ÆONBOUND is an adventure on mspfa.com written by @vennnovember. You can read it here.
SPOILER NOTICE: While this review is not spoiler-heavy, it does include a fair amount of quotes and mentions of events from the adventure. I personally don't think these are the kind of spoilers that could totally ruin your experience, but if you are especially sensitive to spoilers, maybe don't read this.
Ahh, sburbventures. The website's so full to the brim with them that if you take any random word and glue on a "-stuck", "-bound" or "-swap" at the end, you’ll get the title of a sburbventure that already exists somewhere on mspfa.com. Truly, the massive sprawl of the sburbian jungle on mspfa’s home page is glorious to behold. However, while I do respect this subgenre, its sheer abundance does mean that a sburbventure has to do more than just follow the basic recipe in order to really stand out to me.
So why is it, then, that I keep coming back to read more ÆONBOUND every time it updates? How is it making me care ? Indeed, the thing that makes it special is not immediately obvious. Eventually, though, on my reread of the whole adventure, I finally realized that its secret ingredients are vulnerability, emotional tenderness and heart . Interestingly, the emotions presented by this story are rarely theatrical and show-stopping: instead they are subtle, realistic, and gently ever present in all the characters' thoughts and actions.
Let's dig into how the adventure makes me care.
The Characters Truly Care For Each Other
“You completely ruined your friendship with Andy and you're going to die anyway. Why can't anything EVER go your way?” - page 159
What happens when you suddenly throw world-ending meteors at a group of teens, and playing a cooperative video game is their only way out ?
Homestuck’s answer to that question is “hilarious antics ensue”, but ÆONBOUND's answer is “the teens have all got such different reactions to the situation that it immediately plunges them into conflict”.
“different reactions” is an understatement :
- Andy is in denial, on the verge of a panic attack , WHILE
- Arlo is in an action-oriented flurry, frustrated at anything that gets in his way, WHILE
-Remy is ashamedly stumbling through the ordeal of trying to get his friends to face the truth , WHILE
- Beck is sternly questioning the likelihood of there even being a “prophetic world ending video game” for almost the the entire time.
As you can see, things are on fire and the friends are NOT on the same page. It makes them constantly butt heads.
The even more interesting thing, though , is the way they frantically try to heal the wounds they cause each other, just as often.
This clumsy affection is what really takes the interpersonal dynamics to another level - all their badly timed pleas for forgiveness , agonizing regrets over the interactions that go poorly, and, of course, that one unforgettable hug of pure sympathy . Even the more “harsh ” characters have their inner affections and insecurities quickly unraveled for the audience to see.
All the characters’ behavior towards each other makes one thing abundantly clear : despite everything, these friends don’t want to lose what they have with each other.
It should be obvious by now that the adventure features some very solid characterization. We learn about the cast at a pace that is not overwhelming but still brisk, which means you can get a good initial grasp of most of them within just about an hour or two of reading. The characters have significantly different home lives and are all tangibly affected by it. Indeed, it’s impressive that the teens already feel very distinct from each other - not only in life experiences , but in behavior as well.
Here’s the mechanisms ÆONBOUND uses to pull that off.
Narration That Cuts Deep Into What Haunts The Character
"To you, he's special, one of a kind. To him, you're just another person."
- page 147
The story's narrational text is PHENOMENAL at weaving in and out of the characters' unspoken baggage. Right when you think you're just being told a funny anecdote about a random object in the room, the text hits you with a painful musing about the way that character sees themself.
The Narration's Charming Humor is Very Character-Flavored
"You barely ever SEE other people, let alone NEED TO SHOOT THEM." - page 142
The narration has its fair share of humorous quips - the kind that tell us alot about the characters' opinions on their own lives. I respect comedy in storytelling, especially when it serves the purpose of understanding a character better.
Fascinatingly, sometimes the narration even switches up to provide teasing external commentary on the character's behavior, instead of staying just firmly glued to expressing the character's perspective. I love this. Here's an example of what I mean:
"Needless to say, you discard this foolish thought as soon as it — Oh you actually did it. Has anyone ever told you you're really impressionable? Like, worryingly so?" - page 29
"uhh this is where my room is i was kinda excited to show you but on the way i realized its dumb and boring so we dont have to go in if you dont want"- poor sweet Remy embarrassed by his privilege, page 71
One of my favorite things about MSPFA's adventures is the distinctness of spoken character voices that often come with them, and ÆONBOUND is no exception. Though its chatlogs don't often feature the hilariously strange tangents that Homestuck's did, the conversations we see here are still fantastic at showcasing the spectrum of different personalities and relationships in the friend group. Andy and Beck, for example, seem to regard each other as their intimate safe space, despite them both having such different attitudes. Beck and Arlo, on the other hand, have a way of amplifying each other's brutally honest disposition when they interact - they do care for each other, but in a tougher way. On the other hand, Remy and Andy seem to be comfortable exchanging a more gentle kind of sympathy with each other.
Once again, the comic is amazing at using crisis to highlight the strengths of the characters' relationships.
This whole review/analysis thing may have mainly focused on the story's approach to characters, but there's so much other stuff I loved in the adventure that I could have talked about as well. Here's a quick catch-all bucket of the things I missed:
-I love the way the story uses "being in denial of a doomed prophecy" to create tension.
-I also love that, despite the oncoming disaster, the story still takes its time to play out more gentle, tender and fun moments, like Remy trying to convince Andy to fly for the first time.
-Remy's dream journal entries were both endearing and heartbreaking, and is one of my favorite parts of the story so far. I'm also very intrigued by his apprenticeship under a mysterious prospitan magician.
-Another one of my favorite moments was the reveal of Beck's scrap book, in which we learnt who the object of her affections is, and all her complicated feelings about it.
-The beginnings of some intriguing worldbuilding are not lost on me. Why is this story specifically set in 2020? How and why did Arlo get access to Sburb code? What's going on with the different colors of the prospit rooms??
-The surrealness of the humor truly cracks me up sometimes. I'm talking about stuff like the sandwich loading screens, the GASTROINTESTINALDEX, the "mission complete" screen for Beck chasing down her package offscreen... good stuff.
- The visual art style is immediately appealing and may have been the first thing about the adventure that had my attention. The panel art is a modern, fresh remix of the classic homestuck look and I really like it. The characters have more expressive faces than the traditional style does, which I really enjoy.
I was already quite fond of the webcomic before writing this, but after these few days of thorough analyzing, I have come to truly love it. I have a new level of appreciation for the amount of thought that's gone into crafting the adventure so far, and high hopes for where it will continue next.
Fantastic work, @vennnovember ! I hope that the emotions I found in the story resonate with the ones that you were trying to convey.
Thank you for reading!
Hey there. If you read this whole thing, and like the way I put words on paper, then you might like my mspfa adventure. Check out my webcomic Starlit Feather here.
-- Lekha Hara
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