Ten years ago today, I finally made the decision to branch out from the Custom Hero Factory Wiki and join the Custom Bionicle Wiki. Since then, I’ve started dozens writing projects (and abandoned most of them), served as a Rollback and then as an Administrator for a time, and written (and completed!) a story you all seemed to like enough to award it the honor of Best Page of the Year. Even though I haven’t been consistently active for all ten years, I wanted to mark the anniversary in honor of the impact this site and this community have had on my adolescence and my creative development.
I’m going to start this off by saying this: Thank you, Custom BIONICLE Wiki, for being a place for me to grow as a person and a writer. It’s rare to find an online community that can stand the test of time the way this one has, and that’s so encouraging toward its member’s creative endeavors. I won’t bother with specific callouts (you interact with a lot of people over the course of a decade, we’d be here for ages and I’d still miss someone), but if you and I have ever had a conversation, or if we’ve ever worked together on a creative project, or if you’ve ever read something I’ve written for this site; thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I hope I’ve been able to give to you what you’ve given to me.
Now, a sappy blog post would probably have been sufficient to mark the occasion, but I decided to go the extra mile and celebrate in the most creatively bankrupt way possible: returning to the primary source of my success on this site to milk it dry.
Rock Bottom: Remastered[]
As you read this, I have already posted the first two chapters of my complete revision of Rock Bottom. I’ve gone over the entire story to correct typos and grammatical errors, adjust the awkward phrasing of a 14-to-15-year-old into something more natural and coherent, and expand the prose in places it was lacking. There’s approximately 6000 words worth of new content in the form of expanded and rewritten scenes, including two new sections (though not completely new, some of you might recognize one of them!). The remaster is already complete, and I’ll be releasing subsequent chapters one-by-one on Tuesdays until it’s fully released.
Don’t worry about the old version, I’ve moved it to its own subpage exactly as it is now for archival purposes, even as the main page has been reserved for the new and “canon” version of the story. The original is dear to my heart as the first project of that length I ever finished, and despite the rather substantial changes I have made, I’m still proud of what I accomplished at that age. I think the story itself stands the test of time, even if the original prose doesn’t hold up to scrutiny 8 years later.
But wait! You may have realized there’s still more words left in this blog. Well, my very perceptive friends, that’s because I have yet another announcement…
777[]
I’ve written a completely new BIONICLE story for the first time since Homeland in 2017! My elevator pitch for this one is “BIONICLE Legends 5: Inferno meets Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation,” and unlike most of my previous stories this one features a primary cast of entirely original characters navigating this iconic location from the canon in what I hope you’ll find to be new and interesting ways. The first chapter of 777 has already been released today, with subsequent chapters to follow on every Thursday (starting this Thursday, the 4th!).
In much the same way that Rock Bottom is my tribute to the story of ’07 (BIONICLE Legends 6: City of the Lost in particular), 777 is a tribute to the story of ‘06, the first year I really began to follow BIONICLE as a child. In that sense, it’s the perfect way to celebrate my joining the wiki, calling back to the original story that got me invested in the theme in the first place. I’m excited to finally share this with you all after over two months of work putting it together. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
The Wrap Up[]
So that’s that! I know that regular editing is an odd way for me to be celebrating my 10th Anniversary on the wiki (it’s so off-brand), but I hope you’ll forgive me the indulgence. I’d like to think it’s ultimately a positive and exciting one.
Thank you for reading this blog, and hopefully, thank you for reading my stories as well. It’s good to be back.