#Bug Fables Reading Ant | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

amorosebeing · 2 years

Text

Headcanons about Bug Fables Teams

Some of these are borrowed from other people, most are original.

Some of these are related to my crossover AU idea with Hollow Knight, but I’ll try to keep those to a minimum.

There are spoilers below!

Team Slacker (Stratos and Delilah)

Their main role is investigating rumors of monsters and ruins out in the wilderness. Sometimes they get sent out to find ‘giant supplies’ like a tire for rubber, old tools for metal, etc. kinda like oil prospectors. This job is typically seen as highly dangerous due to the issues of long-distance travel, lesser bugs, bandits, etc. and thus is paid extremely well. Team Slacker, however, is so strong that they just do not have to worry about any of that.

Stratos has been divorced at least once, possibly even twice or thrice. He has kids and Delilah is their adopted wine aunt.

Team Celia (Celia and Levi)

They’re the ‘detective’ team, responsible for investigating criminals and handling some of the more court-related paperwork that the association has to handle.

Levi is trying his absolute best to be a hero, both for the sake of it and also to make ladybugs more accepted.

They have a friendly rivalry with Team Slacker. They banter and lightly glare at each other sometimes. This is at least in-part because Team Celia works so hard to professionally investigate things and take notes and then they just see Team Slacker chasing rumors and constantly slacking off.

Celia came from the same colony as Tiso from Hollow Knight.

Team Bookwork (Reeves and the Reading Ant)

If you aren’t familar, it has been officially confirmed that these two formed an explorer team specifically so that they could get access to the Ant Kingdom library.

I think they sneak into explorer meetings for free food. Most of the association straight up forgets that they exist.

Team Maki

They are the de facto leaders of the association. By ‘they’ I mean mostly Maki and also Kina when Maki is away and she yells at the other teams for being dumb idiots.

Many assume that Yin, for whatever reason, is an adult in-body due to her size. This is actually a popular misconception, she is going to get so much larger, and stronger. She’s gonna have like 3 defense.

Team Ant (Gen on the left and Eri on the right)

They do tons of community service and less dangerous missions. Basically everyone in the Ant Kingdom recongizes them as those friendly ladies that found their lost pet or whatever.

Elizant II secretly worries about the association becoming too powerful and distant from both her and the common citizens. Team Ant, being a less imposing team that works alongside everyday bugs a ton, are meant to prevent that.

Maki is aware that they lead his fanclub, he’s not really sure what to do with that information.

Team Snakemouth

Yes, Chompy does count as a member. Leif tried to get Maki to include her on the paperwork.

Vi loves the Termacade. Leif supports her but teases her about it, and Kabbu also encourages her but he’s kinda of a himbo and is very confused by the technology.

Kabbu is incredibly gay, by both definitions. I think we can all agree on this.

Leif is responsible for cooking and paperwork, Vi for managing their berries and schedule, and Kabbu for cleaning and gardening.

Team Mothiva

OH boy I actually have so many headcanons, but most of them relate to the aforementioned AU. Anyways here are some:

Zasp makes dinners and lunches. Mothiva makes teas and desserts. Breakfasts are made together. Zasp is actually a really good cook.

Zasp has no idea that wasps are meant to be carnivores, absolute himbo. She doesn’t know either, if you’re wondering.

Emo rock is their favorite genre of music, pop is a close second.

The developers confirmed that Zasp was planned to have lightning magic, but that was scrapped. I like the idea that he REALLY wishes he had it and if you give him a taser his reaction is somewhere between ‘little kid who just got candy’ and ‘manically laughing cartoon villain.’

All of the explorer moths are some level of cryptid. Yin is biologically, but not in terms of vibes. Leif has always acted like a weirdo even before going into Snakemouth Den. Mothiva was just actually a cryptid at one point. Like there’s just some town outside of Bugaria where the locals will mention some weird moth that people kept having sightings of.

She has an incredibly strange patchwork of knowledge. Before she met Zasp, she did not know how to do taxes, but did know stonecarving and how to bury a body.

He’s trans I’ve decided.

38 notes · View notes

flame-shadow · 9 months

Text

Ant Kingdom Palace Bug Fables NPC Collab [3/23]

Background - @flame-shadow Editor - @flame-shadow

Character Credits Professor Neolith - @someguyiguess23 Zaryant - @flame-shadow Rebecca - samy00000008 Lieutenant - lamverykarpy Ant Captain - sapsvamity Ant Guard - sapsvamity Libren - @lemmykirby Brooke - lamverykarpy Reading Ant - sapsvamity Reeves - samy00000008

#bug fables #bug fables npc collab #art #id in alt #professor neolith #zaryant #rebecca #ant lieutenant #ant captain #ant guard #libren #brooke #reading ant #reeves

57 notes · View notes

mantisgodsart · 6 months

Text

so very small Worm (Wildbow), Bug Fables Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Skitter | Weaver | Taylor Hebert, Post-GM, Transmigration, Spiders, Bugs & Insects, Canon-Typical Violence

Taylor Hebert wakes up in the middle of a grassy field with an aching head, a massive blank in her memory, and approximately four more limbs than she remembers having. Approximately, of course, because one of her original four limbs appeared to be gone, and she wasn't sure how to qualify an entire abdomen suddenly spawning off of her backside. Something ingrained deeply into her skull told her she should be blaming someone, but she couldn't quite remember who.

