#at the end of the day I would say I like both BATIM and BATDR equally
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You will acept your fate...
Before the end..
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Without much creativity to come up with a good line/phrase. I had to improvise.
It's been exactly 1 year since Bendy and the Dark Revival released...jeez. Already? I'm telling you, time doesn't make sense anymore, everything is going slower and faster at the same time. It's crazy!
I was in the middle of drawing something more specific for the anniversary but…I didn't finish it lol. Like always! But I have this prompt that I finished a few days ago and that I was hoping to post along with 2 more drawings. But I think today is a more ideal day to post this.
So as a anniversary present I give you guys…Angst™. With the boys. Very ideal.
I remember having another idea for this prompt but the current idea popped into my head so I decided to abandon the previous one. I found it more interesting. A "What-if" idea I had at the time the game launched partially inspired by something specific I thought about these two. Based so much on what I've seen and read about these ink creatures, and on the general idea of "2 minds in one".
I confess that in the end I started to question whether this is the way I see the relationship between these 2 and all this business of "two in one package" that they have. And I still don't know if this is really my vision. I just had a drawing idea that I thought was cool and I just stuck with it until the end. I didn't have many second thoughts until I got to the finish line.
Changing the subject: The anniversary.
I can't believe it's been 1 year since this game came out. The time flies! Good to know this finally released after 3 years.
I don't think I've ever talked abouy my thought on the game before,or at least,not the game as a whole. I wanted to leave this for the specific anniversary drawing, but hey. Why not here?
In short: I really liked it! I've been waiting for this game for a good while so when we finally got that final trailer last year, you could say I was pretty excited for the next 2 weeks until release. I don't know if I knew exactly what to expect from this game, and there's always that fear that I won't end up liking what I play when it released. But I really liked it! Loved it, I would say. I had a lot of fun and I believe I can say that, in general, I had a pretty positive experience with it.
Of course, I have my own grievances and complaints about some things in the game (some probably talked about here on Tumblr and others not) that I would like to see improved for next game,The Cage. But even with these complaints in mind, I wouldn't say that it took away my enjoyment of this game. Especially considering that the positive points (or at least what I consider positive in my opinion) for me, prevail over the negative ones.
At the end? Yeah, I really liked Bendy and the Dark Revival. Happy to see it finally released and be able to play it. I personally believe that we are in a good direction when it comes to the games, and I can't wait to see what the future holds.
Happy 1 year anniversary BATDR! And happy birthday to both Little Guy and Big Guy (Little Bendy and the new Ink Demon,respectively).
Love you both.
#Sorry for the length of this post; I just had a lot to say lmao#batdr#bendy and the dark revival#batim#bendy and the ink machine#dapper bendy#cartoon bendy#the ink demon#crookedsmileart#at the end of the day I would say I like both BATIM and BATDR equally#And of course I keep Ink Machine close to my heart; without a doubt#Game changed me#but there's something about Dark Revival that I really love; you know?#Which makes me; on the other hand; say that I like DR more than IM#something that after 1 year I don't know would it be a hot or cold take here on this site lmao#but yeah#big fan of these games#looking foward for The Cage
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The people at the head of Mob Games apparently had a lot of history with Bendy, making a lot of fan animations for it. With that in mind, do you think Poppy Playtime takes a bit too much inspiration from Bendy and the Ink Machine at times, even to the point of being a rip off?
[computer voice] ALERT! SOMEONE ASKED A DOLL FAN IF THEY THINK SOMETHING IS A RIP OFF. ALERT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL-
Ahem. As someone who's a doll enjoyer (Monster High my BELOVED!), I must say that calling anything a rip off is strange, to say the least. I remember back in the day when Bratz and Monster High fans were at each other's throats thanks to MGA releasing Bratzillas, aka the witch/horror-themed line for Bratz in order to compete against Monster High. And at the time I did call it a rip-off, I won't lie, I was and still am a MH girlie, however, taking a look at it again, they were two extremely different things that used the same fundamentals, aka horror, fashion and a themed school, to explore different things.
I do believe Mob (the company) did take inspiration from BATIM in order to make Poppy Playtime, because BATIM made money and they, too, wanted money. However, calling PPT a BATIM rip-off doesn't work at all!
Asides from the two games having wildly different art styles and mechanics (I. Will say that PPT's grabpack is more interesting than anything BATIM pulled off gameplay-wise, I'm sorry I know BATDR improved everything but that doesn't count because it came post-PPT), the way they tackle their stories is also different. They both suffer from "let's hide important shit away for the theorist community to find and give us free advertisement!", but BATIM is fundamentally about a neverending cycle that NEEDS to end or be improved (which is achieved in the sequel!), the pain said cycle is bringing to everyone, and the corruption of childhood. PPT is also about the corruption of childhood, but that's a theme present since FNaF, but it puts a heavier emphasis on the horrors these abandoned CHILDREN had to be put through, and how it affected their development and entire life. Chapter 2 had a bit of this with Mommy Long Legs, her anger outbursts and how Playtime forced her to watch people she cared about be taken away from her, and chapter 3 had it with Catnap, how the Prototype affected him, and how the HoJ affected everyone inside Playtime.
BATIM and PPT's themes are extremely different, just like its mechanics, and all the similarities they shared are things commonly found in mascot horror as a whole: The loss and corruption of childhood, corporate greed, marketable monsters, constant releases either in the form of new games on the shorter end of chapters for the same game in order to keep public attention, and emphasis on theories in order to keep the fandom going. I don't think it's fair calling PPT a rip-off, because then we would need to call BATIM a FNaF rip-off as well.
Anyways. Isn't it funny how both BATIM and PPT represented the corruption of the game companies that made them-
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BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision Pt. 3/4: All this brings me back to Henry and Allison’s apparently-retconned stories.
Funny how the Memory of Joey tells us this story like a fairytale told to a child, isn’t it?
The Memory of Joey: Once upon a time, Audrey, there was a bitter old man. Who had lost just about everything.
Audrey: Joey.
The Memory of Joey: Right. The real Joey Drew. He blamed everyone but himself for his mistakes, but mostly he blamed his old business partner for abandoning their work, years and years ago. A man by the name of Henry Stein. A great artist and a good friend. In his anger, Joey used an evil machine to create another world. A world made of paper and ink, where he'd torment his own version of Henry forevermore. But one day, a miracle happened. An angel came into Joey's life. A young woman by the name of Allison Pendle. She didn't visit often, but when she did, she saw something good in Joey that no one else could. Including himself. Through their friendship, he began to see the world with better eyes. So one day, in his cartoon cycle of hatred, he gave Henry an angel of his own. To guide him when things were most dark. To always provide hope…
I’m certain that (aside from the green part) this is a fabrication created by Nathan Sr. and his modification of both the Ink Dimension and the memories of the real world contained in the loop in order to keep Bendy/Real Joey trapped and at odds with not just Henry (as I'd originally theorized), but also Allison beyond the grave (while also allowing them to stay friends although they're both trapped as well just to further taunt Joey). First of all, Allison’s surname was already Connor in her BATIM letter, remember? Doesn’t that mean she can’t have been called “Allison Pendle” when she met Joey, if the Memory of Joey’s story were true?! He’s claiming Allison and Joey met after Henry started going through his loops in 1963, remember (he’s literally saying that every scrap of information we have on her is imaginary just with this one claim, because this would mean that the invitation to her and Tom’s wedding in 1952 in The Employee Handbook [BATIM guidebook], where Allison herself wrote that Joey was the reason they met, was fake… Need I remind everyone that theMeatly, himself, literally told us multiple times, including the day after the trailer dropped, that all of BATIM’s established lore is still 100% canon in BATDR)?!?!
