User:Gonel

Hi. I'm Gonel, aka 777stairs. I also have accounts by either name on CBW, BZPower, the TTV Message Boards, MaskOfDestiny, Discord, and the Lego Message Boards (rip).

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--Gonel (talk)

About Me

Never knew about BIONICLE until the day I saw McDonald's was doing LEGO Happy Meals. I was so excited to get some new LEGO bricks to play with, but what I pulled out of the box--a Hakann figure--was the most bizarre, alien thing I'd ever seen. I was later gifted Vezon & Fenrakk and Nidhiki sets and soon started pitting the grinning Vezon and Hakann against the four-legged Fenrakk and Nidhiki. I didn't realize there was a story until my mom brought home BIONICLE Legends 1: Island of Doom which I found absolutely enthralling. The dark humor of the Piraka and the chilling atmosphere of Voya Nui was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and I loved that it wasn't talking down to me as a kid. Soon after, I was given BL2, BC2, BC3, and BA4, and while I enjoyed these, I had little context for how the stories fit together.

Nevertheless, the inserts in the books inspired me to start getting the LEGO magazine, which in turn brought with them the Mahri Nui comics. The Barraki had just launched, and as I read the first few comics of the year, I assumed the Barraki were at least the main characters. The story of Dekar and the Ignika captured my imagination, and Kalmah was completely fascinating. Once again, I loved the atmosphere and maturity of the world, and I generally kept up with the story, even if most of the details were lost on me.

By 2008 I was regularly picking up sets and following the story even more closely. I was starting to fill out my book collection and get an appreciation of the world and its lore. Even so, the reveal in the last page of one of the comics that Takanuva was making a return, or in another that Mata Nui had risen and celebrations were erupting in Metru Nui... confused me. Still found a way to enjoy them, and I made great use of the sets I now owned.

The soft reboot of Bara Magna actually probably helped me really find an entry point into the "current" story, and the subsequent 2009 and 2010 arcs that I was actually following the comics and books. I had my own self-mocs and was creating my own stories. My interest cooled a little for a couple years when the line was cancelled, but a few years after it came back in full force. I started writing my own stories, first with pen and paper, then on the computer. Some of these I began posting to Custom BIONICLE Wiki as "User:ToaGonel" including one of my favorite sagas I've ever told, the Broken Order Saga. This expansive story is set in a universe where the Order of Mata Nui was never formed, and an ambitious king turned the remnants of the Hand of Artakha into a robust empire that contended the Brotherhood of Makuta for dominance in the universe. The two organizations eventually destroyed each other and much of the universe in a brief but vicious war, and out of the ashes of this conflict would emerge a terrifying evil that would in time threaten the multiverse. I need to go back through and polish the writing, but the story itself remains perhaps the greatest thing I've written.

During my time on CBW I would be elected Rollback, then Administrator, a position I currently hold. I would also become moderately active in BZPower and the TTV Message Boards and especially involved on Discord. G2 came and went, and I wrote a continuation for that which I'm pretty happy with called Lies in the Light as found on CBW.

Since getting back into BIONICLE and discovering the depth of its story, I had always had the seedling of an idea for a project that publishes easy-to-access, canon compliant stories, and soon after G2 ended, I partnered with CBW writer and Tumblr moccist BobTheDoctor27 to build this into a project that could produce audiobooks that could drive the newly reinvigorated CBW youtube channel. However, when I was looking to build a website for this new project and approached WallofHistory's JSLBrowning, he introduced me to Vahkiti who in turn started building support for the new project as a MaskOfDestiny endeavor. This project, called Myths and Legacy, was soon one of the handful of organizations that fully merged with MOD to form the network that exists today. M&L publishes weekly updates including new stories or story chapters, novelizations of BIONICLE media, promotions of fan works, book/movie comparisons, and much more. It also hosts the Vision of the Great Beings project which unofficially continues the serials with input from Greg Farshtey.

More recently I have been given the generous opportunity to join BS01 staff. I am very excited to contribute and see how I can continue adding to this site!