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mickeys-malarkey · 2 years

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Thought Summary After Finally Finishing All the Bendy Books:

Nathan Arch is a MASSIVE CREEP and I hate him with the passion of a thousand suns!! 🤮🤮🤮 He sets off every single alarm bell I have with his ridiculously intense “gaslighting puppet master who was behind the curtain with his disgustingly horrific lifelong hobbies and terrifying mafia boss levels of power the whole dang time” vibes and I don't understand why everyone isn't freaking out about how much he makes their skin crawl. 😖🚨 I'm pretty sure he's even responsible for the entire Henry situation, from Mr. Animator leaving in the first place all the way to the concerning BATIM Chapter 5 newspaper easter egg?? 😱🤬

I'm relating to and sympathizing with Joey Drew wayyyyy more than I ever expected to, omigosh… 😭😭😭 Not only is he basically confirmed canonically ADHD(+?) but it's practically spelled out that he's a very-long-term abuse victim who can't even escape his abuser postmortem (sure makes me glad I got outta my situation relatively quickly, jeez Louise)!! 💔 I'm not sure why everyone just seems angrier at him than before, I'm over here rethinking his entire character and wanting to A: give him a hug, and B: drag him and his overpowering “my entire personality is a trauma response and life philosophy is a coping mechanism” vibes to therapy… He literally told a story about his ten-year-old self dissociating in shock that he tried to spin into a positive experience, I… What have you done to me, Ms. Kress?? 🥺

Dreams Come To Life and Bendy: The Lost Ones aren't just the stories of Buddy, Bill, Constance and Brant; they're peeks into Joey's tortured subconscious achieved by the ink's hive mind just in case we didn't catch the thinly-veiled “S.O.S.” signals in Crack-Up Comics and The Illusion Of Living and provide brief glimpses of proof that there was always someone else pulling not only his but everyone else's strings. I don't understand why people seem to think TLO is an unnecessary throwaway addition to the series because this is especially true of it; TLO seems to basically be an interpretation guide to TIOL?? 🤯🤯🤯

I really, really, really, really, REALLY hope the story is going where I think it is in BATDR because that would be so freaking unique and thought-provoking and cool and I could just die omigosh. 🤩🤩🤩 No, I'm not telling y'all my theory cause I don't wanna risk them freaking out and changing it to something more conventional or whatever. 🤐

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salpho · 2 months

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Everyone, unanimously, in the batim fandom seeing Norman Polk's (unofficial) design in Dreams Come To Life-

#ever since i saw that book cover I knew it was gonna be awful #batim #bendy and the ink machine #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #norman polk #dreams come to life #batim books #dctl

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doberart · 7 months

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Creator, you traitor.

A redraw of a scene from DCTL. So many great moments in this book, this one being a favorite of mine.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #batim dctl #joey drew #henry stein #buddy lewek #video games #cartoon #drawing #art #my art #comic #dobermutt

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berlingotesque · 2 months

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So. The graphic novel, huh.

The artstyle is pretty good, I can’t deny it. Joey’s design is beautiful, very dilf-coded. Buddy looks… young. VERY young. He’s supposed to be 17 in Dreams Come To Life but somehow manages to look 12 ? Plus, I don't know how to describe it, but he looks very...angry ? Upset ? I don't think his bubbly, awkward personality appears much in the graphic novel, with his gaze being very...severe. He just looks weird, like a 40 years old in a child body. And Norman… Deep breath. His design is…no. Absolutely NOT it. I didn’t expected much but I still managed to be disappointed. I’ll wait until we get to see Sammy and Tom (especially) before expressing what I think is wrong with these designs but… yeah. I’m so sorry, Norman.