Second of all, I noticed long ago that there looked to be about 12-23 hatch marks (depending on if some of those are actually hatch marks or just meaningless scribbles) in Henry’s prison cell in Allison and Tom’s hideout, like the ones in the beginning hallway, and theorized that this meant Henry had been counting not just how many times he’d gone through the whole cycle, but also how many times specific endings had happened. If I’m right, that would mean that about 12-23 of those 414 loops Henry went through before BATIM ended with him in Allison and Tom’s hideout…
…which means that, even if all the other messages on this particular wall were written by Joey, Audrey, and Wilson, Allison’s addition was most definitely not what made Loop 414 different, as the Memory of Joey seems to be implying. I’ll talk about my new theory on what did make Loop 414 different in a bit.
Now, if that part of the Memory of Joey’s story is untrue, then what if the Henry we meet in Wilson’s prison for Cyclebreakers is not a copy created to be tortured, he’s just been gaslit into believing he must be by the fact he’s survived for years without eating in his new ink body? So much so that he believes that maybe he should just give up on holding onto his human life and memories (translation: he's leaning on Joey's Illusion of Living coping mechanism, trying to create a reality that hurts less. Which, as I've said before, Nathan Sr. loves because it makes him easier to control)?
Henry: What's your name?
Audrey: Audrey. What's yours?
Henry: Honestly, I've almost forgotten. My name is Henry.
Audrey: Have you been a prisoner long?
Henry: When the Keepers think you're a threat to their plans, they lock you away, forever. Still, it's given me time to think. Things like: if you haven't eaten in years, you might not be human.
The Memory of Joey literally confessed that he doesn’t actually know if the Ink Dimension was created for revenge or regret, remember? So, why is he now suddenly claiming that he knows for sure that it was specifically created for this particular brand of substitutionary revenge?? Sure sounds like Nathan Sr.'s manipulative self-contradiction, again, doesn't it? I also find it extremely suspicious how this headline that seems to be confirming the retcon of Henry’s death…
…not only sounds nothing like a headline you would read in real life (except maybe in a trash tabloid or something, which this might be judging by some of the other headlines and would mean we shouldn't be trusting it to have done any fact checking rofl) – it sounds like something that a player (maybe one of JDS’s real-life beta testers, even) said during their playthrough, after hearing the Memory of Joey’s “retconning” story – but also… isn’t even properly capitalized or in any of the same fonts as the other headlines on this paper nor on the other we have! Especially considering the fact that one of these headlines is talking about the angry moon Easter egg you can spot in Lost Harbor, I don’t think this is actually a headline confirming that Henry’s not dead in the real world; I think it’s the observer’s (be that Audrey's or those of any other random ink creature who’s run into the Memory of Joey and/or “Fake Henry”) thoughts leaking into the wider reality of the Ink Dimension.
Oh, by the way, we do have evidence that either Henry or at least one of the other potential message writers, at one point, seemed to know our dear Mr. Animator was dead in the real world, also found in his cell in Allison and Tom’s hideout, if anyone who knew forgot.
I highly doubt it was referring to the message about Allison leaving him for dead, considering how he was awakened by her sounds of panic and would have no reason to still be in bed when Bendy arrived, even if not knowing about the secret toilet meant he didn’t escape Bendy the first time he experienced an Allison and Tom Loop. Funny that this is also where we see the evidence of Audrey existing in BATIM, by the way; hand with a swirl saying “follow me” and another swirl labelled “trust her,” as SuperHorrorBro on YouTube pointed out? Hm…
Let’s go back to her. It does seem we can trust parts of what the Memory of Joey says, like how we were able to glean clues as to what was going on behind the curtain through TIOL despite both the hoops that Joey had to jump through to get Nathan Sr.'s permission to publish in the first place and Nathan Sr.'s postmortem edits; you just gotta pay attention to the patterns in the broader picture. We do know, for example, from clues in BATIM, TIOL, and TLO, that whether or not he wanted anything to do with romance and having kids was a huge internal struggle for Joey that culminated in regret at missing the chance; which tells me that, yes, Joey created Audrey to be the daughter he could never have (speaking of which… based on the Keepers' “surgical invasions” comment, I wonder if Nathan Sr. might've… *clears throat* had someone forcibly sterilize Joey… ☹️). However, unlike many fans (including MatPat of Game Theory on YouTube, I saw this morning), I think Audrey has a completely new soul; Joey didn't sacrifice Henry's daughter or Tessa Arch or anything like that. Lemme explain.
Y’know how Audrey talks and behaves a lot like Henry (planning on drawing her animations all night long and actually doing so in the secret ending you unlock if you don’t make her move at the very beginning of the game, saying a lot of the same lines as him, etc.) and there’s an Easter egg where you can spot a ghost train on Platform 77 at 4:14am or 4:14pm (the same number as the loop that was different, Henry’s identifier in the Cyclebreaker prison, in the corner of the so-called “death of Henry retconning newspaper,” and the dates marked on so many lore drops… Anyone remember Nathan Sr. saying the last he heard from Joey, when he sounded so happy, was during April? I wonder if Audrey’s “birthday,” when Joey tried to cut ties with Nathan Sr. and disappear off his radar for good, was April 14… and mayhaps Nathan Sr. had the announcement of his buying the Bendy IP published and caused Wilson to discover the Ink Machine on April 14th as a way to poetically rub it all in Joey's face and dance on his grave)? There’s also another place that we can spot a ghost: when you make Audrey strike a pose in front of the mirror in her office too many times, like the goshdarned peacock that Joey was.
There are Lost One memos that say not only that ghosts are what happen when souls randomly, accidentally slip out of the Inkwell, but also that new souls can be created by combining old ones inside the Ink Machine…
“We don’t live forever. When we’re killed or finally pulled apart, our diseased souls return to the ink to be reborn. An unending cycle of torment.
But sometimes, something even worse can happen. A soul can slip from the ink completely. It gets caught between worlds, unable to die or return. They wail in the night. Drifting in shadow. The Phantoms of the Machine. The ghosts.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Ghosts” memo (emphasis added)
“We live in the ruins of the past. Forever lost in the shadows of those who came before us. Blended souls to make something new. Birthed from a machine into a world we cannot own.
But the Ink Demon lives in all of us. A voice that calls us to a purpose. We know it’s a lie, but his intoxicating pull is strong. He is calling. Always calling. Can you not hear him?” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Who We Are” memo (emphasis added)
What if Audrey’s soul is a combination of pieces of Henry and Joey’s souls, so she’s Henry and Joey’s daughter, but none of the three of them realize it?? As far as Joey knows, she's only his own kid (because he knows with 100% certainty that he put a piece of his own soul inside of her), but the Arch family figured out what changed for Joey to finally succeed at creating life (by the way, I saw someone in some YouTube comment section point out a long time ago that, if you translate “414” to the alphabet, it spells “dad…” Wowzah, the symbolism)???
