first problem we incurred in (aside from my shaky ass hands making some pictures blurry) was the height difference.

it doesnt look terrible bc kopakas got his knees bent in the photo but effectively the only way pohatu got to his face was by standing on his tippy toes, and while his steel toed boots did give him the added cms necessary they did NOT let him stand on his own, so either we held him up or he fell over even when propped against a wall. we tried pinning him to the wall with kopaka but he still slipped so both cute ideas had to go down the drain

(we also tried a classic kabedon pose but kopakas fucking pauldrons SUCK for arm mobility so tragically, that was also scrapped)

the good news was however that they COULD hold hands! sorta. kinda. im still counting it. the mata hands have axels for fingers, so they fit snugly in the handpieces the 2015 gang has :)

only problem with it is that

straight in the tits.

(me trying to browse a tag in peace but overly horny fanart pops up)

BUT ANYWAYS. the hand holding did provide some stability and so we started trying out poses by seeing how far we could tilt pohatu while keeping him standing - this because he has another problem, that being that his head bobs up and down with no way to keep it up or down on its own, so we had to work with gravity

came out a lil foreboding, like kopaka is threatening him. but we're getting closer!

thankfully me being a big ol sap helped in figuring out how to make the whole thing more tender bc i love that shit. so we decided to push pohatu's loose leg out to balance him and one of his arms up, like he was reaching for kopaka's mask, which was also very good bc kopaka's hand lodged itself right between pohatu's tiny elbow and hip so he looked like he was wrapping it around his waist. then we adjusted them a lil bit, teaked them here n there, and

OH YEAH.

OH YEAH BABY WERE GETTING SOMEWHERE NOW

we had to uh. briefly stop. and laugh really hard for a second bc pohatus entire head fell off. i dont have photos for that but it was so sudden and unexpected that we had a fit of hysteric giggles

as you can see however, their faces are Not touching. this is due to the aforementioned problem with the Mata neck, plus the fact that kopaka couldn't bend further down to close the gap on his own, though tbf cut him some slack hes already holding the both of them up as best as he can

so we meddled a lil bit to pull pohatu more upright and strengthen kopakas pose so they wouldnt topple over, considered a maskless version, scrapped it bc they looked VERY silly, and THEN. AT LAST

THE ELUSIVE BONKLE KISS..........

from as many angles n lightings as possible bc im Unwell

AND a cool version from the hand-holding side bc the transpieces look great and i find it very sweet :)

but yeah that was a fun time :D it was great and the lads have been untangled and retired on a shelf where theyll stay nice and tight hehe

hope yall enjoyed these, they were great fun to make and i think they came out really well despite my shitty hands and cameras. maybe ill do more or not, who knows ahah wait what was that.

that sound... its like. plastic smacking plastic... to mimic kissing...

you dont think... the bionicles... they couldnt... no...

"Ah, you need to go already?" his friend whined a little. He picked himself up from the ground, shivering the snow off his arms: "Such a shame! You'll have to teach me how to track Ko-Wahi Rahi another time. It was good fun being here, though."

The other gave a quiet hum before nodding: "Thank you."

"For what?"

"Coming to this date."

Pohatu turned to him sharply, but failed to speak. He blinked only once, very fast, and stared at the other Toa as he just collected his things and got ready to leave back for his Koro with the most casual attitude in the world.

"This was a date?" he choked out at last.

Kopaka looked at him in the eyes: "Yes," was all he said before very carefully cupping the Toa of Stone's head in his hands and nuzzling the foreheads of their masks together.

Then, as though the impossibly tender gesture had been akin to a distracted wave of a hand, he turned around and walked away.

Pohatu, stunned out of his wits by the surprise, stood perfectly still.

"This was a date?" he repeated much louder; but Kopaka had already speeded off and disappeared into the white cliffs of his region.

-

"Kopaka took me on a date?"

"And?"

He glared at Tahu with nothing short of complete bafflement: "What do you mean, 'And?', isn't that weird enough on its own?"

"No," Gali replied.

"Not in the slightest," Onua confirmed.

"Yeah, he datetakes you manytimes everofter," Lewa added as he dangled upside down, looking the least excited or intrigued or vaguely interested he'd ever been so far, "It's not oddstrange at all. It's borenormal, really."

Pohatu's eyes cycled through them at a speed that would have made anybody else dizzy before he was able to collect his thoughts into intelligible words again.

"I'm," he finally managed, struggling to string a coherent sequence of syllables for a moment: "Alright, it's - I'm - ok, alright, ok, alright, ok, alright, ok, ok, ok, alright, ok, name one time - ONE singular time, before now, when Kopaka took me on a date."

"When he showed you the cave with the ice stalagmites," Onua answered immediately.

"When he had you give him a tour of the quarry," Tahu added so quickly that their words almost mixed together.

"When he took you to Lake Naho after it froze," Gali continued just as quickly.

"When he asked you how to sculptmake flowers so he could do it with ice."

"Every Po-Koro and Ko-Koro kohlii match he asked you to see with him."

"That one time he was bed-bound and sent you a message so you would come over to him."

"That one time you were bed-bound so he came over to you himself."

"When he skiied you down mount Ihu."

