User blog:BobTheDoctor27/May 2013 Update

Hello there kind reader, and welcome to a Frozen-Calling-themed blog update! :D



New Chapters

 * Frozen Calling (Chapter 19)
 * Frozen Calling (Chapter 20)
 * Frozen Calling (Chapter 21)
 * Frozen Calling (Chapter 22)
 * Frozen Calling (Epilogue)

My May
There isn't a great deal to report in my real life outside of the interwebs this month, unfortunately.

I've just had by exam season with my three university-level final exams... which don't actually matter because I've already got an unconditional offer from my desired university, but it would be nice to walk out of my final year of school knowing that I have three As in the bag. :P

In addition, I've taken up the hobby of gardening and I now regularly visit the stream where Zero Hour is going to be filmed at and constantly de-weed the set, tidy up the wild grassland and clear all manner of debris from the stream. :P

But, it's not all good. :( I was accepted into a new job at my local garden center last month, which was thrilling news. :D I was looking forward to working with the garden stock and learning about all the different types of plants and tools that I could use to improve Zero Hour when I make it. Plus I wanted to work out in the sun and just walk home and start filming new installments of Zero Hour.

However, I seem to have been put in the wrong department. Instead of being indoctrinated into the actual gardening sector, I've been put upstairs in the cafe, where I now have to work as a kitchen hand... which is possibly one of the worst jobs ever. DX I've calculated that, for every day I'm working, I spend 8 hours on my feet (which is longer than an entire schoolday) with only a half hour break. Plus my boss is a right old Kavinika and I have to serve the most racist old people! :O I had no idea how offensive the elderly could be. -_- It's disgraceful.

But enough of that. You don't want to hear about my troubling times as a trainee kitchen assistant. I'll bet you just want to look at the pictures and vote on the polls. XD

21st May 2013
As you can see, this month has heralded quite a few changes in my story due to one main event:

I have finally finished Frozen Calling! :D

All 22 Chapters are now available, as is the Epilogue featuring the aftermath of the whole incident. Personally, I'm sad to see the story come to an end, but it is good to finally finish another story serial, particularly since Frozen Calling has been going on since 2011. But it had a fitting ending in that I posted the final four chapters at 4am on the 21st May 2013, which is the ten year anniversary of my enticement in the BIONICLE world. :D

Indeed, it was exactly a decade ago today when I went into school, with a Toa Kaita that I'd made using most of the Toa Mata sets that I owned on a nostalgic "bring a toy to school day" and got laughed at by my friends. :P Apparently my creation was rubbish as its blue Kanohi Kakama could be knocked off by a "Bohrok" and could therefore be killed easily.

Insulted but confused, I went home that night and decided to find out what on earth they were talking about. I looked through some old instruction booklets and realized that I actually owned all twelve of these "Bohrok". In fact, it appeared that I owned every single BIONICLE to date except the McToran, three Turaga, the Nui-Jaga and the Manas. :P

And so I started collecting more. :P I went to the toy store the next day (It was a Thursday but it was also the start of my half-term holiday break) and I bought all six of the second wave of Matoran. :D I idolized Hahli in particular, with Matoro and Kopeke taking up shared second place. I started collecting the Quest for the Masks trading cards. I even collected a newspaper clipping about the BIONICLE: Mask of Light Movie that was coming out later that year. :P

And now, more than half of my life later, I remain just as fascinated in the strange and wonderful world of BIONICLE. :D It really has changed who I am and how I see the world. When I think of childhood joy a nostalgic, summery image floods my subconscious: sitting in the garden with a warm breeze and golden sunshine illuminating the figures of my BIONICLE collection. I once buried Toa Metru Whenua in my back yard and forgot about him for a week. XD

So, to all who read this, I'm glad that you could celebrate my 10-year-BIONICLE-birthday with me today. :D

Frozen Calling
Wow... what a glorious day for my BIONICLE fan fiction career. XD

I'm not going to reveal any spoilers for people who have not read the story serial's closing chapters but, I cannot promise anything for the comments section. :P

I understand that there will be lots of questions left unanswered by the rapid pace of the ending. Therefore, I will be more than happy to answer pretty much any question I get asked in the comments. :P If you want to know why I killed off a particular character, ask away and I will give you an honest answer.

