Websnark: Besides, it's not like he's <u>Aylee</u>.

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Eric: Besides, it's not like he's Aylee.

I don't usually respond to comments on another snark over here in the main body of the page. I just don't. I usually respond right there in the comments, because that's how conversations happen. It's the difference between having a chat after giving a speech and climbing up on stage and using an amplified sound system to respond to someone. Seems unfair, somehow.

But this isn't really a response to a comment so much as it is a comment has inspired a snark. So I hope this doesn't come across as megaphoning an answer so much as forking the conversation into a new one. If not... um... well... dude. Hope you win the lottery!

The comment in question came from Alexis Christoforides, who may have the coolest name I've typed all month (with the possible exception of Darrin Bleuel. It's just fun to type Bleuel. But I digress). Alexis was responding to my Sluggy snark this morning -- not just to the central point of the snark (which is that Sluggy seems to be on an upswing again, or else I've adapted to it and either way it's all good), but to the subject line. I quote:

I still can't understand the hatred for Bun-bun, though, Eric :-) Sure, he's a slightly formulaic 'badass' + 'cute animal' character, but it's not like he hasn't been owned a few times. And I loved 'Holiday Wars'.

I read that, and realized it was a legitimate comment, that deserved a legitimate response. Especially because the following facts are also true:

I have been a Bun Bun fan in the past.
I also enjoyed Holiday Wars a great deal.
Any sign of Bun Bun in current Sluggy fills my soul with a kind of dread one is supposed to reserve for Communism in the late 1950's.

Bun Bun was, for a long time, a fantastic character. Yes, he was essentially a one-joke character ("ooo, look at the cute fuzzy widdle mini-lop, isn't he the cutest widdle bunny in the OH CHRIST MY HAND! THE BASTARD CUT OFF MY HAND! OH JESUS PLEASE NO! NOOOOOOO!!!!!"), but he was used effectively most of the time. He was the deus ex machina, but he was also unreliable (the times he fought on behalf of Torg until it became clear that his self interest wasn't directly involved, so he wandered away -- for example). He was the unreasonable menace that put our heroes on the road. And so on and so forth.

And sometimes, there were actual, effective uses of him in plots and in characterization. His involvement in the Hereticorp/Kiki stuff. The amnesia story. (The amnesia story is among my favorite Sluggy stories, actually.) The yearly jousts with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Becoming the Easter Bunny. And of course, the Holiday Wars.

And the Holiday Wars was special in part because it was a culmination. We didn't just see Bun Bun hold steady -- he grew, he added power, he added menace. He gained an organization. He gained resources. He gained powers. He gained ambition. And in so doing he lost his way -- he wanted to free himself of his Holiday status, originally, but the sheer power involved corrupted in its own way. And he gained certain disadvantages hand in hand with certain advantages -- for example, the dual edged blade that was his Groundhog Shadow. And when he lost and was finally defeated, it was epic.

And, it was final. And Sluggy went on. The other characters developed and grew -- and exceeded themselves. We even got a fresh take on the Bun Bun character when Torg went to the Dimension of Lame -- we had gone so far into the characterization of the cute widdle bunny who's really a psychotic murder machine that having a Bun Bun who really was just a cute minilop actually became cliche-breaking.

And then... we had Oceans Unmoving.

The problems with Bun Bun in Oceans Unmoving are threefold, really. First off, there is Bun Bun's status when he came into view. We didn't see Bun Bun build up his crew and power base. We walked in and Bun Bun -- last seen broken down as far as he had ever gone, bereft of all his new power, and actually, fully and completely defeated -- is back in a position of power and authority. He's back to being essentially unstoppable -- the captain of a pirate ship, more competent than all others around him, essentially perfect at everything. It's like he was right back to having the Black Ops Elves around him. More to the point, we didn't get to see any of the buildup -- it was literally Bun Bun was defeated, and now he's king of the heap again.

Secondly, Bun Bun was back in the position of being the background conflict. Oceans Unmoving wasn't really a Bun Bun story, it was a story about the people around him, and largely dealt with them coping with Bun Bun's entry into their lives (and his essential inability to be stopped). The problem there was that there were a mass of new, unfamiliar characters to get to know... and little reason to do so. We had just come off of a significant, main cast heavy storyline, we had ended on a cliffhanger (Torg leaving, Zo� being pushed away, the cast losing their house), and now here we are dealing with... these... things instead.

(Note that a large amount of my earlier dissatisfaction with Something Puny This Way Comes was that the cliffhanger fizzled. Torg's lost his depression and angst offpanel. The major Zo� stuff seemed to just be... blah and served to make her seem like a jerk, which is unfair because I don't think she is. And so forth. So there was a sense of being cheated lumped on top of everything else.)