“I believe there’s something special in all of us. With true inner strength, you can conquer even your biggest challenges. You just have to believe in yourself and remain honest, motivated, and above all, who you really are.
Okay, let’s stop it right there. I can only do so many takes of this trash a day. And tell the guys in writing I want more use of the word ‘dreaming’ in every message. Keep railing on that, get it? Dreaming! Dreaming! Dreaming! People just eat up that kind of slop. Hmm, what? It’s still on? Well, turn it off, damn it!” ~ Joey Drew, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 4 (emphasis added)
The Memory of Joey: Well, geez! You haven't gotten far!
Audrey: Don't do that! Wait… how… how did you get in here?
The Memory of Joey: Oh, I have my ways. So, tell me. How goes the journey?
Audrey: Slow, but I'll get through.
The Memory of Joey: Ah! I see you have your father's never quit, go-getter spirit.
Audrey: Oh, now you knew my father. Well, news flash! I didn't even know my father… or my mother. Or anyone else in my family.
The Memory of Joey: I see then. You've chosen to forget the past. I can understand that.
Audrey: What are you talking about?
The Memory of Joey: Look, I don't think you're ready for this, *pats her hand* but hang on to your lunch money. There's something I want to show you. *Starts using his teleportation powers*
Audrey: Wait. What are you doing?
The Memory of Joey: *Teleports her and himself to BATIM Chapter 1*
Henry's Voice (echoing like it's supposed to be a memory): Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see.
. . .
The Memory of Joey: …It was then, Joey decided to make something new. Something he had always wanted, but he could never have: a family. But not a cartoon one. Something real. And after many, many tries, he created something that made him happier than he ever could have imagined: a wonderful, loving daughter. Bright and kind. Almost human. He created you, Audrey.
Audrey: What? Are you crazy?
The Memory of Joey: Listen, I know it's a lot—
Audrey: —Who do you think you are? I wasn't born from some… machine! I'm flesh and blood. I'm not some kind of ink monster.
The Memory of Joey: Just because we're born of darkness, doesn't mean we belong to it. We're always free to choose. To believe what we want to believe.
Audrey: Take me back! Right now! I'm not listening to any more of your lies!
The Memory of Joey: Remember who you are, Audrey. *Tries to take her hand again*
Audrey: *Yanks her hand away* Leave me alone!
The Memory of Joey: *Sighs and sends her back to the Downside Hotel*
“This may be my last chance to record a message, I’m pretty sure he saw me talking into this thing, He probably won’t let me keep it. Not much left to say except… Linda, I miss you and I love you so much. Coming back to this old place well… it kind of reminds me of how much I’ve gained. I feel like there are so many questions that need answering, so many things that don’t make any sense. If anyone hears this, if you make it out, don’t ever return, because the Ink Demon will find you.” ~ Henry Stein, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 teaser audio log #3 (emphasis added)
Audrey: Why would you be a threat to them?
Henry: I'm what they call a “Cyclebreaker.” Once upon a time, I knew how to start the cycle over. And when that happens, everything begins again. Completely new. Obviously, Wilson and the Keepers don't want that to happen.
Audrey: How did you do it?
Henry: Reset the cycle? It turns out the Ink Demon himself is the key. This world is his, but even he must obey its rules. For now at least. If you can get him to look at something very specific, it will reset everything.
Audrey: What is it?
Henry: It's just a reel of film, labeled with the words “The End.” I can see it in my mind, every day. They keep it upstairs in the Pit [where Heidi says the ghosts live and nobody ever comes out of. At least, never quite the same].
Audrey: I'll see if I can break in and steal it. Maybe, if I reset the cycle, we can make things better for everyone here.
Henry: And what about you?
Audrey: I just wanna go home.
Henry: So did I.
(*Side-eyes that “even Bendy must obey the rules” comment hard*)
Was Audrey created from Joey’s hatred of being what Nathan Sr. forced him to be, his coping mechanisms, and his desires for a family and to be his true self (which comes out in her as wanting to be a real human being of flesh and blood with a normal family, even if that means she has to forget her real family), and Henry’s kindness, curiosity, compassion, perseverance, passion and talent for drawing, and desire to go back home to his family? Joey says in TIOL that he admired Henry’s smile, and I noted in my original analysis/theory that Joey’s smiles that people find unsettling don’t seem to be a sign of malice but instead that he’s going through some sort of suffering, usually related to Nathan Sr., that’s causing him to dissociate just like Bill from TLO does, so of course the newest Audrey’s smile – Henry’s genuine, kind, confident smile – would fill Joey’s heart with joy!!
“Who would have ever dreamed? In the declining years of my life, I have someone more precious to me than any piece of art I could make. When she laughs and smiles, it fills my heart so much it overflows. For all the evil that’s come from me, this is something finally good.
We play and talk as we both learn from each other. There’s not much time so every moment has to count. Unlike my versions that came before her, the ones who called me their ‘uncle,’ I’m proud to have her call me ‘Dad.’ Because she is truly my daughter.” ~ Joey Drew, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “True Daughter” memo (emphasis added)
Before anyone says anything, it's for the very same aforementioned “broader pattern” reasons that I'm unconvinced Joey's motivations behind having the previous (implied “imperfect,” which I agree with others could mean “unable to live very long in the real world,” explaining in addition to Joey being very old and sickly the extreme focus on not having much time 😢💔) versions of her call him “Uncle Joey” were as selfish and cruel as they seemed. I feel like it was simply, once again, a way to cope with grief, as he does so often (and Audrey seems to have done generational trauma-style, once again, “choosing to forget” rather than mourning)… I think, in reality, he didn't mean that the other Audreys weren't good enough to call him “Dad,” but that he couldn't bear to have them call him “Dad” because he could tell they'd be gone soon and he needed that fact to hurt less, his thought process something like “of course I still care about my nieces, but losing them is less utterly devastating.”
Speaking of the memories, was anyone else weirded out by the way Wilson said that Nathan Sr. “only ever had time for the grand creatives of the world. The ‘doers,’ as he called them. How could his lowly son ever compete,” after that conspicuous comment from Nathan Sr. that he dislikes creative people, back in TIOL (I specifically noted this comment in my original analysis/theory because it sounded like he was indirectly ending his relationships with every other creative he's ever met specifically so that nobody would believe anyone who claims he looked down upon Joey)? And was anyone else disturbed by the fact that, in the very same room where Wilson went on his rant about how Nathan Sr. was beyond saving (definitely didn't sound like he meant physically 😬👿) before he got freaking shredded (still not over it 😵), we find a hotdog connected to Audrey's pleasant childhood with Joey and a final Nathan Sr. audio log where he talks about going on a lovely walk and eating a hotdog for the first time in a long time (no, this isn't implying that the memories are actually Wilson's; the achievement for getting them all is called “Self Discovery.” And, sorry MattyPatty, but I'm not buying “they're Tessa's because the Fashionable Men's Hat was in fashion in the 1930s but not the 1960s;” I didn't know or care what was actually considered fashionable as a little girl – I mean, I still don't, but I'm autistic and that's beside the point – I even called old clothes of my grandmothers' that they gave me to play dress-up with “fashionable/chic/etc.” If I was pretending to be fashionable, I could tell it was expensive, and/or I thought someone – especially my parents – looked good in something, I called it such things without question. Multiple memories make a point of saying how old and/or cheap they are, the Rubber Duck straight-up saying that it was “still dusted with the decay of old soap;” it sounds to me like Joey kept a lot of old/broken things in order to save money and possibly also go out in public as little as possible in order to stay off Nathan Sr.'s radar, his biggest exceptions being making memories with his baby girl)?
