Alien slime with a Kanohi Hau

The doctors have warned us that her condition will continue to worsen unless she receives urgent treatment without delay. Every passing hour fills us with greater fear that it may become too late.

My mother is not asking for pity, she is asking for a chance to live. Today, she is waiting for compassionate hearts willing to stand beside her.

Please, don't leave us to face this alone.

Your donation, no matter how small, could help my mother receive the treatment she urgently needs and give her another chance at life.

Please try to support and help us.

Please try to share our story and speak about our suffering. 🥹💔

Over the past few days, I asked for your help to cover Eid expenses and to buy medication for my parents. Yesterday, we experienced a very nearby airstrike that caused significant damage, including damage to our tent.

We are living with fear every moment. Every minute feels uncertain, and the war has never truly ended. The situation continues to worsen, and I could lose my life at any moment.Please do not forget my family and loved ones. Any support you can provide, even to help us repair the damage, would mean so much to us. We urgently need your help.These are some photos showing the damage and the area that was bombed. Please support and help us in any way you can. We need everything.😭💔

You can watch a wider video of the area through this link.Click here

My name is Maram, I am 25 years old from Gaza. I dreamed of a peaceful life, spending my life with my husband and my three children... but the war turned this dream into an impossible one 💔😭. We lived through this genocide with all its painful details and we are still suffering from it😭. We were so happy when the ceasefire was announced, and we returned to our homes in northern Gaza after being displaced for a year and a half in a tent in the south of the Gaza Strip. After repairing a small room in our destroyed house, we began to live there and start over. Unfortunately, the war came back, and it was even stronger than before 💔. Now, we have no shelter or source of income. We have used up all our savings during the war. I know I created my campaign very late, but that's because I have no other means to help my family 🙏. I am completely confident and hopeful that someone here will help us as much as they can and save my family in these tough circumstances 😔.

I know how painful and frustrating it is to start over from scratch, but I hope to get any amount for my family 🥺🙏.

The internet’s largest stockpile of free knowledge is under threat from MAGA, A.I. and foreign autocrats. A bibliophile ex-ambassador is here to help.

"Wikipedia is in peril.

In a world where trust in truth is crumbling, the grande dame of collective online fact-gathering is under threat on every front. The MAGA right, with Elon Musk at the fore, is slinging accusations of political bias and antisemitism and has even questioned the site’s nonprofit status. Artificial intelligence is raiding the encyclopedia’s resources and draining attention. Repressive governments have hauled its volunteer editors into penal colonies.

In Wikipedia’s 25-year history, it has never had to fight this hard." -----

Interesting, alarming article.

tl;dr: If you use Wikipedia every day, like your sobsister, or even regularly, and you have a few bucks to spare, think about a donation to help it fight off MAGA/Musk, AI, and authoritarian governments around the world.

Just a list for no reason whatsoever. Interpret as you will.

According to lore, long before the Toa Mata lost their memory and Takua had his wiped a thousand times, Takua was most drawn to Toa Gali and was awestruck by her.

Despite being hidden as a Ta-Matoran, Takua wore an ill-fitting medium-blue Pakari. No other Matoran or Toa of Fire in the entire series have blue as a part of their color scheme.

Takua never really fit in in Ta-Matoran society and was never able to fully conform to Ta-Matoran mannerisms or values. He was considered bizarre in Ta-Metru, and became an outcast in Ta-Koro.

When cast out of Ta-Koro, Takua finally found community for himself among the other members of the island who were considered abnormal or pariahs.

During the time after the Toa Mata arrived on Mata Nui, the Toa that Takua bonded with the most, and even forged a psychic link with, was Gali.

After the Bohrok invasion, when the Matoran were rebuilt into larger, stronger forms, Takua chose to replace his yellow with blue for reasons never stated, making his color scheme now mostly variations of blue with only a red torso and arms.

Takua having multiple blues in his color scheme isn't just abnormal because it's not an established Fire color, but rather because almost every kind of Matoran with heavy amounts of blue in their color scheme is exclusively female (Water, Lightning, Psionics).

Takua spends the majority of the Mask of Light movie chasing an ideal person whom he is convinced must be someone else, and when faced with repeated signs of who he truly is, ignores and hides from them until it's almost too late and his loved ones are pushed away and hurt by his avoidance.

Unlike all other Toa transformations seen in the series, Takua is only ever able to take action to physically change into who he was meant to be once he finally accepts who he is and who he is meant to become.