Author's Note: Bugtober, Day 19 - Mimic. We think that Taylor would be a mimic spider if we swapped her over to BF. We have no major justification for this, but we are open to suggestions if anyone has a better idea, seeing as it's been nearly three years (we think) since we've read Worm and there are likely people on this website who are not operating on three years of character drift.

#our art #bug fables #worm #parahumans #taylor hebert #watercolor #bugtober #finished #what canon is the violence typical for? good question.#losing access to swarm tactics doesnt defang taylor but it Does mean she would have to put in more effort for gore #this is not a real fic and will not be a real fic at any point in the forseeable future btw #in order for us to write a fic we have to have read the source media within at least six months of writing #and we have been procrastinating on rereading worm #this is just a vague idea that came about from discussing what bugs the undersiders would be #generally we agreed she would be a social insect of some description but this is more Fun for the setting #she is a perfectly normal ant. who is normal. and standard.#we have previously drawn taylor approximately Never and we have not figured out mimic spider anatomy with their weirdass two segments #ehh. her disguise is perfectly passable. ants will not bat an eye at her because she smells right and ant eyesight sucks ass #for those wondering on other placements rachel is a weevil lisa is an orchid mantis brian is a ladybug and alec is a parasitoid wasp #we also decided that squealer would be a bombadier beetle. we feel no desire to clarify this decision. take it as you will #we will now fail to post anything even vaguely worm related for approximately five trillion more years

41 notes · View notes

aridis · 1 year

Text

#bug fables #bf vi #bf kabbu #bf leif #when i read the lines and saw the innkeeper i was like #are you sure about that Kabbu?#take a look at that ant

97 notes · View notes

weirdowithaquill · 7 months

Text

Traintober 2023: Day 14 - Young Iron

Ivo Hugh has some Advice for a Young Engine:

The young engine had only just arrived on Sodor, crossing over the Vicarstown Bridge and steaming onto the fabled rails of Thomas and his friends. She’d heard all about them from her driver, fireman and the trust members – the engines who lived on the Island of Sodor were legendary! All she wanted to do was meet each and every one of them and gush over how incredible it was to finally meet the engines who had so greatly influenced the preservation movement.

Her travels brought her to their Works, where her boiler, firebox and several other important parts had been machined before being sent back to her home in Derby. It was huge! It made her warehouse workshop home look like an ant next to an elephant – the Sudrian Works were built almost as if they wished to impress, with the original works sitting primly at the front, with several acres-worth of expansions behind them, stretching far beyond what the young engine could see. The signal in front of her was red, and she was shunted into a siding beside a small raised retaining wall.

“It’s grown a lot,” chuckled a voice from beside her. The young engine looked down, and her eyes nearly bugged out of her smokebox! Beside her was the smallest engine she’d ever seen!

“What are you?” spluttered the young engine. The little engine frowned – the young engine began to worry she’d somehow offended it.

“I’m Ivo Hugh,” huffed the engine. “Have you never seen a narrow-gauge engine before?” The young engine gasped.

“Like Skarloey and Rheneas? I’ve read about you all! Or at least… some of you. Were you in a book?” Ivo Hugh flushed red and let off steam crossly.

“I was too in a book!” he exclaimed. “I was in New Little Engine!” The young engine winced.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I don’t think we have that book back home. It’s nice to meet you, little Ivo Hugh. My name is Tornado, and I’ve come to Sodor to help out while Henry is being repaired!” Ivo Hugh smiled.

“It’s no problem,” he said kindly. “And I’m sorry I got so cross – Duke would have my bunkers if he heard!” Tornado chuckled – she had read all about the famous old engine who had been buried underground. Oh, the stories that Sodor held were so exciting! And there were more that she’d never been able to read too!

“I’ve never worked in regular service before,” admitted Tornado suddenly. Her signal was still set to danger, and she was curious. “Do you have any advice?”

Ivo Hugh considered the question – there was a lot he could say, like remembering all your passengers so a refreshment lady didn’t chase you down the line, or to not be tricked about backing signals like Percy was, or even to be polite to the elder engines because they would get her back – especially Gordon, who was not above getting even, even in his old age.

But no, there was one piece of advice that Ivo Hugh could think of that stood out above all others. Something he’d been told by three different engines: Edward, Thomas and Skarloey, who heard it from their mentors, who’d learnt from their mentors, all the way back to the first steam engines. One piece of advice that linked all engines together, across Britain, across Europe, across the world.

“Engines must always look after the people who catch their trains,” he said. “They are our coal and water; without people, there are no trains for us to pull and then we have no purpose. You can ask any engine, and they’ll tell you the same. I learnt from Skarloey, who learnt from a little old engine called Neil, who supposedly learnt it in Glasgow from an engine who’d learnt it from Rocket himself.”

Tornado gasped – she’d heard of the famous Rocket, who had won the Rainhill Trials and brought about the rise of steam. He was legendary! Even the diesels spoke of him in reverent tones.

“Thank you,” said the young engine. “I’ll remember that.”

