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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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:
The thing about this is that there is literally no reason for Bionicle characters to have these urm- parts on them. Unless Greg has said otherwise, these beings do not mature into adults through puberty, so these distinct features have literally no reason to exist or matter. They are robotic skeletons with organic parts inside, not organic bodies with metal plating.
But hey, that’s just a point… A DUMB POINT! Thanks for reading.
I can see your point that yeah they are a bunch of robots they don’t have to conform to human autonomy. But saying that a male body is default is a little contradictory. seriously why is it that most bionicle sets have male portions. Because having a wide shoulders and narrow hips portray that powerful impression. Like it or not it’s hard wired into everyone’s brain. Same goes for female attributes it’s just a different way to portray a character. Other wise bionicle would just consist of a bunch of stick figures. But hey it’s just how see things.
Because the Inika build is ridiculously wide and Lego didn’t want to make molds for 50 different torsos. That’s all there is to it. Toa are aliens, so it doesn’t really matter what they look like to us. (Oh, and the Toa with the most arguably feminine proportions is…Pohatu. Who is a dude. All the female Toa are jacked-up with those “male portions.”)
It’s not a good way when we’re dealing with the extraordinary circumstances Bionicle provides. Male and female characters in Bionicle almost always look the same, sans their paint job. That is where the matter begins and ends.
our boy Pohatu takes that trophy