“I decided to go for a walk this morning. Took a little stroll down to the park. Enjoyed the warm sun for a while, found a quiet bench, even grabbed a hot dog. It's been ages since I've done that. Tessa would kill me if she knew I've been off my diet. When I got back to the office, I stopped by the animation department and said hello to the troops. My gosh, they're getting younger every day. Either that or I'm just getting older. It all made me realize time is moving on. The hard struggles don't seem as dire as they used to. Life has other value. I think, I'll go home early today. Maybe I'll even pick up a hot dog for Tessa.” ~ Nathan Arch Sr., Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Bigger Things” audio log
Just this one scene in this one room felt like a big, flashing neon sign highlighting the stark contrast between Nathan Sr. and Joey's parenting. So much here is screaming to me that:
Nathan Sr. – who seems to have just chosen to be a monster of his own, perfectly sane and untraumatized free will – had been working hard to make observers believe he was a good father while neglecting The Favorite Son™ (Nathan Jr.) and abusing The Hated Bastard Son™ (Wilson) so horribly both emotionally and physically that not only was Wilson jealous of how much his dad liked people he just disliked and/or of anyone who got his dad's attention and approval by being used in his machinations, but he was also made into a social pariah (just like Walter and Joey) by the horrific injuries his father inflicted on him, making him look and sound so creepy. I think Nathan Sr. was relieved that day in 1973 when his intricate plans finally came to the fruition he was actually planning on and they found his least favorite son's dead body on the floor of his JDS museum; the hotdogs were a way to celebrate finally ridding himself and Tessa of Wilson for good (seriously, frick you, Nathan Sr. I'mma slug you and then hug and adopt both your sons; nobody deserves a dad as pure evil as you).
Joey – who was clearly forced to be the way he was for survival reasons – really, genuinely was trying to be a good uncle/dad to the Audreys, despite the mistakes he definitely made with them due to decades of being trapped in survival mode (and Audrey definitely loved him despite his flaws, which is probably why she's so willing to give Wilson a chance! Anyone notice the description of the Cracked Mug childhood memory? I… why are you making me tear up over a broken cup with a frowny face drawn on it?? Stop making me cry… 😭😭😭 Not only was Wilson trying to communicate what happened to him to her, but he was successful and she sees her dad in him and wants to help… Unfortunately, he ain't in the same place Joey was, anymore. His dad's Murder Puppet process worked, just as he feared; he's not the same person now as when he wrote The Mug and the Maiden, so she gets hurt for her kindness). He didn't want her to become like him, he wanted her to be safer and better able to move forward than he was, as seen in the memos signed “your best pal;” he fought for his daughter to not just survive, but joyfully thrive, taking her out for hotdogs just so that they could relax together on a Saturday.
“Every great story begins in mystery. Although things may be dark at the start, the truth will illuminate your way.
Don’t be afraid of who you are. Fear only what you may become, and banish it away.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “The Beginning” and “Something Familiar” memos (emphasis added)
(The “Something Familiar” copy is literally found on the Memory of Joey’s bed which, as I said in Part Two, I think was actually Dapper Bendy’s.)
“Around here, it's just best to stay out of sight.
Don't ever go running into some place if you don't know what's in there! If you attack a problem head on, you're going to find yourself in trouble. And that's just foolish!
You gotta watch, listen, and when the time is right, push forward.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Be Careful” memo
“Don't ever lose hope. When in doubt, the answer you seek is usually nearby. We all have dreams, ghosts in our past. But those ghosts can give us the path forward.” ~ “Your Best Pal” (heavily implied Bendy/Real Joey), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “White Rabbit” memo (emphasis added)
Back to the whole soul blending idea. If I'm right, this would all explain:
Why our Audrey could survive in the real world while the others couldn’t: they needed complete souls, but they only had part of Joey’s soul until part of Henry's escaped!!
What made Loop 414 different: Henry’s memories of the previous loops were erased because part of his soul had (genuinely, cause Joey seemed awfully surprised that something changed) accidentally slipped into the newest Audrey!!
The Memory of Joey saying A: that Audrey doesn’t have to be the Ink Demon anymore, making a big deal about how Audrey’s real and loved – the Ink Demon has the rest of Joey’s soul, he’s saying that she’s her own person and not either of her dads (while also making Joey sound like a selfish creep by passive-aggressively rubbing the fact that he was forced to be the monster he became in Real Joey’s face and also telling him that he’s unlovable trash unlike Audrey *stares at my notes on how Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice’s story parallels Joseph Dempsey/Joey Drew’s, again* but seeming like he's being a jerkwad to another one of his children, as @inkdemonapologist pointed out. So many reasons for Bendy to have crushed the life out of him, there) – and B: “just a pencil and a dream isn’t enough, you have to have heart” – not only does she need to keep choosing compassion to avoid going down the road Joey did, but Joey was The Dreamer, Henry was The Heart, and together they made a separate life!!
Why Wilson would A: describe Audrey's powers as “devilish” (they came partly from Joey, who is now the Ink Demon) and make a big deal about how the Ink Demon can't get into his lab (he knew that Bendy/Real Joey would 100% come to rescue his baby girl, if they were somewhere he was capable of entering. As he did at the end of the Shipahoy Wilson fight), and B: think that her soul would be powerful enough to create a deity that could defeat Bendy (she's also a descendant of the Third King of JDS, who left the kingdom) while also, apparently, not realizing that his own soul might be powerful enough, as well, and therefore never actually trying to kill Bendy himself (he tried to have his Keepers do it, remember? That's literally what those audio logs were all about); maybe this is how souls always work in the Bendyverse – everyone's souls are a combination of pieces of their parents', so Wilson's soul is partly Nathan Sr.'s, another one of the Three Kings of JDS (this might also explain why Henry, the Memory of Joey, Audrey, and Wilson are the only ink creatures we see who resemble humans; if the Memory of Joey is actually Nathan Sr., that means they all have Royal Souls, making them the most powerful beings in the Ink Dimension. Bendy/Real Joey is probably the way he is because A: he chose to be, B: Nathan Sr. forced him to be, or C: nobody had any choice in the matter because he was already bonded to the soulless Bendy body by the failed ritual performed way back in 1946) – but, as far as he knows, it only works that way for ink creatures…?