“Oh, and Tornado,” Ivo Hugh added. “Don’t copy the engines from the books. Most of them are as silly as you can get! The other day, Thomas himself had to be brought up to the works because his tank had sprung a leak! I don’t even know how he managed to do that…”

But Tornado could only turn to stare at the workshops excitedly, as if hoping that she would catch a glimpse of the famous Thomas the tank engine. Beside her, Ivo Hugh sighed. It was always the same with the engines from the mainland: they had this weird hero-worship for Thomas that lasted right up until the blue tank engine opened his mouth.

Oh well, Tornado would learn soon enough. She was headed for Tidmouth after all – her owners truly were throwing her right into the thick of it, sending her there. He just hoped a kinder engine like Edward or Bear was there to receive her, or he might be seeing Tornado arrived back at the works in a very different manner to the way she arrived!

Back to Master Post

#fanfiction writer #weirdowithaquill #railway series #thomas the tank engine #railways #traintober #traintober 2023 #the railway series #ttte tornado #ttte ivo hugh #young iron prompt #life advice #but for trains

28 notes · View notes

secret-bug-pain-blog · 2 months

Text

@febuwhump Day 16 - Came Back Wrong

Despite what more experienced Bug Fables fans may think when seeing this prompt, this is more or less free of Leif's Request spoilers! In fact, you can read this directly out of Chapter 1. Leif is very normal.

Leif knows that there is something wrong with him from the very start.

It isn't hard to tell. Not really, not when he's lived with himself his whole life. He is drowsy from slumber, but it doesn't mean he is blind.

Leif brushes spider silk from his antenna and speaks in a tongue he does not know, in a shell that fits wrong.

His mouth hinges too far. His joints bend too much. His wings are too heavy, more effort to lift than they ever should have been, a cold ball of something sits in his chest, his thoughts feel structured and strange and off, and he knows with utter certainty before he ever raises his head that something is different.

There is something wrong with his body.

The ice that flows from his claws doesn't offer anything but more questions.

Leif crawls from the bowels of Snakemouth Den, frail and feeble, walking on limbs that feel like a stranger's and speaking through a veil of a language he doesn't know, and knows - without a shadow of a doubt - that he has come back wrong.

The outskirts are changed. The Association is unrecognizable. The Queen is different. There is not a bug he recognizes in sight, and something is horribly, horribly wrong.

It has been a hundred years since he ventured into Snakemouth Den. Nothing is the same.

He feels like an off-balance top as he stumbles out of the palace. His limbs don't respond right to him, lagging and straining, feeling like at once a size too big and a size too small. His body doesn't act like it should, but he can't quite verbalize why beyond a whine of quiet despair - Kabbu takes one of his arms after the third time he stumbles, and he limps along as best he can, off-balance in a way he cannot fully verbalize.

The world has changed so strongly that he struggles to recognize it. He has changed so strangely that he struggles to even understand what's different.

Something about him has changed, and he knows it. Nothing about him has changed, and it's strange that he's even thinking this. He fits into this new world wrong, like a puzzle piece out of place, and he can't tell if the world has gone mad, or if he himself has gone insane. There is so much that is new and strange, so much more he cannot make sense of - is it strange for him to feel afraid? Is it normal to fear he's not even the same bug as before?

He is a mage now. The world has changed without him. Nothing else is strange, nothing else is wrong - because if he admits that something else is strange, he admits just how much he has been forcing out of his mind.

He has always been strange. He has always been like this.

Something is wrong.

He has always been like this, he knows he has always been like this - but why, then, do his memories not match what his eyes can see? A century ago, he reads a book, and his eyes track along the words with ease. Today, he opens a book, and he cannot tell one line on the page from the next until he presses it to his face and finds the ink by scent.

The Leif of a hundred years ago is surprised by ambushes, by hiding bugs, by friends behind doors, and the Leif of today finds himself unsure how he could ever have missed anything so close at hand.

There are small inconsistencies; his shell is a touch more brittle than he ever remembers it being, his fingers move a half-dozen degrees farther than they should, he smells things in the Ant hallways that he remembers being nearly too faint to parse before. There are large inconsistencies; he remembers seeing red when he looks in the mirror, but the pane that should show his reflection is nothing but another flat shape on the wall.

It's easy to dismiss if he doesn't think too hard about it. Maybe some part of him wants it to be dismissed, deep down where his thoughts murmur that he doesn't want to know. Somewhere, deep down in the back of his mind, locked down where everything that he doesn't need to worry about - all the little worries he's locked down where no one will ever see them. Something is wrong with him, but what?

His thoughts grind to a half when he tries to think of it. Something about him thinks that's for the best.

He walks on a stranger's feet. He gestures with a stranger's hands. He moves like he's sick, Vi tells him one night, like his brain's cooking in his shell and he just hasn't noticed he's dying yet. He's awkward and ungainly, his limbs struggling to coordinate even with practice. Something is wrong, he wants to know what - but something about him shies away from the picture that's formed, from the ideas being made, from what lies deep and buried in his brain - he'd grasping at straws, at something he doesn't need to know.

Something about Leif is wrong.

It's safer to remain oblivious.

There is nothing to think about. There is nothing to fear.