Finally... Bun Bun, as he's appearing now, completely relies on the original joke. He's back to being the cute widdle bunny who's psychotic and mind-bogglingly dangerous. Only... we've done that. We've overdone that. It's nowhere near enough. Even though he largely defined the clich� (Monty Python aside), it is in fact clich� now. It's stagnant. And as a result it feels more like Abrams was bowing to pressure to bring back Bun Bun than it was a natural reemergence of the character into the storyline.

Can Abrams reverse this? Can Abrams make Bun Bun exciting and fun and funny and all that again? Well, yeah. Of course he can. Abrams has made more dramatic turnarounds in the past. And I can think of one scenario off the top of my head that could add a tremendous amount of spice to the inevitable, dreaded Oceans Unmoving sequel.

See, at the very end of the Holiday Wars, we learned that Santa had thrown Bun Bun into the Void of Out-Time before. That raises the possibility that the Bun Bun who's the captain of the Bloody Bun is actually an incarnation of Bun Bun from before he was introduced into Sluggy Freelance -- that this is in fact a prequel. That would forgive the clich� elements, and add a tremendous amount of potential. After all, out-time by definition is timeless... who's to say the "tired and weakened rabbit" from the end of the Holiday Wars won't suddenly land on the deck... who's to say the post-Sluggy Bun Bun doesn't actually lead to the pre-Sluggy Bun Bun escaping from Out-Time and entering continuity. And then, given that he is weakened from the Holiday Wars, who's to say he won't have a fight on his hands to keep the various crewmembers from taking him out?

For that matter, who's to say he isn't working with the Noble Sir John Jacobs. Or might even be a prisoner of his?

Now that? That could be interesting. But I'm scared that things are exactly as they seem, that this is the post-Holiday Wars Bun Bun, and that he's just going to continue to be exactly what he's been forever.

And in either case, I do indeed dread Bun Bun right now, and hope that the good Bunless times continue in Sluggy for a long, long time to come.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at May 12, 2005 11:59 AM

Comments

Comment from: Merus posted at May 12, 2005 12:34 PM

So, what's wrong with Aylee?

Comment from: Johnny Assay posted at May 12, 2005 12:37 PM

You know, I was wondering about this possibility myself, if only because Abrams took the time to carefully explain what a "twin-fit" is...

Comment from: Merus posted at May 12, 2005 12:51 PM

Heyyyyyy.......

Reading the twin-fit comic back, it looks like the Websnark scenario would solve a bunch of Abrams' problems - consider if future Bunbun lands on the Bloody Bun in front of past Bunbun. The most likely scenario is that future Bunbun would be tortured by past Bunbun and left to die. Future Bunbun gets to be sympathetic and have some character development, which is something Bunbun hasn't really had, and past Bunbun gets to go too far and shock and horrify all those people who love Bunbun's callousness and predictability.

Comment from: Eric Burns posted at May 12, 2005 12:57 PM

Merus -- nothing's wrong with Aylee. That's my point. ;)

Comment from: John posted at May 12, 2005 2:25 PM

But...he's not on the top of the heap.

He's got command of a single ship crewed by incompetents. John Jacobs and his fleet are on top of the heap. Bun-bun is a little fish in that big pond, trying to escape.

I guess we could've seen Bun-bun land in the void, beat up the captain of the first ship to 'capture him' and rename it the Bloody Bun, but it wouldn't really take very long. My assumption was that the first mate--the one who hated Bun-bun so much--was the previous captain.

Comment from: Alexis Christoforides posted at May 12, 2005 9:23 PM

Okay, first of all, 'Alexis' is cool. 'Christoforides' translates directly to 'could you please spell that for me?' and invalid IDs. So, not cool.

Well, wow, I didn't expect such a complete answer, but I guess it's a good snark topic!

We both agree that 'Oceans Unmoving' isn't one of Sluggy's top storylines. And we both agree that jumping to it from the end of "Most Wonderful Time" was wrong and may have been one of the reasons the Sluggy-world's current unresolved conflicts fizzled, as you said (either because Abrams doesn't want to deal with them right now - "Puny" is just a break, after all - or because he doesn't want to deal with them at all - which would be a crying shame).

But I still can't come to hate Bun-bun for it. First of all, as John in the post above me said, he is NOT top of the heap. He's got a relatively small pirate ship, and the map-thingie, but he also has a large fleet on his tail and a rather humble purpose: to get the hell out of there.

Second of all, I think of of Bun-bun as the Cerebus of Sluggy Freelance (why yes, I *do* mention Cerebus in almost all of my stupid posts. That's because I'm reading through it right now, and because I know that you've read it). He's clever (but not TOO clever) he's violent, he's stubborn and he finds himself in positions of power by nature. And he never seems to be able to hold on to anything in the end, so it's all good.