#my poor son got the Henry Emily treatment from The Silver Eyes smh #ANYWAY #big shoutout to theopantz for sending me a message at 2 a.m. to tell me the devastating news #I’ll hate you forever and will never forgive you #buddy lewek #norman polk #joey drew #batim #bendy and the ink machine #dreams come to life #dctl graphic novel #I also took the liberty of adding body hair to Norman since they've mysteriously decided to make him look fifteen years younger #like why would you twinkify Norman Polk ?#why

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raven-anime · 2 months

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DCTL Graphic novel panel redraw

Giving what happenings in the fandom right now, i decide to bring more jds design at the table

Ahem the dev can't careless about representation ahem ahem

#bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival #batdr #batim #bendy dctl #bendy dreams come to life #bendy dctl graphic novel #dctl graphic novel #buddy lewek #daniel lewek #norman polk #the projectionist #art #artwork #artist #digital art #fanart #bendy #Raven_Anime_artwork

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reanimationstation · 4 months

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I FINALLY FINISHED THIS. I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS LINEUP SINCE NOVEMBER. BEHOLD.

i had so so much fun designing and drawing all of them i LOVE drawing the casts of these books

#victors art #bendy fade to black #batim ftb #rose sorenson #ollie sorenson #dot dctl #dot ftb #archie carter #evan ftb #gladys ftb #papa d #stephen papadimitriou #henry stein #(technically)#joey drew #bendy and the ink machine

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patiann345 · 1 month

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OH OK YEAH THEY'RE DOUBLING DOWN? YEAH?? THAT'S WHAT WE WANT??? MIKE "IDENTITIES DON'T MATTER" D. TO DOUBLE DOWN REALLY-

"Oh no see! This was Norman the whole time! He's always been white!" GREAT. WE HAVE AT MOST 2 BLACK CHARACTERS THEN COOL AWESOME RAD.

I'm so genuinely upset and exhausted over this. After the whole "Books ain't canon" tweet I assumed they'd just,, never actually address what people were most upset over (Norman having his melanin snatched) and that'd be that. But nope sure yeah, double down, erase one of 3 black characters.

I can't believe fucking MIKE is the one handling this publically too, who let this happen????

I just. aughhh I have so many thoughts on this, but they're best saved for later or just unsaid. I'm tired and I wanna go hide in a hole for a bit.

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #dreams come to life #bendy dctl #bendy graphic novel #bendy and the dark revival #batdr #boris and the dark survival #bendy lone wolf #bendy the cage #Mike mood being a dumbass on main more at 8 #Roddy Rambles

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sammylovesbendy · 2 months

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Klara and Allison have the same vibe 😭🏃

i have crazy news for you the entire department is like that

#btw adelaide is the creepy goth girl from dctl #batim #bendy and the ink machine #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #sammy lawrence #klara bausman #johnny batim #jack fain #adelaide #allison pendle #susie campbell

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ask-buddy-lewek · 1 year

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buddy!! what is your favorite food? and do you play any musical instruments? or, at least used to? and for bill: do you enjoy working with mr connor and what do you think of him?

I’d have to say my favorite food would be anything simple, we can’t really afford anything too crazy or exotic…but Ma does make good cabbage rolls, or Pirogies on occasion. As for if I’ve ever played an instrument…not really…and honestly, I’m more interested in creating art through drawing or sketching, not so much through music… -Buddy

I feel like I’ve answered this question quite a few times but my response hasn’t really changed. He’s a hard working man that values common sense and genuine effort, he’s a bit blunt or a bit rough around the edges but I don’t mind that. In fact, I appreciate someone who’s willing to be straight with you no matter who you are or where you come from, believe me…it’s actually incredibly refreshing. Compared to people always walking on eggshells around you or even worse, showing you fake kindness due to your wealth or social class.