Leif comes back wrong. There is no one left to remember what right could have been.

#whump #febuwhump #febuwhump2024 #febuwhumpday16 #bug fables #leif #writing #came back wrong #dysphoria #unreliable narrator #unreliable. uhh. everything actually #he is usual

13 notes · View notes

lunellasflo · 14 days

Text

My first batch of OCs for Bug Fables:

Maggie: One of the last living Giants (or at least that's what they think) who was blessed with a mysterious gift to understand and speak Bugnish. As a scavenger in the giant world, Maggie has personal experience in exploration and is always available to protect Bugaria with her giant-ness, but she likes to unwind and keep the land of Bugaria beautiful with her gardening skills. Often, she would be shrunken down to hide herself from threats, and disguise herself as an Atlas Moth. Maggie is a 14-year-old Human Giant girl who is sharp-witted, loveable, and is kind to all of the bugs of Bugaria, unless they're an enemy. She has a unbreakable friendship with Vi, and she becomes Kabbu's adoptive daughter figure, though he's reluctant to it at first.

Leela: An Indian moon moth from a distant bug kingdom. She idolizes Team Snakemouth, and is lucky to join the team. She wants to prove that she is more than just a beautiful moth, and she often flies head first into danger. She trips, she stumbles, but her heart is always in the right place, especially when she's devoted to protecting Bugaria. Leela is hyperfixated on decoding the history and culture of the Giants, and, to the shock of her fellow bugs, can actually read English. Could it be that she shares the Gift with Maggie? Leela's closest teammates are Maggie and Leif. Leela is brave, curious, and mostly wants to do things for herself, but she loves her team.

Mello: A honeypot ant who previously worked as a messenger before joining the Explorers' Association. They're very talkative and they love to talk about their interests with her teammates. She may or may not be a huge fan of Mothiva as well, but don't tell Vi. Mello is a part of the Explorers' Association, and not Team Snakemouth, so there's not much more depth to them unfortunately.

I probably have more on the way, like a firefly bard, but I'll need more time to cook up some ideas first. See y'all!

#bug fables #bug fables oc #ocs #my art

4 notes · View notes

mantisgodsdomain · 3 months

Text

Okay we're done getting really mad about bug game worldbuilding. If you are interested in seeing us get extremely mad about Bug Fables' consistently shoddy worldbuilding, then it is below the cut. We'll tag this properly in like a week so it doesn't haunt the main tag for everyone who might not want to read 1.8k words of a random author getting really fucking mad about shoddy worldbuilding.

We've done a lot of stuff with worldbuilding for Bug Fables. Our handling of Bugaria itself is, we will admit, not quite canon-typical. There's a lot going on, and not all is easy to work with. We know from the game itself that Bugaria is surrounded by hostile deadlands, making outside trade difficult and often-lethal - we also know, from being able to observe the in-game map as a human with outside perspective, that Bugaria is contained within a single backyard.

For the game proper, this is fine. It lends itself well to the "borrower" type aesthetic that the devs appear to prefer, limits the scope of the in-game map, and allows for them to do significantly less legwork trying to figure out how to design things. We, however, are a man obsessed with semantics, and we know too much about the amount of food and territory generally required for one hive of wasps or bees to buy into one suburban backyard that's... what, 60 square meters of backyard?

IRL honeybees alone will forage up to, on average, 1-6 km away from their hives, potentially going up to 13 km, and though there's been less research done into the habits of other colony bugs, it's fairly safe to assume they'd need similar range - more likely greater range, actually, as any form of what we humans call "higher intelligence" is incredibly demanding, resource-wise. Bugaria has four different kingdoms of social bugs, many of which would have overlapping needs for resources, combined with a whole load of other miscellanous solitary bugs. loaded into the space of a single backyard that likely wouldn't account for the range of a single hive of honeybees, let alone four hives of miscellaneous bugs and venus-knows-how-many solitaries.

In order to survive in any place, you need to fulfil the requirements of life. Food, water, and shelter are basic needs for a reason, and without access to all three, settlements are likely to quickly peter out. In order for The Hive to process nectar into honey, they first need nectar, which would have to come from flowers, which would be the exact same food source that wasps, butterflies, and moths would need, which clearly aren't growing in the needed

Put quite simply, it would be really fucking difficult for a space of this size to support the presented numbers of bugs. Plants are not an infinite resource, and even assuming that there's a density of flowers far beyond what's shown in-game, there's still predatory bugs to consider. Wasps and ants need protein to feed their grubs, dragonflies and damselflies need protein to feed themselves, mantises and mantidflies are obligate carnivores that cannot survive without a steady supply of prey- you can't survive if you never eat, and Bug Fables is incredibly low on lesser bugs that could potentially serve as food for the more predatory bugs.

Canon offers only aphids and cochineals as cattle, and those still wouldn't really serve to feed larger predatory bugs - and that's even without noting the ecological desert that results from only ever having a handful of enemies. We know that there are limits to what you can do in a game, but the second you want to expand on life beyond what's shown, you run straight into the lack of known prey and wildlife like smacking right into a brick wall. Roaches raise scorpions in a wasteland that seems to have only Mystery Berries for food unless they're trying to hunt Deadlanders, which we doubt are particularly edible. The Royal Blade of the Ant kingdom is an obligate carnivore, and there's nowhere he can go if he wants to buy lunch.

