I think splitting the community into a bunch of different fanon branches would be awful. These canon contests already were pretty starkly divisive; that’d only make the situation worse if every fan site and community group suddenly retreated into their own closed spheres. That’s part of why I hope DuckBricks can collaborate with Mask of Destiny on the contests.
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I think it would be kinda nice to make something like a theme month.
Every few months there will be a theme or character which users are encouraged to built. At the end they get put in a video or something like that.
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Ooh that would be cool
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Well as mentioned before, Duckbricks is looking to officially collaborate with another group on that. Which kind of defeats the whole third party purpose.
Centralizing influence over the community, whether it be through fanon or official avenues with which to communicate, is a bad look for anyone trying to stay neutral, and it should not be collected anywhere - even with centralized fanon. It looks an awful lot like a power grab in the long run.
The best thing Duckbricks can do is stay completely unaffiliated, make his contests extremely easy to vote on, and keep his fanon entirely separate. If he does it first, with enough community input, it’s be the Official Duckbricks Fanon - no need for anyone else to do something of that scale. And since he’s a completely third party, it’s completely your decision whether or not you accept the designs he approved - no pressure from anyone else or expectation for your Bionicle project to conform.
Anything more than that will be misused. This is the Bionicle community we’re talking about; it’s got a history.
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Yes, I want TTV and MoD to continue to develop the system that was last talk, and if we have it, all communities can restart fanon at any time.
Since G1 is no longer officially sustainable, we need an opportunity for divided communities to cooperate with each other.
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Flickr builders who build wacky enough to wipe the floor with their competitors.
Dude I haven’t even photographed my wacky Metru clone Zaria.
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Not to the extent I’m talking about. And not always for characters we have appearances for.
What I’m talking about aren’t just revamps. It’s things like CZQ’s total reimaginings of the Toa Mata.
PoorDisadvantaged’s Vezon: Vezon, the Disaster (Spear) | “Wearing it, cursed by it, ser… | Flickr
Patrick Bigg’s Kongu Inika:
He’s wearing a jacket and sneakers, man. That’s so cool.
Or his Mutran:
I love mad scientist Mutran.
People have always made MOCs, yea, but I’ve seen a lot of interpretations be met with comments like “this is a cool MOC, but it isn’t [insert character name here].”
What I’d want to see are contests where that’s the entire point.
Keep in mind, I’m not strictly talking about build quality here. These are all fantastic MOCs on a technical level, but I’m talking about fundamental design choices, and I’ve seen many MOCs do similar things even if they aren’t from these insane builders.
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I agree with your post, but just a point of technical clarification - they were absolutely canon compliant, otherwise they would have been disqualified. They just didn’t fit established and/or preconceived stylistic traditions.
Unfortunately, doubtful. I mean, I was super hyped for the canon contests, and even those I didn’t end up entering for myself like I had planned, thanks to IRL priorities. I pretty much missed the entire Hagah contest too, despite drawing up artwork for the four of them in advance, although I’m pretty content with the winners. (That said, I would probably have participated much more actively if I’d known in advance the contests were nearing their end, but nobody was to forsee that.)
In any case, while I’d enjoy a lower stakes contest for sure I certainly doubt I’d feel any need to be particularly active or present for it. I’d probably just browse the winning entries and the runners-up once it was all said and done. I doubt I’d be alone in feeling this way, given that I certainly wasn’t the only one to make an account on TTV specifically for these contests.
Um, that’s not how fanon works. Or how BS01 works. Fanon is fanon, is fan, is unofficial, and that’s pretty much that. You might get an article on the Custom Bionicle Wiki or something.
the Ghidonicle Contests
do it
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Yes, very good clarification. That is what I meant to say, thank you.
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I understand. My hopes are we end up having fanon = canon for the characters’ appearance, since Lego won’t continue with the theme (in that regard, we need one fanon to rule them all).
At the end of the day, from Lego we only got Greg’s seal of approval, wich validated the result, but all the hard work was made by the community.
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But why though
I say it should left up to individuals to decide how they imagine the contest winners to fit into the Bionicle Universe. I reckon a sizeable chunk of folks would treat these fanon contests as If they were canon contests anyway
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I’d be in favour of more contests for fun / some sort of prize if one can be found.
Not being for canon means the process can be more relaxed.
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No need for an art portion (could allow art and any other medium in the main round - maybe poll that beforehand).
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Forget wasting time with integrating other sites.
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Careful checking of rules isn’t so crucial.
Let’s not invite more arguments by claiming some sort of “community fanon” - that’s an oxymoron. Just do it for fun / recognition.
There’s also been a big focus so far on MOCs of a scale / aesthetic that fits LEGO’s limited official designs, probably because people wanted the “official” model to look good on their shelf next to other figures. (Even though the build isn’t canon…)
Personally I hope that for-fun contests could lean towards more artistic representations of characters, like this excellent Helryx. I’d love to see builders be free to work at a larger scale if they want, where they can really showcase their skills and give a better idea of how these characters look in-universe.
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Because I liked the canon contests and I want them to continue in some sort, with end results been “official”. If many sites have their own contests, we wouldn’t have a coesive image for a character, which made so appeling this contest.
Having just contests without an official result, wouldn’t be so different to a MOC showcase, which is great and all, but not my cup of tea.
I agree that their should be one central set of contests and a winner, but there’s no way to make people accept the winners as canon; there’s no way to fairly ‘enforce’ that
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There’s a balance to be struck here. Too much weight being placed on contests being a divergent canon risks bringing in all the worst aspects of the canon contests, and competing ‘splinter fanons’ being created and cannibalising the community.
That said a lot of the looser, no-holds-barred ideas just sound like regular contests and projects that already exist - the results of which have been fodder for Ben Cossy’s warm, delicious voice videos for the past several years…
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Not with that attitude.
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Unless Greg can officially approve more g1 content through LEGO there will never be another contest in which the result will determine a definitive canon.
Edit: I’m not saying you can’t make headcanon contests or something like that. You just can’t make a canon altering contest that everyone will have to abliged too.
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No matter how well we do, that become a fanon recognized by Greg.
I’m satisfied with that kind of contest, but I think Greg can’t do it.
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I don’t particularly care who wants to host these contests from here on, but I hope they take posts like these to heart.
100% this. Great MOCs were disregarded entirely for no reason other they challenged norms. And while that’s to be expected of a voting-based system I still think it’s rather unfortunate.
It seems to me that people wanted these contests as a way to breathe new life into a 20-year-old franchise yet (IMO) squandered the opportunity by choosing the entries that most reflected these norms.
While I haven’t been in the community long enough to have a firm grasp on the subject, I think it’s worth mentioning that these norms have no doubt changed numerous times since the community was founded and will change again. Whatever they are now and whatever they will be in the future I hope people can see there’s a desire for interpretations that challenge norms.
While I don’t think the future of these contests should be built on changing fundamental design choices, I do hope that the hosts and contestants can open their mind to the possibility of canonizing (however that can be defined) such remakes.
The point of all this being that I don’t want to see the future canonization contests (in whatever form they take) have rules that, directly or indirectly, harm (or DQ) entries that challenge norms. I’d like to see more participants/voters appreciate such remakes but that can only happen if they’re given a platform.
This is a whole other discussion but some quick final thoughts.
My preference for these contests isn’t to make them contests at all but open collabs akin to Herofebruary. No more arguing over what should or shouldn’t be canon, the prize is simply the enjoyment of participating and celebrating the love of the hobby, and everyone is free to determine their favorite entry as canon.
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