In the past, I’ve had to resort to a lot of lying to my readers in order to protect the identity of the hired gun, but now that everything’s out in the open, I can at last be truthful. :D

However, I will reveal that Frozen Calling has succeeded Whispers in the Dark as the second longest page on the wiki! :D

Which means I now own the second-longest and the third-longest pages on this site! :D

Glonor’s Future
Now, in my last blog post, I posted a poll to decide which of my current Matoran characters would be best-suited to the next generation of Toa. :P Overwhelmingly, Glacii was the fan favorite, with an interest in Vacha also peeking through. :P

However, a lot of people noticed that Glonor – the star of Frozen Calling - wasn’t included in the poll, which sparked off an excellent discussion about how out of character it would have been to have him become a Toa. :P

Now, in early drafts of Frozen Calling I did in fact plan on making Glonor transform into a Toa upon exposure to Energized Protodermis so that his role in Judgment Day would be less awkward as the only Matoran amongst larger characters. However, due to a lack of gold armor pieces and already having two poorly-built white and gold-armored Toa of Light, I scrapped the idea. Besides, there was no feasible way of transforming him into a Toa. :P

But I have revealed that there was a reason why Glonor was left out of the list of candidates. :P I left that intentionally ambiguous for my own reasons. While Darker511 suggested that I was perhaps planning on killing off Glonor in Frozen Calling, it looks like his theory has been disproven as Glonor is alive and well in a hospital bed. :D

So what do I have in store for Glonor next? :P In order to come to a conclusion about that, let us first look into the Matoran’s past.

Well, I’ve never been sure of what to do with him. :P When I originally created him back in 2008, I just wanted to make another Av-Matoran using one of the Toa Inika Kanohi, which I hadn’t seem much of. :P I made him the counterpart to Orsta, a rival Av-Matoran just so I could have an excuse to create more characters :P

However, as Toa Matoro was in my storyline at the time, I couldn’t make Glonor a Toa as it would involve having two similarly-built Toa wearing Kanohi Idens. So, I cast Mulon as the Toa of Light and left Glonor as another character in the crowd of characters who I couldn’t kill off.

It wasn’t until 2010, when I started whittling down my character rostrum to the essentials that I decided Glonor could be a useful asset to take to the Fractures Universe in 2011. The high-point of his impact that year was his daring escape from the prison of Tethys and the witty banter that went down between him and Makuta Sodus. It was a proud moment in my writing career that made me realize the character did in fact have potential that I could tap into. :P

So I gave him a love interest – the unconventional Ce-Matoran known as Lothorna, who constantly shunned him and his affectionate advances. Plus I gave him the opportunity to accidentally beat Tollubo up in a brawl in the dark in the Tethys base camp. For a while, he was almost a comic relief character who was meant to ease the tension.

But when Frozen Calling came to the table he was the only clear choice. :P I was inspired by the song “We were men” – Theory of a Deadman and I wanted to develop his backstory on Vacca-Nui. So, once again, the character was reinvented. This time as a hardened mix between a superhero and Sherlock Holmes.

(The first Nolanite to say “BATMAN!” on this blog will earn my long-lasting contempt) 

But now that Frozen Calling is finished and I look towards planning the second half o Judgment Day, I have decided to create at least two new Toa from my existing Matoran. Initially I had planned for Memel and the Fractures Universe Vakama to be amongst this new generation of Toa Metru but both have already been scrapped.

So what do you think? Should a life as a Toa be on the cards for Glonor? :P

Should Glonor become a Toa in the future? Yes – He deserves it more than any other Matoran in Metru-Nui No – It would change him too much. He’s the down-to-earth, relatable character who grounds the story in realism. No – Frozen Calling conveys the powerful message that the Matoran can be greater heroes than Toa. It would be wrong to contradict that.

Ninian
Now that Frozen Calling is finished I can also announce that I have solid plans for Ninian in Judgment Day, where she will play a pivotal role in the sequence of events.

However, I want to give her an unconventional, exotic Kanohi that we haven’t seen released all too often. Initially the Kanohi I chose for her became a noble version of the Kanohi Arthron, which was an idea that I liked but was hindered by the fact that her mask looked nothing like it. :/

Recently, I’ve altered her pages so that it says she has a Mask of Rebounding, which has the smooth features I imagine when I think of the character. However, he mask appears too angular for that.

So I decided to put the issue out to a community vote. :P

What Kanohi do you think better suits Ninian? Noble Arthron Noble Mask of Rebounding Noble Mask of Healing Noble Mask of Psychometry Noble Mask of Growth Other (Please specify in Comments section)

Anyway, like I said, I'm more than happy for people to post any reviews, comments, questions or criticism of Frozen Calling in the Comments section below, so please, don't hold back. :P

I reread chapter 19 last night before I went to bed and there are still many spelling mistakes, plus DeltaStriker has mentioned that Algor makes an unprecedented recovery from his injury, which I still need to fix. Any other comments at this stage will allow me to add any changes that I need to in the minor rewrite that I have coming. :P

Additionally, seeing as so much is packed into the final few chapters and a LOT of pages need updating, I would very-much appreciate if any helpful users wanted to aid me in my task of keeping the character pages up to date with information regarding the end of the story serial. :P It would be a huge assistance if anyone has a spare couple of minutes and doesn’t mind lending a hand.