Realistically, we know that the answer is "the devs didn't really think about it". This game is built on the work of devs who persistently place "because it looks cool" over doing any of the worldbuilding work to integrate their existing story elements into the world. You only have to look to Yin to see just how many parts of the game are riddled with things added purely because Someone Thought It Might Be Cool, and no one did any further legwork to make it WORK. The Termacade is a living monument to the philosophy, being added A WEEK before release without anyone so much as communicating it was going to happen before it was in active development.

Unfortunately, we are permanently obsessed with semantics, we can't stand "because magic" as an answer to important worldbuilding questions, and every time we have to do all the legwork to fill massive holes in the setting where no one ever thought that the answers to questions like "how the fuck do these people feed themselves" is relevant, we will be sadly prone to falling into madness.

There is no canon answer to how these bugs feed themselves. There is no indication as to how things that should be basic parts of the setting WORK. The bugs, in the first place, are written persistently as more People With Hats than actual BUGS - there are nods made to biology, sure, but the difference between a wasp and a bee is little more than a set of aesthetics and a silly hat. There are enough elements in the game that are simply thrown in without care of how they interlock that it sometimes becomes genuinely maddening.

Some people, sure, are satisfied with this - there is a madness that we have that we lack, a need for SUBSTANCE that is prone to driving us to inadvisable lengths hunting for a hint - any hint - that there was care put into this detail, rather than a single flippant comment. We have no complaint with things left vague, but we VERY MUCH have a problem when the setting is consigned to being little more than a backdrop decorated with random glittery ideas to act out anime tropes on, rather than something that should be paid attention to all its own.

We've said this before, and we'll say it many times again, but worldbuilding is important for a REASON. Your setting will affect your characters just as strongly as it will affect your story - your plot, your setting, and your characters are fundamentally inertwined, and to affect ANY part of the story will have rippling impacts on the rest of it. Your characters are not created in a void! Whatever structures created one person MUST still be present to shape others! You cannot throw shiny ideas on a canvas slapdash and expect it to turn out well! It's a miracle that the character writing in this game turned out as well as it did, considering that massive swathes of the setting are loosely assembled from anime without even taking the time to learn how certain aspects WORK in their home media!

We enjoy writing. We enjoy crafting plots, doing worldbuilding, tinkering with the little pieces of setting that we feel might create something interesting. We wouldn't be writing at all if we didn't enjoy it on some level, though we sometimes wonder if it's more masochism than care for some aspects. This is the trade that we have chosen to work towards working. Perhaps it is this that makes it so violently infuriating when we run into people who don't seem to care for that which we pay attention to.

There are a handful of aspects in this game that are well done. There are far more aspects in this game that are half-baked at best and actively difficult to work into the rest of the world at worst. There is a particular handful of aspects that are so poorly done that they could pass as active malice, towards one group or another. Unfortunately, as with many things, to assume ill will often overlooks the far more pervasive, far more common culprit of simple negligence.

Bug Fables, at its core, is a game made by devs with chronic shiny-object syndrome. There is little care spared to its worldbuilding, to the implications of its setting, to the implications of character actions, because the devs have never cared to think on it. It takes tropes from a hundred and one different animes without caring to learn what makes them work in their home context - just that they're cool, and that the authors want them in their own work.

It's something that we've been guilty of ourself, in previous works, but that only makes it easier for us to spot it here. There is an mirror of mistakes we have made ourself written on the walls, and it echoes with every step. We are the sort of author who learned to build worlds by stealing shards from different worlds and patching them into a new quilt. This is a work that takes does much the same, taking pieces from other works to make a new whole, but it makes the mistake of not spending the time to make sure those pieces FIT.

The mosaic on the floor is made of broken, disparate parts that are only partially fit together. The world falls apart more and more the closer you look at its shards. There are pieces of harm in this painting, pictures of pain, things put together and only barely examined. There is prejudice that could pass for malice woven into the threads of even the more comedic writing, an undercurrent commonly present in society and rarely examined. They've made an entire species of bugs into an incomprehensibly racist trope. Perhaps it's foolish of us to spend so much time and energy on a world that does not love us back, but we care for this setting, and we care for the potential of what it could have been.

The prejudice and shoddiness and pieces of poorly-thought-out and tropey writing in this work are not an act of malice. They are an act of ignorance, left over from a development team that wanted to add the latest shiny thing without stopping to think that their favorite anime tropes might have roots in something rotten.

Anyways, the reason that we wind up putting so many fucking footnotes on our fics is that every time we have to answer basic questions like "how does the wasp kingdom fucking feed itself" we have to rewrite, like, half a dozen tropes ripped off from shitty isekai anime, come up with an entire power structure and system of government that could potentially exist in this universe, write 2000 words of geopolitical bullshit minimum, reinvent animal agriculture, create at least one brand new species of bug, and then battle our conviction to avoid cushioning or avoiding the implied Fucked Up Elements that are Very Much Present In The Base Work if chronically ill-addressed vs the question of if we Want to include this particular brand of Fucked Up Bullshit or if we'd actually rather avoid having to reckon with the aftermath of yet another poorly-thought-out trope ripped from Trapped In Another World With My Smartphone.