Also unlike all other Toa in the series, Takanuva is the only Toa to change their name upon self-actualizing into a Toa. Matoran change their names slightly at times throughout their lives, but Takanuva's name change is the only one known to directly tied to a change in body, presentation, and social identity.

Upon confronting the main antagonist of the series, Makuta Teridax, the Makuta immediately demeans and belittles the newly transformed and renamed Takanuva by reducing him to his past identity as Takua.

The canonical explanation for the form a Matoran will take upon becoming a Toa is that they will take on the form of what they consider an ideal hero. For the Toa Metru, that was Toa Lhikan. Takanuva is stated to have taken on the form of a Toa Nuva, but every member of the team had somewhat unique builds; Takanuva's build is the exact same as Gali Nuva's.

Later in the series, we learned Takua was never even a Ta-Matoran to begin with, but actually an Av-Matoran, and was simply made to think he was something he never was while constantly failing to perform that role.

Takua was meant to be an audience surrogate character for MNOG, QftT, the Bohrok animations, and Mask of Light, and did a fantastic job at that.

Unrelated, but a disproportionately large chunk of that audience has since grown up and transitioned into women, many of whom idolize or once idolized Gali. Funny, that.

Kopaka

So one of my favourite things about Bionicle is The Plan, Teridax's grand scheme to overthrow the Great Spirit. The audacity of the whole thing is only matched by the spectacular success.

But I don't think the Plan was finalised from the jump. I think 2004 was originally the entirety of the Plan, and he only scaled up to literally becoming Mata Nui later on. Based on conversations I had in Red Star Games' Discord server (and checking The Mutran Chronicles and seeing that they didn't evolve into energy beings, and thus become capable of possessing people until after Teridax's coup and the commencement of the Plan), this is how I think things are laid out.

Thwarting the League of Six Kingdoms' revolution teaches Teridax two things: Mata Nui doesn't defend himself and the rest of the MU don't respect the Makuta at all.

The Matoran Civil War almost kills Mata Nui and Makuta has to clean up the mess again. He now knows that Mata Nui can die and the Matoran working in Metru Nui have something to do with his health.

Mutran discovers from Tren Krom that the world is a guy. The former two points start making a whole lot more sense and he realises that he could actually take out Mata Nui and rule over the universe.

He makes the initial form of the Plan, which is simply to put Mata Nui in a coma with his virus, then brainwash the Matoran to serve the Makuta (him), so they (he) can rule from Metru Nui unopposed, with the Matoran's continued labour keeping Mata Nui alive, but in stasis. Yeah there are Toa that are supposed to revive him, but Toa die easily, he can handle them.

He pitches this version of the Plan to the Makuta, and usurps leadership of the Brotherhood. It is unclear how many of the Makuta besides him and Mutran know about the true nature of the GSR (in fact I think there's solid evidence that Krika and Icarax didn't know, but I haven't gotten to the 2008 books yet so I may be wrong), o what exactly he tells them is unclear.

Teridax puts the Plan into motion, and the Makuta make their preparations. There's no way to subtly crash the Great Spirit Robot, and when they realise what's happening, everyone's going to try and stop them, so they're going to be need to be ready for war.

The Makuta evolve into pure Antidermis. Somewhere between this happening and the Plan kicking into high-gear, Teridax realises that he could possess Mata Nui's body at the moment of his death. He decides to not do that because the risk is too great and the timing is too tight and remains focused on Plan 1.0.

Plan 1.0 fails because of Lhikan and the Toa Metru. His first contingency (the Visorak Horde) is to get Sidorak to keep the Matoran in Metru Nui ready for things to resume while Roodaka works to free him. This also fails because of the Rahaga intervening and helping the Toa Hordika defeat his agents and take the Matoran out of the city, though Roodaka does manage to get him out of the Toa Seal.

His attempt to recover the Vahi fails because Vakama would rather break time than give it up to him.

This is where Teridax stops completely underestimating Toa. Like he still does that a lot, but he has become aware of the one thing they have over him. He can outsmart them, he can overpower them. But he realises that he cannot out-crazy Toa, they're always going to pull off some impossible win. He also knows that the Matoran being out of Metru Nui is going to worsen Mata Nui's condition.

This is where he pivots to Plan 2.0, deciding to weaponise the Toa's crackhead determination (the thing I think Krika and Icarax never understood, hence why vague threats and attempted murder didn't dissuade the Toa Nuva the way that just going "Guys, Teridax's entire plan hinges on you winning, you need to stop him before you wake Mata Nui" would've). He is now actively gunning for the role of Great Spirit, and this is the latest point where he can decide that he's killing the rest of the Brotherhood to protect his own power.

