User blog:Weavillain/Fanfiction Spotlight: Brittle Bonds

You know which kind of stories get a really bad rap? OC x Canon Character stories. Now, I'm not here to say that the reputation is undeserved or unwarranted, but I just want to remind everyone that every "rule" has its exceptions. While I agree that the majority of these OC (usually self-insert) x Canon Character (usually the author's crush/fantasy) are...well, less than stellar, I think the ones for The Loud House deserve a little extra attention, especially with one telling pattern of nigh-inevitability: Luna Loud.

Yep, it appears as though when it comes to these kinds of stories, Luna Loud is the queen of OC shipping. Leni comes behind in second, but from what I've observed, Luna's the go-to OC "shipmate". I've seen just about every single one of them, and while most of them are, for a lack of a kinder word, subpar, there's only two of them that I can say are worth a look. The one I'm talking about today is the better of the two, an ongoing story called "Brittle Bonds" by Vstriker.

Despite my not-so flattering opinion on OC x Canon stories (where I'd say that about 15% of them are at least decent), I'm actually planning on writing one myself in the future. And I've got to say, "Britle Bonds" has been a constant point of reference for me to rely on as I come up with ideas to incorporate into the story. That's as much as I'll say before I go into more depth about the fic, but now it's that time of the blog where I refresh your memories on both the structure of my recommendation, as well as the guidelines for suggestion submissions.

For wikia fics specifically:
 * At the time of your request, the comments, left by anyone except the author, must be ten comments or less.
 * They cannot be written in script format.

In general:
 * I won't consider self-recommendations.
 * Any requests must be left on my message wall.

Synopsis: Benjamin Brittle and his family have just moved into Royal Woods, and he is not all that happy about having to leave his old home behind. After meeting one Luna Loud however, he finds out moving to this place might not be so bad after all. But teenage relationships are always complicated, and nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Status: Incomplete

Why I love this fanfiction/would recommend it: Whenever I read OC shipping stories, I always have three things to look out for: the OC's character, the OC's interactions with the canon characters, the OC's relationship with the love interest. If the story fails on all three of these vital components, I drop the story immediately. Heck, some of them fail in all three essentials in the first chapter alone!

But, despite what the name suggests, the storytelling in "Brittle Bonds" is anything but brittle. To get an idea of what I mean, let's take a look at those three components I was talking about earlier, and I believe that so far, "Brittle Bonds" is either excelling in the category or at the very least, managing to keep its head above water.

The OC's character: The main character here is Ben Brittle, a fifteen-year-old half Samoan who moved to Royal Woods along with his aunt, Berta, his older brothers, Bruno (17) and Bruce (16), and his younger brothers Beck (14), Billy (12), and Brady (12). Before I talk about Ben, I'll be looking over the Brittle family as a whole.

Now, I'm going to be completely honest here; the alliterative names were a bit of an annoyance to me at first. The reason being that the Louds already have that as their "thing", and seeing an OC family with that same name scheme made it look like the author was just trying to make an expy Loud family with superficial differences like different names, different skin tone, and different number of family members. Well, I'm happy to be say that I was proven wrong.

I enjoy all of their personalities and the way that they interact with one another, which in a way, seems more tightly knit than the Loud siblings. Whether they support one another or rile each other up with lighthearted teasing and bantering, no one is left out in the equation, and it creates the illusion that the Brittles are a real, loving family. Of course, since the siblings are all boys, don't expect too much of that "mushy girly" stuff like hugging and "I love you's". In fact, I think the most affection you'll get is a friendly punch in the shoulder and a "Way to go, bro!" or something to that extent. It's fine because it's realistic to what "bros" do with one another. I should know, since my brother and I are basically the same way.

Oh, and before I forget, I shouldn't forget about another important member of the family. Brutus, the family's Great Dane, is also tons of fun. Out of all of the Brittles, he's closest to the main character, Ben, and although he's basically written to just pounce him and lick him all over, it's always pretty funny to read. "The boy and his dog" tropes never gets old for me, and I always appreciate a funny spin on it, even if it's not exactly original.

Anyway, back to Ben. From what the story's told us so far, Ben doesn't quite fit into the everyman mold, but he's not exactly the most eccentric person around. And you know what? That suits me just fine, especially when he compare him with Luna (I'll be doing that a bit later, though). I don't need some forced, quirky annoyance demanding we give him credence and attention. Ben is grounded and with the chips he has on his shoulder, it makes sense. First off, he's not exactly thrilled to be moving to a new place, and that's a very relatable feeling to have. Second, he has this...well, condition that's actually pretty heartbreaking, at least in context with the story. See, we find out that Ben's not very sociable, and that Berta wanted him to try finding new friends in Royal Woods. At first, the most we can get is that Ben's just not the type of guy who wants to make friends. But in Chapter 5, we figure out that it's not so much that Ben doesn't want to make friends, but that his condition made it difficult for him to keep potential friends around in the past.