“Now I’m not lookin’ for trouble. It’s just the nature of us projectionists to seek out the dark places. You see, I’ve learned the ins and outs of this here studio. I know how to avoid being bothered by the likes of this… company. ‘That projectionist,’ they always say, ‘creeping around, he’s just lookin’ for trouble.’ Well trouble or not, I sees everything. They don’t even know when I’m watchin’. Even when I’m right behind ‘em.” ~ Norman Polk, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)
“‘Of course,’ Norman said to himself. He took another sip [of what was almost definitely ink]. ‘He says it like that, knowing that he's the one who brought this creature upon us. Of course. Of course.’
I felt cold then, like the temperature had dropped and it was winter. Like if I talked my breath would freeze. ‘What do you mean?’ But I knew what he meant. He meant the infirmary. The thing in the room with the locked door. The door I'd opened.
I'd let it out.
Me.
It was all my fault.
‘What do you two know about the ink?’ Norman asked instead.
‘We know Sammy is obsessed with it,’ said Dot.
‘So not much then,’ said Norman.
‘How much do you know?’ I asked, trying to hold it together.
‘Everything.’” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 210-211 (emphasis added)
“I'm a fan of darkness. It just appeals to me. As old Norman would often say: people really become themselves when they're hidden in shadow. That creepy guy always had a story to tell about this place. But I think I've found a few narrow passages even he didn't know about. I can watch. I can listen. I can even steal. And no one ever sees me. I'm just a ghost, *giggles giddily* living in the walls, peering from the darkness. *Chuckles ominously*” ~ Grace Conway, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Dark Places” audio log (emphasis added)
Is Grace a combination of Norman and somebody else's souls (someone who's not at all in denial that they enjoy getting into mischief and ruffling people's feathers, clearly… roflolol what if it's Shawn?? What if him leaving JDS was also one of Nathan Sr.'s lies, so he really was the Top Hat Searcher Boss in BATIM??? Omigosh, I wanna meet Grace, she sounds fun 🤣 but also, poor Shawn 🥺), so just as much his daughter as Audrey is Henry and Joey's? Was she created from his desire to find secrets? She has a very similar voice to him and everything, goodness. And while we're back on the subject of dear old Norman, could he have become a personification of part of Wilson's psyche when he got addicted to that same ink that Sammy did (which would also support my “Wilson's not actually the ‘new evil’ in the Ink Dimension, it's Nathan Sr.'s soul” theory)…? Wilson seems to have a Royal Soul, after all; maybe that gave him the ability to work himself into the hivemind that thoroughly… “Wilson's always watching. He knows your purpose…”
Speaking of which, it sure looks to me like we got a whole heckuva lotta “Joey's the center of the hivemind and anyone infected with the right kind of ink becomes a personification of part of his psyche (otherwise, they just send/receive thoughts to/from him)” confirmation, besides that second paragraph of the “Who We Are” memo (especially if Porter really is Brant; he assisted us in escaping Freaky Teeth alongside all the freed Cyclebreakers in the end, I highly doubt he betrayed us).
“A new terror has descended into our lives: This man named Wilson. Ever since, our world feels strained, like a great beast held in chains. The Ink Demon hasn't been seen in a long time. Many of us refuse to believe he's really gone.
But what does it matter? Down here, we're all sinners. Children of the Machine all have the Demon in our inky blood.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Beast in Chains” memo (emphasis added)
“His eyes see all. His claws tear and thrash. His whispers turn your mind into dark, unspeakable trash.
Listen for the heartbeat drone. Your doom is close at hand. The Ink Demon is both beast and lord. His powers, too vast for us to understand.
Death is fast. Death is near. His reign will last beyond your fear.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Lament” memo (emphasis added)
“The Dark Puddles awaken. A voice, a soul. The ink speaks to me. It whispers your secrets. Who are you? Tell me your sweet name, that I may devour it.
My ink swells and boils. It consumes. I am the Ink Demon. This realm is mine. You were born from it. You belong to it.
You cannot hide forever. I will find you.
(After telling Porter her name) The deep abyss remembers you, Audrey. A child of the darkness.” ~ The Ink Demon, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 2 (emphasis added)
(Anyone notice the implication there that not only does the very fact that Bendy can hear Audrey’s thoughts mean she has a soul, but also that the very fact that we can hear Bendy’s thoughts must mean he also has a soul inside of him now, by the way?)
“I see your mind as the truth unfolds. You will accept your fate before the end.” ~ The Ink Demon, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 4 (emphasis added)
Wilson: The Demon's evil continues to spread. This world has began to shutter…
The Ink Demon (literally interrupting her conversation with Wilson telepathically): He’s lying, Audrey.
Audrey (whisper-shouting): Be quiet!
Wilson: What did you say?
Audrey: Nothing. It was nothing.
Wilson: Hm. *Opens door to security checkpoint* Just a quick stop. Won't take but a moment.
Did Susie/Alice not mean that Bendy killed her, but that she knew Joey was the center of the hivemind, back in BATIM? And if so, did she find a way to cut herself off from him or did his power just become stronger when his human body died and his soul finally merged with his ink one, I wonder? It seems like people could only fully hear others' voices in their heads in BATDR; before that, you had to actually be inside the inkwell or else people's thoughts just popped into your head as if they were your own…
“*Alice voice* …Take this little freak for instance! He crawled in here… Trailing his tainted ink to my door! It could have touched me! It could have pulled me *Susie voice* back!! Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles? *Alice voice* It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices! *Susie voice* Bits of your mind, swimming… like… like fish in a bowl! *Alice voice* The first time I was born from its' inky womb, I was a wriggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time… well… *Susie voice* It made me an angel! I will not let the demon touch me again. I'm so close now. So… almost perfect… *Dreamy sigh*” ~ Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)
Back to the soul children thing. I wonder if even Alan/Allen Gray/Grey (who can't even spell his name consistently. Yes, I'm mad about it. Jiminy Christmas, my guy) could be one of these “children of the darkness/Machine,” born of its ghosts?
“So we're looking at quite the job here! Walls come out, pipes go in… dang walls go back in again! It's like banging your head on a rock over and over and over. The first time, it hurts to heck. The hundredth time, well… you just don't think much about it. That's what it's like working for Mr. Joey Drew. At first you feel that bad pain in your gut that you're doing something very wrong. But after a time, when the dust settles, and Joey has played his cards, you just learn to go with it. Bit of your soul dies with each pipe you put in.” ~ Thomas Connor, Bendy and the Dark Revival, teaser audio log dated November 12th, 1943 (emphasis added)
“‘I'm not leaving until I get what's mine,’ Tom said as Mister Drew stared him down.
. . .
‘I want my patent back,’ Tom said right to Mister Drew's face. They were practically nose-to-nose. Or more like, nose-to-chin.
. . .
‘It's my machine, Drew, it's mine.’” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 247 and 248 (emphasis added)
“Joey,
Sorry, it's been a while since my last letter. Been Busy with work at Archgate Films. The Studio ordered another sequel! So I have been spending many hours in the recording booth again! It's fun though.
Tom is doing good, thanks for asking. He's always tinkering or something. Mostly he's still upset about someone stealing one of his dusty inventions from your old studio. He'll get over it. Have a good New Year, Joey. I'll send you another recipe soon.