#we speak #if you like TIAWWMS then this isnt intended as a jab at you btw it was the most trashy sounding isekai we could think of like #Off The Top Of Our Head #we often find that the lack of ill intent can be WORSE to deal with than if there was any actual malice #because on one hand you have people writing it because they genuinely hold these beliefs and are prejudiced against you #and on the other hand you have people for whom it's simply never occurred to them that writing an entire species #as Unenlightened Savages who speak nonsense and are aggressive for no reason and are Not People in the Same Way Normal People Are #even though they're People the same as every other person in the setting that they Havent arbitrarily decided is Savage And Unreasonnable #might be a tiny bit racist #a genuine jab hurts less than one made of negligence we think. at least with one of them there's a clear intent of purpose #tho we are ofc biased in all things #anyways this shit is also part of the reason we take so fucking long to write fic #bc we will have to fill in One background detail and have to look things up and wind up getting pissed abt the prison-industrial complex #unfortunately we dont think we're actually capable of fixing this so itll probably just Keep Happening forever #and then we're not very good at articulating ourself under stress so we struggle to word this out at times when it might Matter

5 notes · View notes

thedarkermelody · 2 years

Text

The bug fables AU where Hoaxe is a twist villain (i just realized that is basically my au and i’m annoyed at myself for doing a disney but imao whatever)

[for the guy who asked i deliver that sweet info, and also just to write down thoughts haunting me ]

OK FIRST THING, The crown is something our guy is working to get rather than just buying it now. We are putting that thing somewhere else, the merchant instead sold Hoaxe a tablet related to the crown and its location. He is laying low in the Grasslands at our backstory point cause he stole another thing in from the wasp kingdom for his search (he also stole his axe at this point cause lol i want him to have that axe still)

Grasslands rescue of Hoaxe by Kabbu, our fly here initially was going to use the beetle as a emergency meatshield if things get dicey but Kabbu’s genuine awe and excitement at Hoaxe’s (weak) fire power tipped the scales to the ‘you can live’ section with a ‘the second you show your being fake about me i will end you’ (spoilers it will not happen cause Kabbu is the goodest of bugs)

And they were roommates. We get Neolilth helping them to the Defiant Root, maybe they found him being harassed by bandits while he was out trying to research and Kabbu rushed in to save him. That moment lets Hoaxe have a realization that Kabbu is…. AN IDIOT. (aka an actually nice person but shhh Hoaxe isn’t really familiar with those so to him, the beetle is just stupid)

They are hanging out at the root, Kabbu gets a place to stay after helping the mayor five seconds after they get to town. (two bugs~ rooming together~ 15 feet apart cause you gave him the bed) also Kabbu voice, I’ll keep all my emotions right here and then one day i will go pull a stupid move because of this. He is totally coping guys no worries.

Hoaxe has conveniently gotten an outfit from somewhere, probably didn’t ruffle anyone’s wings getting those.

Astotheles and Hoaxe have beef (doesn’t elaborate)

Kabbu and Hoaxe are hanging out on the way to Ant Kingdom

That’s the pre story bit of context for this AU

EXTRA IMPORTANT BIT FOR THIS AU: Wasps even before the Hoaxe’s big move are uh, jerks at the least in this one. The Wasp Kingdom has a lot of warpower, and that knowledge of power they have behind him means troopers will often cause problems and swing their weight around.

People are wary of really going off on them on the chance of escalation thus there's a wariness against wasps in general. This feeling extends even to non colony wasps as well.

This causes a change in this AU, and it’s why Mothiva isn’t seen with Zasp/he is hiding around during her idol bits. Because of her being worried about having a public relationship with him affecting her fame! (we are fixing that moth in this one folks but not before we make her a worst partner at the start)

Look I am being mean Vanessa II in this AU, her character really didn't stick to me at ALL originally, like i read the wiki to refresh and was like 'did she actually have this much character' BUT IT'S OK I CAN ADAPT.

We can fiddle with the idea of someone who wants to change her people's ways and how their kingdom is viewed. but struggling to actually commit to making that change happen, fearing changing anything if it makes the people lash out against her. the weight of the status quo and your forebears' decisions for the kingdom shackling your resolve to actually follow through and having the consequences of your weakness come to rip your kingdom apart in revenge. Knowing if you had just had the courage maybe things would be different.

man that got deep at the end anyways that's all you get for rn

#bug fables #bug fables spoilers #that hoaxe AU #that's the name of it now we aren't good with names.#bug fables AU #melody word blahs

