#bfkino

Writing is fucking hard. Writing OCs as more than just character designs with fun facts is harder. Writing OCs as characters with heft intertwined with canon is even harder. Writing a project double the size of an average young adult novel containing all of these factors is EVEN harder. And then, doing all of this, while having it be good, and then sticking the landing after the dust has settled, is almost impossible: at least, from what I've read before.

After having dedicated a month to this work, I can say that The Merciful Bandit stands alone as what I consider to be one of the best stories out on the tag right now. A lot of the strengths are given benefits of a longer-form work: the wordcount allows a lot of these characters to really get the chance to breathe out and expand that wouldn't be possible in a more typical one-shot or shorter work. There's not a single word wasted in this entire fanfic, with every moment important in its own right to the overarching storyline. There's details introduced in the first couple of chapters that pay off at the very end, a phenomenon that repeats over and over again. Every new detail helps recontextualize the story before it, and this fic is one of those kinds of stories that is really fun to just sit down and think about.

You want characters? We got fucking characters. The Merciful Bandit is a rare case in which I think both the canon characters and OCs are given tons of room to shine, rather than one particular faction getting most of the love. Astotheles and Isau are interesting enough in the game already, but are given even more layers of complexity in The Merciful Bandit that were extremely enjoyable to chew into. Astotheles is forced to confront all of these things about himself and his bandit family that go against everything he's ever known and experienced, a journey that spurs from his interactions with Isau in the beginning.

Outside of canon, the new additions are absolutely wonderful. There's a bit of a stereotype in fandom spaces in general where OC x Canon is, to put it kindly, just a little bit rough around the edges. When you mash two completely contrasting characters together, it is often that you find that the two are incompatible, and it can especially go wrong when said focus is on the OC. Using Asto's bandits as a place to put said OCs is honestly brilliant, and is such a natural extension of what's already in game that it hardly feels out of place at all. I appreciate the fact that Astotheles is kept as the main focus in the story, with these OCs kept mostly as supplementary characters to his plight, of which helps solve the aforementioned issues of an OC feeling shoved into a narrative. The focus is lazer-tight, and most forays outside of Astotheles's perspective are intentional and add to the story instead of taking away.

I love all of the new characters. Not all of them are super deep or complex, but the ones that are REALLY stand out and were easily the most fun to read. One of Astotheles's lieutenants, Venx, and his entire contrast with Astotheles was one of the core hooks that kept me reading in the latter half of the story. Tento's entire arc with his mentorship under Isau was really entertaining, and I was audibly popping off whenever Grash showed up on the page. Shoutout Grash, by the way, that's the best character in the entire fic bar Astotheles or Isau.

And best of all, there's actual plot and character development and fucking THEMES in this work. I know people saying "themes and such" is like, a meme, but give me a second.

I don't mean this as a dig against the medium. Fanfiction is fucking awesome. But like, a good portion of the stuff I read is character interaction. Too short to be fully realized. Even some of the works I herald as being pretty good fall into this category: like, I fucking loved Matters Of Will And Testament, but there's just not enough room in 4000 words to fit a full character arc in there.

But this work? Astotheles goes through shit, man. I can't speak on my favorite parts without spoiling it outright, but just know that Chapter 16 was un-fucking-believably good. I think this work tackles generational trauma and the cycle of violence in so many different ways and forms and the way the bandits and Defiant Root meld and interact together over the course of the story is something that I really enjoyed reading.

I try my best to be as respectful as possible in these reviews, because in a fandom as small as Bug Fables it is more than likely that one of these authors is going to read one of my reviews of one of their works, and the last thing I want to do is to make a creative feel shitty and stop doing things altogether. When you type about how much Terraria sucks on Backloggd, or how shit Taylor Swift's new album was on AlbumOfTheYear, there's an assumed level of separation between you and the artist that gives some level of freedom to the words used to talk about it. I can call Terraria a "worthless piece of shit game", but Re-Logic has no reason to care about me saying their game sucks because they've already made a billion gazillion dollars and have a billion other people saying that their game changed their life.

In a medium like fanfiction, though, that veil doesn't exist. Not everyone has the luxury of having a crowd of readers that have told them their work is awesome--the majority of people don't really have many, actually, and so I know how bad it can hurt when one of the few voices that speaks up does so in a negative manner. I can sit right next to the author on a subway and they can hear every single word I have to say about them, good or bad. Even in works I don't like much, I try to find something good to say about them, because I don't think anything is un-salvageable.