Falling in the Black
Now, on a different note, Falling in the Black still has quite some way to go. At the moment, I predict that it is about half complete with lots of the action still to come and – believe it or not – several key characters still to be introduced.

Including 'Toa Caliga' . ;)

In the past I’ve hinted towards a Vezon and Fenrakk-like appearance with a female villain appearing atop her Rahi steed. While I’m going to scrap the Rahi, the Toa of Lightning guarding the Ignika is still going to happen and will present an interesting obstacle for Toa Santis and his Ga-Matoran companion as they keep on swimming through the tunnel system. :P

Zero Hour
No big changes are being made at this stage. I’m still planning out how Act 3 of 5 is going to go, but the whole thing is shaping up nicely. :P Personally, I think that it’s really turning into a full play with some Shakespearean undertones. I’m very fond of the balance between comedy and seriousness that I have going on and I can’t wait to share the first installment with you soon. :P

In the past month, I’ve had some trouble with Artaudo’s painted parts, which are becoming a real pain. -_- The paint that I use works perfectly for all the other characters, but the burnt sienna I chose for his Mahiki keeps melting when I take him outside for filming and now it just looks like a mess with all the paint jobs it’s had. I’m considering refiliming his scenes and making him another kind of Matoran, which is a shame but will allow me to get past my biggest block. :P

Furthermore, I’ve spent the past week building my very own modern-day Husi as a local Rahi for the area, which is pretty cool. :P I tried to attach a Mata headpiece for a Kanohi/Infected Kanohi to rest but it didn’t work out. I’m still working on fixing the headpiece, but all looks good so far. :P

My MOCs Blog #3
Over a year has passed since my last installment so you can expect a bumper-sized blog in the near future, for all the characters in Zero Hour and another one thereafter, featuring a couple of other creations. Several of them will be canon, but I can think of a lot that definitely will not be canon.

For example, I’m going to make a non-canon Toa Glacii and I’m going to give him a revamp similar to the modern Agori builds which I developed. Similarly, this will be non-canon but I reckon he deserves a more complex Matoran form for people to envision him in. :P

The Powers That Should Be
Finally, it would appear that my The Powers That Should Be campaign has hit a bit of an unexpected snack in that few people are voting. So far, the only nomination I have is Toa Roden’s nomination of Shadowmaster. It would be nice to get at least more than one vote on this, considering that I want it to become a community project. :P

Pretty much anyone (except myself and Chicken Bond as I’m impartial to this story and Mr. Bond’s already in it) can be nominated and the only rule is that you cannot vote for yourself.

Go on… you know you want to see Ids5621 get cast as a female… ;-)

==Other Stuff==

Outside the realm of storyline updates, I don’t have much else to report for the past month.

One of my future plans is to read Varkanax39’s Into The Darkness story, which is long overdue on my part seeing as it’s been over a year since I promised him I’d read it. I’m not usually this bad at getting into stories but I will be reading from now on. I plan on putting aside time to reading a chapter a night before I go to bed, then drafting a review the following day from notes that I have made. :P

But from what I have read so far, Into The Darkness is a thrilling, fast-paced story with astounding imagery and hugely dramatic scenes. I whole-heartedly recommend reading it. :P

BTD27 Spotlight
Finally, it’s time to make use of another Spotlight for users on this wiki who have caught my attention this month. :P


 * Pokermask: A few weeks ago, when I made some changes to the Zero Hour page, I realised I didn’t have a banner for the official story. I reached out to the community and, within hours, Pokermask voluntarily put forward this delightful image. :D Artistically, I think it’s a great wintry, sinister, foreboding image with all the dark hues. Plus there’s the clever use of a 0 in the actual title, which is a stroke of visual genius. :D
 * Jman98: Shortly afterwards, Jman also got in touch with me and selflessly created two banners to go with Zero Hour and it’s Prologue, which was another extremely kind gesture. :P I’m very fond of both his banners due to the varying shades of blue and his artistic use of the background images from promotional snapshots and still images. :P They remind me of the old BIONICLE banners that came with things like Dark Mirror or The Mutran Chronicles. They’re very professional and nostalgic. :D

Farewell
That seems to be all I have to say for this month. I hope you all enjoy the blog post and I look forward to any discussion in the comments below. :P I imagine the final chapters of Frozen Calling will cause some speculation and I’d be more than happy to hear any theories and answer as many questions as I can. :D

Have an awesome month! :D