Warm Regards,” ~ Allison Connor (formerly Pendle), Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 (emphasis added)
(No, Allison, I don't believe he ever will get over it, rofl.)
“To Grant Cohen, accounting:
Please inform Mr. Drew that despite his insistence that the rumors of Joey Drew Studios going bankrupt are untrue, I want to remind him that if his studio does indeed fail, all equipment and experiments produced through our partnership, by contract, belong to the Gent Corporation. We will reclaim these assets forcibly if necessary.” ~ Alan/Allen Gray/Grey (he spells his name “Alan Gray,” here), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Gent Property” memo (emphasis added)
Could he be a combination of Tom and somebody else's souls (someone more privileged, with money, power, and a college education… Could be Allison, I guess… but also maybe Bertrum, or Nathan Sr…? Something tells me that ghosts gravitate towards ghosts who complement/complete the part of their parent that they embody to form new souls with), so actually his son, created from his desire to get his effing inventions out of JDS's hands (there's that very specific technicality I mentioned, back in Part Two), and perhaps altered by Nathan Sr. to create a new villain to distract us from himself (he's clearly not against doing that to his own sons, so… Also, this would support my “Wilson's not actually the ‘new evil’ in the Ink Dimension, it's Nathan Sr.'s soul” theory, too… The Memory of Joey was the one who retrieved the End Reel from the Pit, by the way. Remember? Audrey never gets to go inside)?
“We've hit rock bottom. No doubt about it. By all accounts, I don't even know how this studio is still going at all. If you follow the money, you just hit a big old brick wall! Well, let me tell you, blank ledgers, spare cash, Weird amounts that plain just don't add up. There's still income finding its way onto the books, but for the life of me, I can't figure out where it's all coming from. Though the obvious answer is that Gent is privately pouring in some funds. And truth be told, they really creep me out. Especially that Mister Gray. He doesn't seem to be motivated by money, and he sure as heck ain't telling us what he's REALLY after. You just can't trust someone like that.” ~ Grant Cohen, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Strange Money” audio log (emphasis added)
Something tells me we shouldn't be looking at the obvious answer. I can think of someone else right off the bat who “sure as heck ain't telling us what he's REALLY after” and we know for a fact that Joey has audibly nervously begged for money from, before…
“It’s been quite a struggle to put this into words, Nathan. After so many years, you know I’d never ask unless it was dire. But when a man’s in a spot, he should call upon his friends. Truth is… well, the studio is… *slight tremor in voice* coming up a little short. Hit a few unexpected bumps. If you could… lend us the amount I mentioned in my last letter *inhale* it would be a big help to me… Hope this reaches you in South America. You and Tessa enjoy your vacation.” ~ Joey Drew, Boris and the Dark Survival
…and I think we just figured out what Mr. Gray/Grey's true motivations are by figuring out where they came from… Could being the second of Audrey's kind, “born of ink but living in flesh,” be why he seems to understand how to make things cross dimensions…??
“The future has arrived. I just didn't know it would get here so soon. Some of the stuff that's coming out of Gent doesn't follow any of the rules of physics that I know. Hard to believe they started out as a brick laying company once upon a time.
Nowadays, we have all the modern conveniences and, worse yet, the headaches. Take that ID Card machine they've got at the door. You don't bring your ID, you ain't gettin’ to work. So I started putting my ID Card on my nightstand in my room at the Downside Hotel.
It's not the safest place, but at least I know where it is.” ~ Eugene Lloyd, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Daily Headache” memo (emphasis added)
Y'know, I find it incredibly suspicious how one of the secret endings reveals Audrey to be in an insane asylum, unlocked if you collect all the copies of TIOL (the biggest source of info on Nathan Sr.'s abusiveness towards Joey) that are scattered around the studio and then staring into the colored ink in Wilson's (the biggest source of info on Nathan Sr.'s machinations) lab. They're clearly tryna nudge us towards thinking Audrey might be a fan with an unhealthy parasocial relationship with Joey (the achievement for unlocking it is titled “The Insane Reader”)… but how many times have I said that anyone who might be an info leak or even just displeases Nathan Sr. seems to get disappeared mafia-style? What better way, if she couldn't be trapped in the Ink Dimension with everyone else, to simultaneously silence and torment Joey's only family member than by fabricating a different, more believable life story for her and getting her committed?
I wonder how many of the many more audio logs/memos/etc. there are in this version of the studio – many of which seem outlandish and surreal even in the context of the rest of the series – may have also been made up by the souls of the series' scapegoats/etc. in attempt to call our attention to the discrepancies and reveal the truths?
“Something funny's going on around here. Call me suspicious if you wanna, but I know the signs of weirdness when I see ‘em. Don't get me wrong, we've always had visitors around the studio, but lately we're getting just one kind of visitor in particular: Gent Corporation Employees. Tons of ‘em. They're working in the hallways, ripping up the floors, taking the best toilets, you can't even get near the Little Devil Lounge these days! It's starting to feel less like an animation studio around here, and more and more like some crazy scientist's laboratory.
It's just plain weirdness.” ~ Lance Derby, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Weirdness” audio log (emphasis added)
(Hm… Sounds an awful lot like Constance's comment on the potential dangers of “innocuous strangeness” I brought up in Part Two… 👀)
“This old town [Lost Harbor?] really has changed ever since that big Gent Building went up. Yesterday, I took a trip over to the Farmer's Market, and they had the whole dang street ripped up! It was like a large hole had just plain swallowed the sidewalk. Men were going in and out with strange iron tools. Kind of looked like they were installing some kind of tunnel under the road. Pipes just everywhere! Pete behind the produce counter was just shaking his head. ‘They're up to no good,’ he kept sayin’. ‘You'll see. This is how it always starts.’ I think old Pete might be right. But I don't like to dismiss people just on rumors. Only time will tell, I suppose.” ~ Kitty Thompson, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Trouble Town” audio log (emphasis added)
“I heard some of the workers from down the hall last night talking about storming Joey Drew's office. They were using some colorful language, banging their fists on the tables and chairs. It was the same bunch who whistled at me yesterday. Things must be getting serious.
That accountant, Grant Cohen, just walks from his desk down to the men's room and back all day. Over and over again, gripping his stomach. Kind of green in the gills. I can't tell if something he ate isn't agreeing with him, or if he just can't take the pressure anymore.