And on an objective level, there is honest-to-Venus things to enjoy about Abyssal Somewhere, a part of why I feel so torn about the final score I am giving for it. Rating a work this low feels wrong considering what my standards currently are. Even a work like Play, one that is primarily somewhat primitive dialogue and extremely sparse in writing, still manages to slip into an "Okay" under the bugfableskino scorebook. Calling this work "actively bad" would be doing a disservice to the actual technical skill and writing present in the work. And, like, this work is fine! The writing's fine, the imagery's serviceable, the ending's actually pretty good in the context of the tone of the story, it's a perfectly enjoyable story, one that would fit a 2/5 perfectly.

But, there is just something fundamentally missing from this work, something that makes it feel... bland, acutely flavorless.

When I read a work like Numb, or PPE Protocol, or Another Day In Paradise, there's a voice there, an element of personal flair added to every single word and thematic element explored. When anger is described in a work, that anger is explored in a thousand different ways from a thousand different angles. Maybe Vi getting angry is described as her becoming a blubbering mess by one person, or screaming and lashing out by another, or silent and intangible by someone else. Words and imagery written with vitriol, sadness, lust, joy.

Instead, Abyssal Somewhere has nothing. Almost everything is stated as matter-of-fact, no expansion given in a way that could characterize Celia or the author past what is strictly happening on the page. Celia's expedition went wrong. Her body hurts. She would survive. She tried to get up and couldn't.

Every single piece of prose in here is utterly boring to sink my teeth into. There's a stunning lack of imagination put into the imagery, the most interesting parts purely conceptual. The idea of a hidden, mysterious statue in the depths of a cave with esoteric and unknown origins, the idea of Celia losing Levi and being forced back into a life she once lived before exploring, the idea and conflict of this fic in general. Everything has so much vibrant potential flowing through its veins and it's instead chosen to be painted in greyscale.

Celia suddenly remembered Levi, she wondered for a small second if she too could see him once more, once she finished this climb, but the rational side of her brain, as much as she wanted to deny it, considered it unlikely.

In context, this moment comes after Celia climbs to the top of the hole after having been trapped for so long. A moment like this, one with so much potential for emotional catharsis--the mix of satisfaction in finally escaping combined with grief of realizing that the one you've spent your days with is most likely gone--is just discarded, and before you can even process that, you're onto the next detail. The entire work feels stunningly impersonal, giving only the slightest nods to the things Celia is going through.

Woah, actually reading something that came out this year for once! I'm realizing now that I might have to pace this a bit faster if I wish to finish this project before like, the sun explodes? But, I'll get to that when I get there.

This one's got not much to say about: it's essentially what you could expect from a self-described "rambly" fanfic of this nature. I have a bit of an implicit bias towards runningdownadream in this regard. I already like his stuff--in fact, I'd probably herald him as one of the greatest authors in the entire tag. One of the hallmarks of his work (in my opinion) are the parts in his fics which get slightly more flowery to talk about the general theme in said fic, long-winded and yet utterly genuine and meaningful in their execution. I love these bits to death, and they're my favorite parts of his stories in general.

Another Day In Paradise is like you took those sections and made it the entire work. It's nice! I can confidently say I enjoyed reading it, and I think runningdownadream's style is perfect for these types of flow-of-consciousness works. As someone who's tried that sort of thing before, it requires a certain level of sauce to execute those and make them actually tangible to read to outsiders. It's what it says on the tin, it doesn't overstay its welcome, and it's overall just a really comfortable fic to read. It's the kind of fic best enjoyed with a warm drink under some blankets, one you read when you're kind of tired and come out feeling rather good about everything in general.

Was a bit torn on what my rating should be, but after my re-read through, I think this is easily deserving of being considered a 4/5 on the bugfableskino scale.

Kina in Bug Fables is given the short end of the stick when it comes to being an actual character: most of her characterization ends up being stuck to Maki like glue, and then honestly not much else outside of that. I think this fic does a great job of re-interpreting Kina's story into something with a bit more heft with it.

Why is Kina so attached to her brother? Well, he's going on all of these life-threatening missions while she's stuck with a daughter he put into her care. It's genius. The conflict in here feels incredibly potent because it feels like such a natural progression of what's in Bug Fables already.

This is not to even mention the very nice writing, par for the course of what I've read of MantisGod before but it's arguably better than average here. Kina's rage isn't overblown, but there's very real emotion behind some of her sentences, and MantisGod does a nice job of absolutely punching you in the gut sometimes with the wizard's writing. I'm a big fan of this line in particular, quoted below:

"...I'm still mad. I don't - I don't think I can just forgive you because you understand. Sometimes I- I kind of wish you would just- just die on a mission already instead of just... leaving me to worry."