"When you watched the sunset by the Po-Wahi dock at the beach."

"When he asked you to show him Hafu's works."

"When you went hunting together."

"Both twotimes."

"Weren't they three?"

"I think it was two."

"No, they were three. The third time I think Kopeke was there."

"Oh, yes - you said he helped pull you out of a snow mound."

Frantically waved hands stopped them from going any further, allowing Pohatu a second or two of respite so that he could digest the torrential flow of information.

He managed about half of that: "Lake Naho was two weeks ago," he found himself fixating on.

The other Toa nodded.

"He's been taking me on dates for two weeks?"

At that, Gali made a strange face: "No? Weren't you listening? Some of the stuff we said was from way before that, like two months."

Pohatu shortcircuited briefly.

"WHAT."

-

"I have a question."

Kopaka waited for him to continue.

"So," Pohatu swallowed to get out of the pit of embarrassment the silence was digging around him. "You said that last time was a date."

"Yes."

"Ok. Ok, alright, good to know. I asked to others if it was - well, if it was a little weird, because y- we- nevermind, and they... Apparently, almost every time we've hung out, according to them, was a date."

"Correct."

The Toa of Stone made a very weird noise.

Like a cooling fan wheezing its last quietest hurrah before blowing up in an exploding ball of fire and plastic scraps.

"They were?" he cawed out.

"Yes."

"I... All of them?"

"Most."

"Like how... How many? Out of all of them?"

"Seventy to eighty."

"Percent?"

"Yes."

Pohatu made that sound again.

"I. Did not. Know, that those were dates."

"I'm aware."

"What-? The whole time?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I did not tell you."

It took a few moments to digest that information: "On purpose?" Pohatu finally asked.

"Yes."

"I'm... Why."

Now Kopaka bristled and furrowed his brows, his shoulders tightening a little: "It would have been embarrassing," he replied quietly as he tried to sound nonchalant, "Asking you directly."

No reply came for a few moments, as the other was too flabbergasted to do anything but stare at him.

"You've been... Hold on, how long have you been taking me on dates? Exactly?"

"Three months."

Pohatu's gaze turned to the sky for a few moments as he very quickly did the math, fingers twitching as he calculated.

His eyes widened in what resembled mild impossible horror; his head whipped to face Kopaka again so quickly that the Toa of Ice was actually startled.

"You've been taking me on dates since A WEEK AND A HALF after we first met?!"

"Yes?"

"AND YOU DID NOT TELL ME?!"

Kopaka grimaced at the volume: "As I said. Embarrassing."

The other Toa either did not want to dignify him with a verbal response or had his vocalizer melted into a puddle. He held his head in his hands with the face of a man who has had the worst, most puzzling news of his life.

In unusual complete silence he turned away from Kopaka, took a few steps, kneeled to the ground, got on all fours, allowed his head to smack into the snow, and let his body go limp as he submitted to the absurdity of whatever was happening to him in a quiet plea to spare him from this insanity.

Kopaka watched him in a state of similar stillness for a few minutes.

Then, shuffling in place, he mumbled: "I can stop if it bothers you-"

"NO," Pohatu shrieked as he jumped back to his feet way faster than his previous misery would have let one imagine, "No no no no no no, I like the dates, it's - I'm not like this over the dates, the dates are great, the dates are spectacular, I like them, I love them, I love you, I want to go on dates with you, I'm like this over you not telling me they're dates for all this time, BUT now that I know they are dates it's not- it's- now that I know that we go on dates and these things, that we have, are dates, it's all good, and I want to go on dates, I was just taken aback to learn they were dates after three months, apparently, but it's FINE it's fine we cleared that up so it's ALL good, I love them I love you let's go on dates."

Kopaka did not reply to that immediately.

"What was that," he asked at last, really, really quietly.

"Reassurance." Pohatu exlained.

"No. That part."

"I'm going to need you to be more specific."

"The last one."

"I want to go on dates with you."

"Before that."

"I love you."

The Toa of Ice shrunk in himself, face scrunching up: "Don't say it like that," he begged.

"Like that how?"

"Out loud."

Pohatu stared directly into his eyes.

"It's embarrassing."

Pohatu stared directly into his eyes harder.

He tenderly held his face in his hands, sucked in the longest breath his lungs could hold as noisily as possible--

And immediately got the other's freezing hands clamping his mouth shut under his mask before he could spite him by screaming to the immense vastness of Mata Nui himself that he loved him.

If looks could have killed, Kopaka's would not have even left a body to be buried behind.

"You are insufferable," he hissed through gritted teeth.

Then he pushed his forehead against Pohatu's and nuzzled him like tomorrow was yet to be made into a thinkable concept.

-

Fifteen minutes later, the just as intensely reciprocated nuzzling came to an end.

"Were we doing something?" Pohatu asked, a little breathless and fairly certain his legs were bent and half melted like butter left too long out of a freezer on a 30 degree celsius kind of day, and that if he tried to walk right now he would faceplant directly in the snow.

"I was going to teach you how to track a Kavinika."

"Right. Yes. Right. Ok. Alright. Right. Yes. ...Ok. Yes. ... ...Yes."

"Do you need a moment?"