I wish there were more people that weren’t so afraid of my status or wealth. If it’s not out of fear, it’s out of expectancy, wanting something in return for what they’ve shown me, knowing I have resources or at least connections to what they might want…

I’m just sick of it, and Mr. Connor is one of the few people in my life that’s genuinely treated me like a person, not some valuable decorated item on a pedestal… -Bill

#bendy and the ink machine #adrienne kress #batim dreams come to life #batim: dctl #buddy lewek #batim cosplay #dreams come to life #buddy lewek cosplay #daniel lewek #buddy lewek cosplay #bill chambers cosplay #batim the lost ones #bendy: the lost ones #William chambers #batim William chambers #bill chambers batim

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summerlyewe · 2 months

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It's so funny to watch how the batim community is outraged just because Norman is not black

#batim #batim art #bendy and the ink machine #bendy #norman polk #the projectionist #batim dctl #dctl #dctl graphic novel

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mickeys-malarkey · 1 year

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Pt. 3/3: My BATDR Timeline & Plot Twist Theories!

First, I think both BATIM and BATDR take place sometime between 1978 and 1991. I already suspected BATDR was happening in the ‘80s based on the fact that card readers – which have featured in many of the environment screenshots we've seen – were invented in 1979...

…and Audrey's clothes and hairstyle look very 1980s.

Then they released the images of Audrey's office, where her chair and desk lamps also look very 1980s, and the wallpaper and flooring looks pretty 1970s…

…and @inkdemonapologist pointed out that the type of bankruptcy we see documents for in Joey's apartment didn't exist until 1978…

…and I remembered that Joey's apartment also had a newspaper whose headline took place in the future— Princess Diana's 30th birthday which, as TetraBitGaming on YouTube pointed out, would be in 1991 since Princess Diana was born in 1961. She should be two years old if BATIM were really taking place in 1963!

Maybe, at the time, they didn't mean for these two to be clues, since they seem to have rolled the date backwards a bit from the newspaper one; but at this point it feels pretty clear when BATDR takes place, to me. And I'm even more certain than I already was, after finding out that this image from the JDS website…

…is titled “museum” (good work yoinking it, @halfusek /gen 👍🏻), that we know the ink dimension's new home: Nathan Arch Sr.'s private Joey Drew Studios museum that he mentioned he was curating in TIOL (meaning it's existed since around 1972).

“Over the years, I have collected every single piece of the studio memorabilia I could find to restore it to its former glory, to create, in a sense, a private museum that gleamed with the true vision of Joey Drew…” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 2

Also, besides the fact the museum image has clearly aged, here's some more evidence that at least a few years have probably passed since Bendy was purchased: it generally takes a fair bit more time (years!!) to make movies/documentaries, as Archgate Pictures seems to have made about Joey, than it does to make shorts.

As for BATIM, I think that time has been moving as normal outside of the loop, we were just seeing a repeat of that significant day in 1963; Henry and Joey have been trapped in the ink dimension for somewhere between twenty and thirty years, and the bankruptcy paperwork and Princess Diana newspaper were pieces of the real world leaking into the memory. This explains how there seems to be evidence of Audrey in BATIM and how BATDR is still supposedly neither sequel nor prequel to BATIM despite all the evidence that it takes place long after 1963! They're happening at the same time!! I wonder if Audrey is the daughter of the little girl we hear at the end of BATIM? So, Henry's (great-)granddaughter or Joey's (great-)great-niece?

Now, onto my big theory: the plot twist.

If they handle it right, it would be really, really cool if “break the cycle” really doesn't just mean “end the time loop” but also “break the cycle of abuse/trauma” and a lot of the huge cast of not-so-innocent characters wind up with the potential to get redemption arcs. I have an idea of exactly how they might be planning on even providing the opportunity for Joey.

Victor McKnight commented this on his Artistic Hallowing music video and pinned it:

Those last two sentences. “Make sure you're watching every second! You don't want to miss any vital information. 😉” Does that not sound to anyone else like he's got insider information? Now, I want y'all to watch these music videos that either Victor himself or his brother Noah were suspiciously involved in all of (and one of which is supposedly a BATDS song but for some reason involves Audrey) and tell me if you notice any patterns.