Oh, and trust me. We're not done yet when it comes to chips on the shoulder. I'm not going to go into full detail on this particular chip, but Chapter 6 promises that a part of Ben's past still has him feeling down. We're not explicitly told what it is, but I'm sure we'll get down to finding out more as the story progresses. For now, we're given a better picture of Ben Brittle and that while Luna has made his life a little better, he's still has some baggage to take care of before he can really move on and strive towards a grander destination than simply trying to survive his new life.

There's still more to Benjamin Brittle than what I've talked about here, but don't worry, I'll talk more about him in just a bit. For now, we're moving on.

The OC's interactions with the canon characters: In a bad OC story, the OC usually gets along with everyone splendidly (regardless of personality and motivation) and is preferred over the canon character's own family and friends. Those are usually symptoms of what's infamously known as a "Mary Sue". Thank goodness for the fact that we don't have any of those with the OC's, namely Ben Brittle.

Again, I'll try not to go into full detail with the stories I highlight, so I'll just give some brief notes about what I saw from the "Benjamin Brittle meets the Louds" portion of the story, found in the third chapter (Note that both Luna and Luan met with Ben before then):


 * The Louds were in character. Their voices were spot-on to what I'd expect from them from the show. No complaints there.
 * Because the Louds were in character, their first impressions of Ben Brittle worked well. Lana's interaction with Ben was absolutely precious and Lola's was the funniest.

Like I said already, Luan and Luna already interacted with Ben before the third chapter, but what I said before applies to them, too.

I also like how we see Ben's lack of instant infatuation aura take place at Royal Woods High. There's no "new kid gets all the negative/positive attention" in play here, at least not without a good reason. Ben's not the kind of person to grab attention unless he's excelling at something he's good at (he won some students over after his cooking takes center stage in his culinary arts class), and I appreciate how he wasn't immediately friends with everyone in his grade after he introduces himself to his class. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times I keep seeing that played out over and over again without merit.

But yeah, because the author respects the fact that Ben's not "Mr. Charisma", we don't get any eye-rollingly horrible interactions with any of the characters in the story, interactions that would make us shout at the screen, "[X] wouldn't do that!"

So then, how exactly does someone like Ben work with someone like Luna? Well...

The OC's relationship with the love interest: Although we haven't been told what the endgame to this story is quite yet, it appears as though Ben will ultimately hook up with Luna at some part in the story. But see, that kind of ambiguity, the fact that we're not exactly sure how everything will play out, is appreciated by myself because of one simple thing...

...the story knows how to take its time. Yeah, even though we "know" that Ben x Luna is inevitable, the story knows how to takes its baby steps and establish the relationship between Luna and Ben as friends, first and foremost. And yeah, although the brothers and Berta are all board on the "girlfriend insistence" train, Ben and Luna aren't heading towards "greener pastures" right now.

And that's exactly what we need, both to make their friendship more credible and to give Luna's character credibility. Although we know that Luna's not above crushing on someone hard, if we "know" that she's going to be with Ben in the end, then a steady progress of relationships is what's required to not make Luna's eventually feelings of love predetermined. And yes, even if they are predetermined, I still need to feel like she's a real person and not a plot device used to gratify the author's ego and fantasies. Plus, even though "love at first sight" isn't exactly wrong, it's just not as interesting as the journey from friendship to something more.

Now, how do Ben and Luna work? Well, I'm not going to go into the whole "opposites attract" angle here, but I do have to note that while Ben and Luna are talented musicians and love music, something that they can instantly bond over, their approach to that love is somewhat different. While Luna is way more passionate and wild, Ben's more reserved. It's a huge sigh of relief from me since, as I talked about before, I was afraid that we'd be getting Loud expies with the Brittles. With this similarity, we get characters who most definitely have a reason to talk to each other, but their different mannerisms don't have them "clicking" on the exact same wavelength.

But their relationship goes further than that. As I talked about earlier, Chapter 5 and 6 get a little serious, and in both these chapters, Ben is mulling over about unpleasant parts of his past. Here, we see Luna's nurturing characteristic take form in how she tries to console Ben and lift his spirits. And the thing is, it doesn't come across as simple pity or mollycoddling. It's just Luna being Luna, and she is definitely someone who wouldn't want to leave her friends in a bad spot.

But believe me, their friendship is not a one-way street; Ben has something to offer Luna as well, the opportunity to play on a stage in front of a crowd. It's not exactly much, and this benefits Ben and his family as well, but the story's still not over yet. I'm sure Ben will pull his weight, eventually. The reason I'm putting emphasis on this aspect of their relationship is because I really don't like it when OC's are really only good for being procured with trinkets and opportunities from the canon cast. Basically, they're just there to be pampered. Still, even if the "score" is uneven, I'm not bothered with it. I love how Luna and Ben interact right now and I fully endorse a ship between the two. It doesn't quite go over my love for Ronniecoln but Buna is well on its way to being something special.

There are covalent bonds and then, there are "Brittle Bonds". I find the latter far more interesting and if you feel as though you agree, let me know in the comments section. If you think I didn't do a good job selling this story, again, let me know what you think.

'Til next time!