38 notes · View notes

cordycepsbian · 3 months

Note

hihihigihi uhh

can you name some of your ocs?-

haven't seen much of any i dont thingk. or maybe i just am blind

that's fair we don't have our toyhouse linked anywhere and that only has a fraction of our ocs listed on it

bugs fable ocs;

chrys - never talked about them before whoops. from our bug fables future headcanons. they're a cuckoo wasp and they're on an explorer team with tod and terrie mop - everyone knows mop. the star of the show

synth - evil roach lady. came from the giant's lair and tried to start snakemouth lab 2: electric boogaloo. she's like if soul master was a girl kind of bernie - most divorced poor little meow meow bee man ever. got kicked out of the hive because cosmic horrors happened to him. vi's dad but that's not really relevant they don't know each other ilon & lilly - butterfly and beetle on an explorer team. kind of side characters in future bug fables iris - cute and trustworthy mantis lady who runs a diner and definitely doesn't cook people checkers - zombee who is two different bees sewn together. former nurse in one life. unwillingly pulled into synth's schemes mint - zombeetle who escaped the lab to try and find his former explorer partner. not going well for him latte - baby zombiant. just a little guy sammy - zombie fly with a different kind of fungus than the cordyceps ones. got sent to bee kingdom zombie jail until the doctor who made it like that let it escape penny - the doctor who did that to sammy. it was an accident she swears marshmallow - peacock spider who started mimicking bugs and living in society just for a laugh

and our hollows knights

caprice - nosk who disguises herself as a traveling musician. reads minds to find familiar tunes and plays them for her victims. our personal favorite to draw ollie - ant that got splashed with the death pheromone and kicked out of his colony for it. traveled with caprice before getting infected and dying for real

celadon - mantis who left the tribe to pursue a more peaceful lifestyle. is just vibing in greenpath now flower pot - vessel that celadon adopted. likes being painted on capt. geo-eye - earwig pirate captain. quite literally has a piece of geo where his eye should be. currently plundering the abandoned kingdom of hallownest treasure chest - vessel that geo-eye adopted. a little ruffian that attacks ankles

and our rains worlds

uncrossed finish line - senior of their local group. thought sliver of straw was onto something. worked so hard to replicate her that they overheated and collapsed deep impression of a fang - junior of the same group. looked up to finish line and was devastated when they died. tried to purpose an organism strong enough to kill him after that happened flightless birds - second youngest of the group. bit of a silly goose. spends more time talking in group chats and having fun than doing work. in her lane. unbothered. flourishing monday morning sunrise - second oldest of the group. eepy. spends 100 cycles to do anything empire of ants - firm Middle Child. ascribes to the same thinking of a benefactor monk. never talks to anyone ever three glowing scales - no local group because they're in the middle of the ocean. makes a lot of purposed creatures to send messages across the sea ever-flowing rapids - purposed slugcat made by 3gs. true aquatic scug that can breathe underwater and move at speed. rivulet's ancestor the crusader - purposed slugcat made by dioaf. the thing that was intended to kill him. gets stronger the higher its karma is the trickster - purposed slugcat made by nsh. exists to send memes. can change colors to mimic predators the sleepwalker - normal slugcat that got hit on the head and can't sleep now. always gets shelter failures and special night creatures attack them the symbiosis - used to be our scugsona but now they're just vibing. full of fungus. kills bugs instantly but gets hurt by sunlight two splinters of wood under tropical leaves - benefactor that lived on mms. ran a shelter for purposed organisms that outlived their usefulness. number one enjoyer of weird little critters muddy water running through steel canals - benefactor that lived on looks to the moon. mechanic that dabbles in bioengineering. invented miros birds so you can all get mad at aer for that shrill ringing noise, a broken spear - benefactor that used to live on dioaf. got banished to the surface for assassinating a council member. living the creature life now

#this got so long sorry this took us a while to answer

2 notes · View notes

fly-sky-high-bug-games · 1 year

Note

Who are some Hollow Knight and/or Bug Fables NPCs that you think deserve more love?

Halp I feel like I'll forget someone (especially in BF). I won't be counting bosses in this (otherwise it would be No Eyes and Monsieur Scarlet tho I feel like he has fans haha)

For HK, I dunno! It feels like a lot of NPCs are quite loved (minus Millibele, even Emilitia has fans lol). Maybe I've spent quite a bit in HK space that I've rarely encountered an NPC not getting at least some love and attention, fanon reasons or the other.

I guess I will say The Old Stag :) I know he is given attention but he is often in the similar position as in the game, just kind of there if needed but haven't really seen a concrete personality shown as often (I sense there are fics that do have that but I don't read them so oops if that's the case xD)

For BF, I like my silly ant duo! Gen and Eri really don't have a lot going on for them and kind of fall flat compared to other rich NPCs in the game but I kind of liked having them around for some reason. I think what they did for me is add even more to the already vibrant presence of other bugs but in the way you would see a DM of an TTRPG would add NPCs to the team to be there with the group along the world or plot just to make the players feel more present within the setting. It's hard to explain xD

Before them my first thought were Chubee and Jayde but I've seen folks giving them some love before, I'm not quite sure about Gen and Eri. I am also not as active within FB circles to know tbh ;u;

#ask #snailmun #i had to google for names I still don't have them memorized fjdjfjsjg

14 notes · View notes

nonsensical-shitposting · 11 months

Text

oh no i made a new au

Since he’s been a fan of Bug Fables for much longer than me, I decided to run the initial premise for it past my brother to see what he thought. It went something like this.

Me: So I’m calling it the Team Snakereverse AU as a placeholder name for now. The basic idea’s that Vi, Kabbu, and Leif all start off the story in roughly the opposite position from canon. Here, I’ll send you what I’ve written down for them so far.

