Just for curoisity. I have read before that are ways to make look a character femenine without giving her a bigger butt or chest. I don’t think they need to look different from a male character, but what things make them look femenine? Heels, long hair (they don’t have hair), a skinny body, the use “girly colors”, be grayish brown (like some birds) or been bigger than males (like some insects)?
To preemptively clarify Wolk’s point, this is presumably in cases where all of the parts of that colour on the MOC are painted, as opposed to half the parts being one colour and the others being painted to replicate that colour. @CalamitousT’s pink Pouks is a good example of the former.
I’d argue painted parts should match official colours. However the fact that CT’s Pouks wasn’t banned suggests TTV doesn’t consider it a problem, or nobody complained about it and so the rule wasn’t added.
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Is that really so hard to grasp? Narrow shoulders, wider hips and thicker thighs (even if it’s just a slight difference) can be enough to communicate that a certain character is supposed to be female without going overboard with high heels, long hair (which look ridiculous on a moc), some weird color shenanigans or giving the figure a butt and/or a chest made of Nuva shoulders or Rahkshi heads.
That being said, those pieces can be used tastefully as those specific body parts and when done so, they can work wonders when it comes to giving the moc proper shaping. I don’t think we should be discouraged from using them, nor should we get out knickers in a twist at the mere sight of them.
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It’s irrelevant to Bionicle canon either way.
Sexual dimorphism just isn’t a thing among MU species. Maybe Glatorian have it, but we have a sample size of one and that’s not enough to say for certain.
The Metru and Inika used near-identical builds for all of their number. Among the varied Toa, Gali Mistika has the same build as Tahu with pauldrons that make her look a little bigger, Hahli Mahri has the same upper torso piece as them and Hewkii, which is itself just as wide as the upper torso piece used for all but one of the others.
And then within the Mata/Nuva, Gali is consistently among the bulkiest of her team. Gali Nuva uses leg pieces for her arms, making them chunkier than the much thinner parts used for the arms of most of her brothers, and Gali Mata has wider shoulders than Kopaka, Lewa, and Pohatu.
Speaking of, the only Bionicle character with wider hips and narrower shoulders compared to other members of their species is… Pohatu. A guy.
So while small deviations are evidently possible within MU species, it’s not based on biological sex (because they don’t have those), and if you follow patterns then female Toa should be brawnier than the male ones (Which would actually track considering all of our samples are Water Toa and therefore they’d be adapted for the greater pressures and water resistance that comes with being submerged).
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Isn’t it kind of sexualization, too?
I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up over this lol.
Yeah it’s irrelevant to Bionicle canon but it’s kinda relevant to the audience, yknow? In fiction, we as humans tend to give non-human characters human features to make them easier to relate to. That’s why most good guys in Bionicle have two legs and two arms and fairly human proportions as opposed to the villains who have more animalistic silhouettes.
Take a look at any film featuring andropomorphic animals. Do they need to be andropomorphic? Well, not really. It just makes things easier for us as the audience. Now take a look at Transformers or, idk, robots from the movie “Robots”. Is there any lore reason as for why males and females look different in those franchises? Not really. They just do. Because they were made by humans for human audiences, and we just tend to project what’s natural for us into the fictional universes we create.
You’re wrong about one thing - that there isn’t sexual dimorphism among MU spieces. There is, in the movies (inb4 “the movie designs aren’t canon” - they are as canon as the ones in any other media). As for the sets, most of it comes down to the fact that set designers had to work with a limited piece selection and budget, and most of the time they didn’t even know which character they were designing (Tahu Mistika was originally going to be Gali, they just swapped colors later in the production). That lead to some female characters looking overly masculine (Hahli Inika, Gali Mistika). Which, frankly, kinda sucks.
(EDIT: also another reason might be that Lego didn’t want female characters to look like females, fearing that might scare the primary target audience - young boys - from buying those sets. Which wasn’t very poggers of them)
Bionicle overall has had very few female characters that look feminine (as opposed to many male characters that are very clearly masculine - I mean, just look at Axonn for example). And I think now, with these contests, we have a chance to change that, as there’s nothing really wrong with doing it.
Now that isn’t to say that those characters should have big Nuva butts, obviously, but I get a feeling that (at least some) people on this forum just can’t accept the idea of any feminine traits in female characters. And that’s just kinda silly. Like, a male character with broad shoulders and a chest so wide he can’t even look down? That’s ok. But a female character with more prominent hips or - god forbid - chest? That’s a big no-no.
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You seem to be getting a little more worked up over it tbh
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Maybe… but AM I REALLY? 
Impossible to tell inflection online, but it does seem that way.
One of the big concerns I think I could break down from your argument (oversimplified) is the canon contest mindsets of ‘purists vs moc-ists’
As you point out, you see these contests as a chance to ‘change’ things and make it different but a lot of the fan base doesn’t want to rewrite Bionicle reteoactively with these competitions, simply contribute to it.
I can see what you’re saying but I just disagree with it.
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Is it really rewriting though? I mean, I’m not talking about Gaaki here if that’s what you’re thinking, I’m all for her being a normal Metru build (same with Tuyet tbh), but for characters like Lariska or Johmak (if she ever gets a canon contest)? I don’t see how them having silhouettes that better reflect their genders would cause any harm to the canon.
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Kind of similar to how female armor has never really looked like this when made for practicality
But more like this
Being female doesn’t mean always being stripped down and hyper figurized to your secondary sex traits (which they do not even possess)
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Which… isn’t what I was suggesting
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If you aren’t trying to make it that level then it shouldn’t really be a problem then
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I mean what I had in mind was mostly the stuff I mentioned in one of my earlier post (narrow shoulders, wider hips, thicker thighs), because even that seems to be controversional to some people, as ToaArcan had to immediately jump in to remind me that doesn’t have place in canon apparently.
I’m not saying we should give boob armor to female characters lol. I’m not against it if it’s done tastefully, but that’s not really what I’m talking about here.
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I think at the end of the day as long as you’re being tasteful and not trying to body-ody-ody it it would be fine
I’m curious as to what part of this you guys didn’t understand. By all means, please let me know.
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I simply overlooked it by mistake and only read the most recent conversation…
but I have to ask why do you have to speak down to people? I feel like the conversation was attempted to be civil and respectful although I am more than willing to oblige ending it because you DID request it.
Imagine for a moment you ask a group of people to turn their music down. But you ask them to turn the music down for over a year and a half. And you keep asking, hoping they will, but if never happens because they think it’s fine if they just keep playing their loud music. You ask another group of people to turn their music down and they do and there are no issues. But time and time again, that first group continues to play their loud music.
Turn the music down. We shouldn’t have to ask this many times. I’m not asking again for the rest of this contest.
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That’s a very good illustration! The folks currently playing music may be doing it quietly but the people who might turn the dial up to 11 are still at large so there is risk.
What did we do wrong though