I think we can be fairly certain that Bun-bun WILL return to Sluggy-world, one way or the other, but once again as a secondary character, watching Baywatch and kicking Torg's ass. And although I find your theory of the 'old' Bun-bun very clever and exciting, allow me to make it less enticing for you:

The gang returns to the house only to find that the cloners have been kicked out. By two Bun-buns.

Who proceed to kick Torg's ass and put on some Baywatch reruns.

Have a nice day :-)

Comment from: Alexis Christoforides posted at May 12, 2005 9:25 PM

(Sorry for the space between the lines. It looked different on preview, I swear!)

Comment from: Merus posted at May 13, 2005 2:00 AM

But... that's the problem with Bunbun: kicking someone's ass and watching Baywatch is all he does. It doesn't actually matter if Bunbun is at the top of the heap or not, because what will happen is Bunbun will kick everyone's ass until he has the opportunity to metaphorically watch Baywatch. Any story that Bunbun is in then becomes a vehicle for Bunbun to kick someone's ass and then go watch Baywatch.

Contrast Bunbun with, say, Torg in That Which Redeems. We all knew Torg would eventually win, because it's a story, but what's unknown is how Torg will win and how Torg will react.

Bunbun, on the other hand, doesn't react to anything outside of Baywatch being withdrawn, in which case he will kick someone's ass. No matter what the scenario, Bunbun's only response is to kick someone's ass. It's been seven years, and Bunbun still only ever kicks someone's ass and watches Baywatch. If Bunbun was in 'That Which Redeems' , what would have happened is Bunbun would have kicked someone's ass until he would have been able to get home, which would have destroyed the tension and the worth of that story (the Mosp scenario wouldn't have played out, at Mosp and Horribus would have been lying in a gutter somewhere.)

That's why the scenario with two Bunbuns is so delicious: Bunbun's only response to any situation is to kick someone's ass, and so when they meet, and past Bunbun realises that future Bunbun knows how to get out of timeless space, one Bunbun will be forced to lose, will be forced to take another role, to respond to a situation in any way other than 'kicking someone's ass'.

Have I emphasised yet how tiresome it is to have a 'character' that only ever does one thing?

Comment from: JediLora posted at May 13, 2005 6:06 AM

You know, it's funny. I was looking forward to Bun-Bun's return. But not necessarily for the return of the character, but more HOW Pete would bring him back. I didn't expect to see him again until Halloween, to be honest.

Oceans Unmoving kinda reminded me of an exercise I do when I hit major block-just do SOMETHING. I refer to it as "getting the milk." If I'm blocked on a story, I take the characters and write a short story about them going to the store for milk. It kinda fit that when Bun Bun went for milk, it involved pirates. Space pirates.

Comment from: Pooga posted at May 13, 2005 10:24 AM

"... that's the problem with Bunbun: kicking someone's ass and watching Baywatch is all he does."

Okay, now I so want to see Bun-bun use the line, "I'm here to watch Baywatch and kick ass... and Baywatch was cancelled."

Comment from: Robotech_Master posted at May 13, 2005 2:35 PM

Anybody read John Ringo's There Will Be Dragons? With Pete's permission, Ringo borrows/bases a character on Bun-Bun (who also appears in, and has a much larger role in, the first sequel, The Emerald Sea). Ringo's is an interesting take on the character, being a rabbitoid body housing an AI created by some berzerk fan of an unnamed 20th-21st century webcomic. It operates according to a set of principles that are hard-wired into its neural net, kind of like the laws of robotics...

Comment from: EB posted at May 23, 2006 12:49 PM

So I'm going to spend my first comment on Websnark, reading through the archives, to make a note of this:

"That raises the possibility that the Bun Bun who's the captain of the Bloody Bun is actually an incarnation of Bun Bun from before he was introduced into Sluggy Freelance -- that this is in fact a prequel."

I think it's interesting, that's exactly what we found out in the brave, bold world of 2006 and Oceans Unmoving II. Judging by the way Bun Bun's apparent return to power in Oceans Unmoving didn't quite work for you, I doubt that finding him in the Obsidian Teknokon (AKA Blacksoul) and able to amass a ship and crew right from the get-go probably didn't work so well either.

In this comic, Pete Abrams even mentions as Uncle Time that it would have been an interesting oppurtunity for Bun Bun to observe his past self, before he met Torg and the others: "Few people get to truly spend so much time with themselves. What a unique chance [to] grow as a person."

So it makes me wonder if Oceans Unmoving on the whole could have been made more accessible by switching around the events to start with future Bun Bun, the one we all know from the Holiday Wars arc and then focusing on his exploits from that point on. He barely remembers timeless space to begin with, so we could have been introduced to the different elements of timeless space as he encountered them first-hand.

It's all in hindsight now, of course. Just an afterthought from someone who ended up reading through the Sluggy archives months and months after this post was made.

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