Him, reading it over: Alright, so to summarize, Vi accidentally became a communist revolutionary, Kabbu got a soul-crushing desk job, and Leif ripped off the Yeerks from Animorphs?

Me: ...that’s grossly oversimplifying it, but I know you’re just trying to be funny, so whatever. Anyway, now I just gotta turn it into a fic...

Him: Okay, but don’t go overcomplicating it. The base concept you’ve got there is good enough on its own. You don’t need to go changing anything else about the canon situation and making more work for yourself-

Me, already having several tabs open in Firefox to research oligarchic thalassocracies in the Middle Ages Mediterranean, the phonology of Panamanian Spanish, tire manufacturing, mercenary organizations throughout history, Jungian analysis, whether there’s any historical precedent for militarist-theocratic diarchy as a system of government, bombardier beetles, and the sociocultural effects of rapid industrialization: -okay, setting aside the issue of reversing Astotheles’ ideological underpinnings while keeping his personality as similar as possible, what if I swap the bandit hideout with Metal Island so the former gets reworked as a kind of underground Las Vegas and the bandits are based out of the latter? That actually works pretty well in conjunction with both the Snakemouth Den-Rubber Prison swap and flipping the Termite Kingdom’s canon isolationism so it’s an imperialist surveillance state- hm, but if I’m gonna go with the idea of the termites seizing a cultural hegemony, I can’t half-ass it, I need to figure out all the ramifications...

Him: WHY DO YOU DO THESE THINGS TO YOURSELF JORDAN

Me, in the process of sketching out a termite anatomy-based political compass equivalent: I don’t know what you’re talking about, this is child’s play compared to the convolution of The Strings We Pull. Ooh, hang on, what if the termites set up a system of submarine-based public transport that takes the place of the ant tunnels in canon? I gotta map this out-

#worldbuilding and overcomplicating things i could've and should've kept simple are passions of mine #bug fables #team snakereverse au #long post

6 notes · View notes

barbaracleboy · 1 year

Text

Here they are, everybody! The main crew of Swapped Fables, Team Snakemouth! ...

Featuring, from right to left: Bit, Hoaxe, Jaune, and Seedy! Information on each member given under the Keep Reading:

Bit, the cheery and fun-loving Beetle from the North whose willing to mess around just as much as they’re willing to lend a helping hand. While not necessarily mischievous, Bit is always up for a good time and will occasionally cause little bits of trouble with the kinds of situations they get into. Even still, they’re strong and generally kind enough that most don’t view them so negatively...Deep down, though, Bit is haunted by the loss of his dear friends on their way to Bugaria from their homeland. Bit tries to stay cheery often, especially if it can help bury the feelings associated with their loss, but that can only help for so long...

Hoaxe, the quiet, reserved Fly with mysterious, powerful abilities. Born in the Deadlands, Hoaxe was forced to grow up in the harsh environment for most of his life, somehow managing to survive and at one point gaining the strange ability to use fire magic. At one point he made it to the Wasp Kingdom...but he was not treated well at all there. Abused as a janitor, Hoaxe eventually couldn’t take it any longer and ran away to the Ant Kingdom. Between the destructive potential of his magic and his generally negative experiences, Hoaxe wasn’t comfortable enough to spend very much time in the Ant Kingdom either. Eventually he ended up entering, and falling into, Snakemouth Den, where his last memory was being attacked by a strange Moth in a crown. Jaune and Bit found him frozen solid on their mission to obtain the Den’s Artifact, and when they thaw the poor fly he’s scared and confused, and barely even willing to talk to them. Not seeing many other options, Hoaxe tags along with the Bee and the Beetle, and they end up helping him open up to other Bugs and overall become much happier and more comfortable, as well as allowing him to get more skilled with using his magic for good...

Jaune, the rebellious street artist who loves paintball and never felt appreciated for her spray painted art. She was more jealous than she’d like to admit of her little sister, Violet, who was generally revered as smarter and more skilled. Though Violet looked up to Jaune, Jaune blew up at her younger sibling when she felt even she was starting to wane in supporting her big sister. Afterwards Jaune left her home at The Hive in the hopes of becoming an explorer and finally getting the praise she felt she deserved. In doing this, she also ends up beginning her journey to self-improvement, with the help of her allies, of course...Also, side note, the beret she’s wearing is meant to be a combat beret. Kinda like what Cammy from Street Fighter wears. It’s not a typical art beret, like what Canon Jaune has.

Seedy, the fancy but troublemaking little Seedling that the trio grew from a Seedling King’s Seed. Jaune and Bit spoil him, but in the end he is rather friendly to them, and he even brings them goodies...often stolen goodies. Whatever the case, he too is a valued member of the team, and the hope is that he can be raised into a Seedling King as well, where he may hopefully foster a generation of Seedlings that is far less aggressive to Bugkind...Oh, also he makes Waddle Dee Noises. Almost forgot to mention that, ha.

#bug fables #bug fables spoilers #swapped fables #seedy #jaune #the wasp king #writing #bit #just wanted to draw them being silly so...here ha #hopefully I can get more stuff done with this AU soon!#I'm thinking of doing work on the moth mentioned in Hoaxe's part #maybe tweaking what I've written for them just a bit

10 notes · View notes