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This one seems to be a duet between Sammy and the Ink Demon, both singing to Audrey. Sammy mostly sings in the default sepiatone, asking us things like “Can you see me? Can you feel me?” (that feels so… sad… and desperate…) and telling us things like “make sense of the consequence we witnessed on that day” (Excuse me, you're telling me that there was a consequence for something on a specific, significant day that we witnessed?? 👀) The demon, on the other hand, mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, and seems to just be playing a stereotypical villain roll until you notice “be forced to believe what I see” (why would we even give a crap about what you're seeing /srs? How the actual heck would we see what you're seeing /gen? You don't even have eyeballs, bro /j) and “be damned in this evil received” (how do you receive evil that damns you? Maybe by being abused and becoming an abuser in response?).

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Two apparently-separate characters singing with the same voice but very different tones and outlooks on the situation, still both singing to Audrey, in this one. One mostly sings in the default sepiatone, again, at first seeming more hopeful, helpful, and friendly until you start noticing ominous comments like “you've made mistakes, accept the change. You will be punished too” (*incoherent noises* 🚨🚨) and “welcome to my dream . . . you still think you are safe in my dream.” The other mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, again, and seems much more aggressive and seductive until you start noticing comments like “take up your weapons, just leave my friends be” (why is this stereotypically evil-seeming character both telling us to take up weapons, not just letting us have them, and asking us to leave his friends alone with them?).

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More hints that the demon who will rise and presumably is most important to the story is linked to grayscale, in this one.

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And, in this one, Sammy's asking if the grayscale-linked demon is the one who will set him free (as he claims to be in the first two videos).

Across all four of these first videos, there seems to be an overall “things change when we switch from the default sepiatone to grayscale” and “grayscale is dangerous and seems hopeless but it's important and linked to truth and freedom” theme…

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…You're telling me that Sammy and his followers' past (BATIM?) selves were worshipping an imposter demon…? And the truth will be revealed in BATDR…?

Hum, hum, hum… fascinating. I'd noticed the sepiatone vs. grayscale split and imposter vs. true savior thing long before I read the books; for the longest time, I thought it meant we would be dealing with a Henry-Bendy and a Joey-Bendy, as I've been seeing people theorizing. But then I read TIOL, and discovered what I think is evidence that this info is indeed canon and was not left on the cutting room floor while BATDR was in development limbo.

Nathan makes a very strange note on Joey's story about the Sparkle Unicorn speakeasy…

“…I remember this night well. Though I remember it being at the Bee Room, gold and black, not silver as the main design aesthetic. Doesn't really make much of a difference though, I suppose.” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 44 (emphasis added)

Nathan remembers that night in sepiatone, Joey remembers it in grayscale.

Now, I've seen all kinds of theories all over about how Wilson actually “banished/killed the ink demon…” “Wilson took advantage of some sort of blip in Bendy's existence that happened when Joey died,” “Wilson got rid of him by purifying him and turning him into Dapper Bendy,” “Wilson got rid of him by fusing him with either Henry or Joey,” “Wilson got rid of him by trapping him in Henry's loop,” “he didn't, Wilson's just another liar manipulating everyone,” etc…

What if we're looking at this from the wrong angle? What if the point is that, whatever happened, neither of the BATDR Bendys is the original soulless monster we see in BATIM and the books? What if, whether they share a body or are separate, there are two human souls involved here? What if one of those souls is the “new evil” in the ink dimension, not Wilson, who may have been meddling in ink dimension affairs since 1963?

Going back to the time frame I propose BATDR is happening in… Joey was born in 1901, which means that if Nathan was 18 or 19 when Joey was just turning 16, then he was born in 1899 or 1898. So, in 1978, Nathan would've been 79 or 80, and in 1991 he would've been 92 or 93. Especially considering the clues that point towards Nathan having been a smoker, it wouldn't surprise me if he's straight-up already dead in BATDR. Mayhaps for 211 days? During Loop 414…? Could this be why the BATIM loop is different, with Henry apparently not remembering anything that previous versions of himself could? The now-previous owner of their prison has died of old age and/or lung cancer? And could that be why the JDS museum has fallen into bankruptcy? Has Nathan Jr. taken over and isn't as ruthless a businessman as his father?