Joey's got a plan, he keeps saying, Gent is making something special. I really hope he's right. I may just be a secretary, but this place has a magic I don't want to see end.” ~ Sally Newt, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Getting Serious” memo (emphasis added)
Are the children of the Machine straight-up trying to tell us that A: Nathan Sr. is (genuinely) editing Mr. Gray/Grey into the story as yet another one of his many Decoy Villains for us to hate and pursue instead of him, B: in real-life, Grant was infected with ink (as the audio log in the version of his office in BATIM suggests he was) in order to disappear him for figuring out what Nathan Sr. was doing through the financial records, and C: Joey meant for the Ink Dimension to be salvation for people like Grant (like I suggested in Part Two)?? Wow…
While I'm still on the subject, I think I might know who a couple of other characters are the soul children of. I think Steve is the son of Wally and Tom, and Heidi is the daughter of Allison and Susie (sorry, SuperHorrorBro, but I don't believe Porter and Heidi are previous Audrey versions. Besides the “Who We Are” memo spelling out what “child of the darkness/Machine” actually means, the “True Daughter” memo implies that all of Joey's previous attempts at creating a child were daughters, Porter would be a son and Bendy calling Audrey “the daughter of Drew” as if there's genuinely only one – why the actual heck would he say that if he's not Real Joey and considers himself “one of the children of Drew?” Shouldn't he be giving his sister Heidi the same honor he, himself, wants but was denied, just like she was? That doesn't make sense, which Wilson explains to us is a sign that something was Nathan Sr.'s doing in some way – along with the way Audrey and Betty talk about Betty being “one in a long line of failed experiments” as if Wilson continuing to try and get her to come out the way she was supposed to is a good thing that's going to positively impact her eventually implies that all the Audreys were the same piece of Joey's soul reincarnated. Also, Porter says that he “learned” his powers, and there was a delay between the hivemind speaking to Audrey and her using her default powers for the first time, but zero delay between Porter and Heidi giving her their powers [which Porter does by taking Audrey’s hand like the Memory of Joey does when trying to get her to accept the entire so-called “retconning story” as truth, and Heidi does by touching Audrey’s face like the Memory of Joey does when using his teleportation powers on her, which suggests that this was how they were given to them…] and her using them. I think that A: the Memory of Joey gave Porter and Heidi their powers to push us towards believing that Real Joey was a cruel uncle/father who discarded the failed Audreys when he got sick of taking care of them [I wonder… could Porter's seemingly randomly dubbing Audrey “Bobby,” leading her to describe their interaction as “weird” – which can be another sign of Nathan Sr.’s interference or a sign of Wilson's warning riddles – was a message from Wilson, trying to highlight both his dad's “Fake Siblings” plan and the fact that Audrey's desire to be a normal human stems from Joey's desire to be his true self rather than the monster that Nathan Sr. forced him to be? 👀👀 And, by the way, did anyone notice that Porter, Heidi, and the Memory of Joey's powers are all travel-based?? 👀👀👀 Sounds to me like the Memory of Joey meant it when he said he has his “ways,” plural], B: Audrey just had her default powers automatically because she has a Royal Soul, but they didn't awaken until she wanted them [no, not “needed.” That Searcher outright tells us we don't need to kill them and, from my and my brother's playthrough, you can literally play your whole game without them ever leaving that spot, even if you fight Lost Ones right next to them. I think this moment is further symbolism for Audrey leaning on her dad's coping mechanisms generational trauma-style and the fact we actually do have a choice between cruelty and compassion], and C: Audrey, herself, as a benevolent ruler, is considered a gift from the two main users of the hivemind/Dark Puddles – Wilson and Bendy/Real Joey – by many inhabitants of the Ink Dimension. “And from the hallowed darkness, from the wretched abyss, a savior comes at last,” as Wilson says), created from their playful, lovey-dovey sides…
“These guys down at the warehouse get to play games all day while I'm stuck cleaning up after ‘em. They keep locking themselves out of their own back room. So I says to ‘em, ‘look guys,’ I says, ‘you're smart, right? Here's an idea! Why not rig these games to knock open the door if ya win? It'll be fun for you guys, and it saves me the trip down here every day.’ They went for it like a dog to pot roast. I tell ya! If these guys don't start realizing who the real genius is, I'm outta here.” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 4
“So here we are! Another big day at Joey Drew Studios! Lot more people running around here these days. But for me, it's the same old dirty floors they've always been! Just more feet messing them up now! The only [new] feet I don't mind tromping around here are Miss Campbell's. She's good to me! I'll make sure I empty her garbage every day just to see how she's doing. Speaking of which, I heard her talking with Sammy the other day. If I didn't know better, I'd say there was magic there. But who am I to judge? I think they saw me looking though… So I just tipped my hat and said: ‘See you later!’ … ‘I'm outta here!’” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated March 5th, 1933 (emphasis added)
“I thought of Mr. Connor. Gruff, rough-around-the-edges Mr. Connor. Was he the manager? I thought he was, but he couldn't be, could he? Not if this elegant creature was the manager's partner.” ~ Bill Chambers, Bendy: The Lost Ones, pg. 204 (emphasis added)
“‘We aren't in your studio right now, are we?’ replied Tom. There was no way Mister Drew could physically intimidate this man. Tom wasn't burly and bear-like like Bertrum Piedmont. He was more wall-like. Still Mister Drew grabbed him by the elbow and through clenched teeth said:
‘The hallway. Now.’
‘Come on, Tom, no need to make a scene,’ said Allison with a warm voice, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
Tom allowed them to escort him to the pink lobby…” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 247-248 (emphasis added)
“First week on the job at the Gent Workshop, and I can tell already this'll be interestin’. ‘Think you can lift this still girder?’ they asked me with a smug smile. I didn't even bother to answer. Just picked the whole thing up with one hand.
You should have see the wee men drop their jaws. All in all, I've noticed this building just ain't built for someone my size. Every time I walk by the workshop shelves, the tools all fall to the floor. That and I gotta bend down for every doorway in the place. Still, there are some positives to workin’ here. Take that new secretary, the shy little one with the blonde locks, the one who follows around Mister Gray. I'm pretty sure she's been giving me and my muscles the eye. But I ain't no smooth talker. A work-worn man such as myself, ain't got no business with a woman that fine.” ~ Steve McGregor, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “New Job” audio log
“Allison just smiled her dazzling smile that made me melt a little, even though the scene was making me incredibly tense. ‘We'll talk about that in the morning, Joey. Come on, dear.’ She gave Tom a little push on his shoulder, and evidently she could move mountains because once again he gave in and took a step back.” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 248 (emphasis added)
“Who would've thought? Me having lunch with Joey Drew! Apparently times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I though I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer. He even called me Alice. I liked it.” ~ Susie Campbell, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 3 (emphasis added)
“So turns out it's my lucky day! I got to cleaning some of the offices around 2 am last night. And what do ya think I find on one of the chairs? A big freaking chocolate cake. Just sitting there! Practically yelling my name! You know, I work hard! I earn my pay. Every darn dollar. But you know what this company's missing? Little, benefiting perks. And this here cake? It's a perk! Hopefully no one finds out what I done. Cause if they did, I can tell ya what would happen. I'm outta here.” ~ Wally Franks, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 5 (emphasis added)
“The Keepers have taken my friend! Locked him away like some animal! Just cause he's big and strong.
But they don't need to fear him! No! If they just make sure to feed him on time, Big Steve won't ever hurt a fly!