Post-Cataclysm, he has to briefly re-establish the pecking order within the Brotherhood, which results in his fight with Icarax. This is also where I think the most logical place for the "Water Wraith" monologue from Into the Darkness fits, using it as an example of how they're going to win by losing. Officially this speech happens during the reign of the League of Six Kingdoms, before Teridax ever took the the throne, but I'm chalking that up as a timeline flub because the scene clearly frames Teridax as already being the leader.

Teridax shifts his primary focus to stalling the Toa Mata and the Matoran's re-entry into the GSR, allowing Dume and co. the opportunity to repair Metru Nui so that it's ready to go as soon as he needs it, and his armies ample time to rampage across the the GSR and worsen Mata Nui's health in a more controlled way.

Once he knows that the GSR's systems are failing, it's time for him to let them back in. Unfortunately that comes in the form of Takanuva, someone he was hoping to avoid the existence of, but fortunately it comes in a way that allows him to fake his death, affording him the complete freedom to do as he pleases.

He sends the Piraka to get the Ignika because that thing is super-cursed and they're expendable pawns. It's unclear who would end up using it if they succeeded, but it doesn't matter because they fail.

The recovery of the Ignika from the Pit is the most tightly-timed part of the whole Plan, so naturally he decides to do it himself.

At the same time he sends Icarax to make things ready for the Rising on the Brotherhood's end, since Icarax is basically unstoppable, and he can be sure that this stuff will get done.

He also sends his eight best to Karda Nui, simultaneously providing a convincing token resistance for when the Toa Nuva get there, and also setting the eight biggest threats to his power up to be instantly killed when Mata Nui's systems reactivate.

He also orders the Brotherhood to prepare to march on Metru Nui for the final phase of the war, making it look like they're trying to just conquer the universe the old-fashioned way in the last few days before the Rising.

He has no issues with revealing his identity to Matoro because he knows that Matoro is going to die at the end of this. His repeated needling of Matoro and undermining his quality as a hero is likely also in service to this, he's basically preparing Matoro for the sacrifice.

While he threatens Matoro to keep his identity secret outside of the two of them, it doesn't really matter if he tells the other Toa Mahri because he's fully expecting them to die.

With the Toa Mahri racing for the core with the Ignika, he takes it upon himself to stall the Barraki for as long as possible. This is one of Teridax's most fascinating moments in the series, IMO.

The Barraki destroy his body, and he vacates the Pit as the Great Spirit dies, putting his faith in Matoro and the other Toa Mahri to succeed. Again, I love this stuff.

Matoro goes into the Core while the other Toa Mahri decide to sacrifice themselves to let him succeed. Jaller eventually goes Nova, and this is almost certainly the outcome that Teridax wants- either the Barraki kill all the Toa Mahri, or Jaller kills everyone in the Pit except himself and probably boils Aqua Magna's oceans- he's outside the GSR so the full power of his Nova Blast is undampened, and those things can at least render a planet incapable of supporting life when not contained. Either way, the only people/person who knows he's not dead are trapped at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell anyone else (ultimately he reckons without Matoro saving the other Mahri and Brutaka being let out for good behaviour, enabling them to warn the others that Teridax is still out there).

He makes his way to the Core Processor and waits. The Toa Nuva succeeding will be his master-stroke. Not only does it awaken the GSR with him in control, but it will also kill his greatest rivals (TSO not even making the Top Ten list over guys that actively work for Teridax and want him to succeed, oof), and most of the Av-Matoran in the universe, drastically reducing the chances of a second Toa of Light appearing. And it will trap the Toa Nuva in the Codrex, presumably so they can be re-canned in case of a second Cataclysm.

Icarax and Krika's efforts to stop them not only fail, but make things easier for him- Icarax trying to destroy the Codrex convinces Tahu, Gali, and Onua that they don't have time to do things the proper way, they have to get Ignika to sacrifice himself instead, which gives Teridax a convenient place to stash Mata Nui's brain.

The Makuta in the core die. Teridax drowns the Makuta fleet attacking Metru Nui himself. The Order take out most of the others, and the few survivors are harvested for all the Kraata they can produce before being killed. There is nobody left to stop him.

Sure, the Toa Nuva escaped on their new vehicles, but that's hardly going to matter to him now that he's the Great Spirit, right?