Itsjustjord on YouTube pointed this out in his trailer reaction, which when he said it set my Clue Radar off so that I went to the trailer again to get a closer look. And… well… *clears throat*

…Do y'all see this weird effect over Dapper Bendy? Compared to every other character we see in the trailer as well as the environment around him, does it not look as if we're seeing him, specifically, through some sort of cartoony filter? Maybe it'll only be in circumstances like this (far away in weird lighting) that the edges of the illusion will fray in-game, based on the other teaser image we have of him, but it definitely looks off to me.

Especially with what I now suspect Allison and Susie's situations were in relation to Nathan, I think that the ink creatures’ perfection vs. imperfection has nothing to do with how pure/good vs. impure/evil their hearts are as we've been lead to believe/is the conventional surface-level reading, but instead how intact vs. broken their hearts are. I think that the more horrific the ink being's appearance, the more the soul inside was abused while it was alive. Allison isn't a perfect Alice because she's a better person, it's because she obeyed Nathan and wasn't made to suffer as severely as Susie, who Nathan chose to be his next Isabel. So, why is one new Bendy (apparently created after Joey lost everything, I suspect even being made to watch his Shoulder Angel's murder before being murdered himself) so much scarier than the original (created before Joey lost everything) and the other so goshdarn perfect, proportions and all?

Maybe the banning of everything related to Sammy's demon cult and Henry under Wilson's rule has to do with his decades-old mission to keep the Creators from joining forces, as well as everyone including himself feeling like they're finally free from The Great Puppet Master?

I love Dapper Bendy's design as much as everyone else!! He's positively adorable, and it would also be a nice outcome if the baby boy is exactly what he seems and just a precious lil friend to love forever; but I theorize that Dapper Bendy is the perfectly sane, untraumatized, and truly evil one, that (assuming we actually get choices in BATDR, unlike in BATIM) his route, no matter how things seem in the moment, is the wrong one, that he's Nathan. And I think Freaky Teeth Bendy (that's been my nickname for him since we first saw him and I'm sticking to it lolol) is the damaged as heck but able to be saved one, that his route is the correct one, that he's Joey. I also think that we won't get to see either demon for what they really are – won't be able to get the True, Broken Cycle, “Joey's Redeemed & Nathan Faces Justice” Ending – unless we somehow unlock Grayscale Mode like we could in BATIM and gain the ability to see Joey's truth. Until then, we'll be seeing the demons the way Nathan wants us to see them. Through Nathan's tainted, gaslighting, sepiatone filter.

If I'm right, the fact that they did choose these color palettes is so perfectly poetic~! Sepiatone is what happens when black-and-white images have been chemically altered for preservation purposes; Nathan's altered our perception of himself, Joey, and all the events surrounding them, and his version of events is much more resilient. Meanwhile, Joey's would be more pure and unaltered but easily destroyed— including by himself, with his Illusion of Living coping mechanism… The only thing that could make it more perfect is if not only do we get to see Henry in BATDR, but when we do he's an angelic toon… *Vibrates with excitement*

Please, please, please, JDS, let me be right about where you're going with this!! Cause this would genuinely be so freaking cool…!! 🙏🏻 I hope that we eventually get to “rejoice with our founders,” as Artistic Hallowing says, when they're reunited.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, rofl. Congratulations on making it through the ramblings of a hyped AuDHD fangirl (though, I guess we already knew you were capable, if you've read TIOL. I could do a whole nother rant on evidence that Joey's basically confirmed canonically ADHD(+?), my freaking gosh). 😝

Read the Rest of the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Unexpected Part Four

BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

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dynafire · 7 months

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wow, my last post which had links to the bendy novels blew up!!!! would be an even BIGGER SHAME if people began going to this mediafire folder that absolutely doesn't have the first four novels as pdfs.....seriously, don't do it guys!!!! and definitely don't spread this link around!