there’s only a few reasons to design a BIONICLE character to look like a human woman, and I’m not really a fan of any of them.
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I think we’re forgetting the one time a feminin character with clear female proportions and body language was canonized: Toa Nikila. She’s not from a species where you can argue that males have big breasts, butts, pony tails and high heels like the Vortixx, since Roodaka is the one and only Vortixx with canon depiction. Nikila is a Toa, her appearance is fully canon and she is feminized both in body proportions and posing without being sexualized.
Also, remember the quote from Brutaka in Reign of Shadows: “Have you seen Makuta females? They are not pretty”. So, yup, there are beauty cultural standards in Bionicle universe regarding female appearance.
I really don’t feel like arguing this but Nikila has pretty normal Toa proportions. I think the idea of her pose being feminine is weird but I don’t completely disagree.
Brutaka’s comment about female Makuta was mostly a joke, and I don’t fully think that it implies there’s beauty standards for women.
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Unless there’s a greg quote floating around (and if there is, it would be beyond insane), I don’t think there’s anything we can actually draw out of canon sources to say that characters CANNOT visibly be what we would interpret to be “female”.
One could probably line up 5-10 quotes to find that it is implied that this is the case, but has been proven the last 10 times this has happened, there needs to be a hard canon, “yes/no” source in order for something to be mandated.
If Lariska being coded female/not being coded female is a make-or-break factor for anyone, then I would encourage votes along those lines. But as always: we will get both female-coded and non-female-coded mocs, and I would be shocked if requirements one way or the other are made.
If one wants more of either, then I would encourage entering! More MoCs in the entry pool only means that a better lariska is more likely.
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Her torso has an hourglass proportion associated with females, in comparison with the inverted triangle associated with males that has become the standard in Inika builds. Also, tell me Gali mata’s pins and inverted leg connectors are not meant to resemble wide hips and thick thighs.
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Wide hips are feminine? Pretty sure Gali doesn’t even have the widest hips in the Mata lineup
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Gali and Onua have both exactly the same thigh size
Pohatu 
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Yeah
our boy Pohatu takes that trophy
Yeah I think I have said this before…total spitballing/headcanon stuff but I like to think of their chests as a “mantle” afterall, they curve upwards rather than downwards.
Think: Part 57546 as an example, Jaller has a bigger chest than his teammate Hahli.
Or Mister Halo’s armour, note how his chest-plate is one assembly and curves around his chest with a notable overhang, on some versions it’s more distinct than others.
I like to think that Gali’s armour is like that, accentuated to protect whatever that black balljoint is supposed to represent…maybe going into the biomechanical side of things she may have larger lung capacity?
smh when I was searching for a reference picture I found articles saying Halo fans petitioned for curvier females…tsk tsk it would seem all fandoms have this problem…
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Man, idk why you’re even arguing with me about this, it’s not a super big deal; I’m just making my beliefs known on the subject. It’s undeniable that the set designers attempted to put some “feminine” shaping on some sets, but the fact is that, in canon, there’s no sexual dimorphism.
These are always the most embarrassing conversations and discussions that take place here.
Guys… come on. Stop it.
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And on that note, I’d like to share something I found for Stud.IO that some people may want to use for the Tuyet contest.
Reddit - Dive into anything
I’ve tested it out on my version and here’s what it looks like:
Not 100% accurate but it’s a pretty good stand in until the accurate one is made.
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