- Broken Base: While it isn't uncommon to find Bluey fanworks that take a darker tone than that of the show, "Bandit's Belt" has become divisive among the fanbase because of its execution. One will either think it executes it well thanks to actually having interesting themes, ideas and the way the characters are developed, or they will hate it because it's way too grim, with them in particular disliking how everyone acts out-of-character, how bleak the setting can get and the poor writing that makes it hard to take seriously
- The Inverse Law of Fandom Levity: A fanfiction of the wholesome (if a bit sad sometimes) children's show Bluey that begins with Chilli getting a terminal illness and ends with most of the cast dead.
- Jerkass Woobie:
- Bandit — he has anger issues, is a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad and is thus mean to Mackenzie, he tries to belt Bluey and choke Wendy, and he cheated on Chilli. But he's also a grieving widower, feels he can't move on from Chilli, and tries as hard as he can to control these anger issues.
- Bingo — she has a crazy taste for blood, is mean to Brandy for "replacing" Chilli, and bites Socks and Judo with the intent of killing them in an irrational rage. But the whole reason she's this unhinged is because she had a Sanity Slippage after Chilli died, and her subsequent reputation as a "biter" leaves her ostracised from everyone except her own family and Dougie, to the point where she tries to kill herself, only stopping because she thinks that doing so would be allowing her haters to win. She also, on top of it all, feels responsible for the death of a teenage dog who died in a fight between the two of them, and was the result of adultery.
- Mort is a huge Adaptational Jerkass, hating his daughter Brandy and telling her You Should Have Died Instead of Katherine. But it's hard not to feel sad when he kills himself with a knife due to PTSD.
- Wendy — she punishes Judo too harshly, such as by hitting her with a ruler, and as a child, she was a Rich Bitch, treating Stripe like a slave and being arrogant. But the reason is that her parents stopped loving her when she was five and began abusing her and holding her to impossibly high standards.
- Squick:
- Chilli trying to force-feed Socks a piece of torn-off flesh from Trixie's crotch (that is also attached to broken glass).
- Brandy revealing that she tried to nonconsensually go down on Stripe once.
- Bandit having a Nocturnal Emission.
- The description of the teenage dog's dead body; she's described as having her organs visible.
- Socks walking on top of dead bodies killed by Trixie.
- Stoic Woobie: Shaun — the entire reason he seems "emotionless" is because he's shaken up by the deaths of his wife and his daughter Miranda, the latter of whom died when she was only nine months old. Then, he gets even worse when he's forced to put down the cancer patients, some of whom are children.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Brandy's meant to be seen as a loving friend, then girlfriend, and then wife to Bandit, and a nice mother figure to Bluey and Bingo, and we're meant to sympathise with her for her struggles having children and her previous loneliness and issues stemming from her mother's death. However, she tried to rape Stripe and slept with Bandit despite knowing he was married.
- Wheelchair Woobie: Trixie's pelvis is shattered by Chilli, leaving her unable to walk and afraid of Red Heelers. Later, she develops the psycho cancer and needs to be put down.
- The Woobie:
- Socks — When Chilli goes crazy, she tries to force-feed Socks a bit of Trixie's flesh, then tries to strangle her, rendering her unable to talk and afraid of Red Heelers even after three years, then Bingo bites her. Then, just when she starts to be able to talk again, she is killed by her own mother. Add to that that the worst thing she did was merely tear up a doll.
- Stripe — He's also one of the few characters never to do anything particularly bad, and he also has a bad time — first, his sister-in-law dies, and he develops a drinking problem, and his wife gets rendered disabled and his youngest daughter gets traumatised. Then, we see in flashbacks, that as a kid, his crush rejected him and treated him like a slave. Then in the present, his wife and youngest daughter die.
- Theresa — She was a "biter" as a teen, meaning that she spent high school with no friends except for her boyfriend Marcus, and the reason she bit was to save him from an aggressive bully. As adults, her sister died, leaving her in custody of her niece Hilda, and making her rely on antidepressants even now three years later, that make her fat, to her chagrin.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ymmv/BanditsBelt
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