He loves the food from the ‘Little Devil Lounge’ best. If only someone would take the long road back through the sewers, climb up the elevator shaft, and seek out his favorite thumping delicacy. Then they would see how harmless he really is!” ~ Unknown (heavily implied Heidi), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Feeding Time” memo
“*Alice voice* …But for now, let's have fun. Plenty of time for a bloodbath later. Ooh! How about a game? Let's all play a game of riddles! *Susie voice* Riddles? *Gasps* Oh, what a wonderful idea!” ~ Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 5 (emphasis added)
“But… but first! May we play a game? Oh, I love to play games! I like hide and seek best.” ~ Heidi, Bendy and the Dark Revival, ch. 4
(…Anyone notice this ink message we see right before we hear Freaky Teeth Bendy's voice for the first time? 👀)
My gosh, no wonder Heidi and Steve are so flipping cute (I may actually have a new romantic ship, that's rare for me), roflol. Also, remember what I said about ghosts gravitating to ghosts who complement/complete the part of their parent they embody to form new souls with? *Stares at my notes on how it seems like Nathan Sr. was secretly driving a wedge between Tom and Wally the exact same way he secretly drove a wedge between Henry and Joey: through lies and sabotage* Something tells me that Nathan Sr. could tell our dear Mr. Inventor and Mr. Janitor would be a good team and too difficult to control if he allowed them to get along.
Anyways, now that I'm excitedly vibrating over all those prospects, let's return our focus to Allison's so-called “story retcon.” I really, really, really dislike how the Memory of Joey seems to be trying to convince us that one of the most critical pieces in noticing the similarities between the story of Joey, Allison, and Susie and the story of Walter, Arthur, and Isabel, and therefore in arousing suspicion that Nathan Sr. had orchestrated both situations was never involved in any of the previous stories she appears in at all except for BATIM, specifically, in a completely different way as just a character that Joey edited in decades after the fact, based on someone he'd just recently met; that's suspicious as heck and very reminiscent of Nathan Sr.'s erasure of Lottie's existence in TIOL. And, especially after my further thoughts on TLO inspired by The Mug and the Maiden, I wonder if not only was I right about Henry being murdered to punish Joey for contacting him (and him for responding like the good friend he is), but there's also another story that hadn't occurred to me despite noticing that Allison seemed to have started waking up from Nathan Sr.'s trance in between DCTL and TLO… Did Allison and Tom also get murdered, as punishment for Allison's deciding to try and be a proper friend to Joey rather than continuing to be Nathan Sr.'s pawn in the aftermath of Henry's murder (I wouldn't be surprised if it was straight-up the last straw for her… Nathan Sr. certainly could've used her as a spy in whatever other animation studio he worked at after he left JDS when he realized Joey was thinking about calling him for help, so maybe she knew Henry and liked him like everyone else – minus Nathan Sr. lol – who knew him seemed to… Now, he was gone, and she was just as devastated as Joey)?? Was she, indeed, able to see the good in Joey that even he couldn't see (because he was being eaten alive by guilt in his old age), as a fellow reformed abuse-victim-turned-abuser (when I first read DCTL and TIOL, not yet having read TLO, I thought the way she said “we’ll talk about that in the morning, Joey,” when he tried to fire her sounded like she knew full well about the true nature of her Pretend Boss and True Boss' relationship and really meant “we'll talk after Nathan Sr. puts you in your place, tonight…” Maybe I was right 😬)? She certainly tried to do that for Susie Campbell/Twisted Alice…
“Dear Alice,
I don't know if you will read these notes, but I'll keep leaving them for you. I hope someday you'll understand my words and the madness will fade from your mind.
In this strange and dark place, we can find light and purpose. We are not left to just wander alone, craving beauty, power, and other meaningless things. Even the heart of someone feeling incomplete, can discover joy. We're not lost. We're merely waiting to be found.
We are so much alike. Formed from the same mold. We're like sisters, you and me. I wish you comfort and the wisdom to let your heart melt into happiness. I won't give up trying to reach you before it's too late.” ~ “A Friend” (heavily implied Allison Angel), Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Two of a Kind” memo
…so why not for Joseph Dempsey/Joey Drew? In fact, why not for Wilson, yet another abuse-victim-turned-abuser?
Allison: Are you crazy? Wilson's our enemy.
Audrey: Do you even know him? Have you even talked to him?
Allison: I've seen what he's done. That's good enough for me.
Audrey: Look, it sounds like he has a plan to kill the Ink Demon. I think he can help us all! I just… I just need to go back and hear him out.
Allison: Well, if it's true. You'll both need as much help as you can get. The Ink Demon won't go down without a fight. Tom and I will gather some of our friends. Anyone who's left. Good luck, Audrey.
Audrey: Thank you, Allison.
This is turning out to be quite the support group, ain't it? Also, hm, sounds familiar, again…
“That big question. Why? The biggest of all the ‘W’ questions, I have found over my years, and often the hardest to answer. Especially when the why disguises itself as something else.” ~ Joey Drew, The Illusion of Living, pg. 21 (emphasis added)
“‘What?’ The most used of the ‘W’ questions, and I think the most useless…” ~ Joey Drew, The Illusion of Living, pg. 33
Speaking of which, it makes zero sense for “Cyclebreaker” to mean “someone who's capable of resetting the loop” as Henry claims when the Memory of Joey specifically said that Wilson, in preventing the resets, was “freezing the cycle.” The time loop cycle is supposed to keep resetting, that's literally the entire reason it's called a “cycle.” Why would all of these characters be potential cycle reset-ers in the way Henry says, anyways? Bertrum's ink form doesn't even have legs or hands like Henry, Sammy, Susie, and Norman's do; he can't even leave where he's supposed to be without being subjected to destructive force like he apparently was in order to remove his head from the octopus ride and put him in the Cyclebreaker prison, forget playing the End Reel. Y'know what all the Cyclebreakers do have in common, if my theories are correct? They could've broken that other cycle I mentioned in my original analysis/theory: Sammy, Susie, and Bertrum all became personifications of different parts of Joey's psyche and by extension are symbolic of how trauma often causes people to cause the same trauma in others, so they could've broken the cycle of trauma/abuse by choosing not to inflict their own trauma on others like Joey did; Norman was a habitual eavesdropper/etc., so he could've broken that cycle by hearing/seeing things he wasn't supposed to and using that knowledge to get the truth out and find Joey help, much like Wilson did in his youth; and Henry was Joey's dearest, truest friend, his Shoulder Angel, who he reached out to for help in the guilt-stricken latter years of his life, so he could've helped Joey to break the cycle himself if he hadn't been fricking murdered as punishment for trying…
…Did anyone notice that, right after telling her all about how they serve and were created by Wilson, the Keepers suddenly decided that Audrey was too dangerous and they needed to just gas her then and there when she asked them to take her to Wilson because he wanted her to find him…?? And how, when she escaped the gas chamber, they specifically sounded an alarm for access to the Cyclebreakers to be cut off…???
Something tells me that:
There's a reason that not only are these creatures referred to as “Wilson's Keepers,” but it's also only safe to be around them when Wilson is: the son may have created them, but the father Arch gave them orders to ensure that the son continues obeying and remove anyone who might genuinely help him recover from what he did to him from the picture, one way or another…
There's a reason that everyone thinks “Cyclebreaker” means what they think it means: to throw everyone off the scent of its true meaning.
The fact that the Memory of Joey wants the cycle to keep restarting and the potential Cyclebreakers think that the resets are a good thing is both A: symbolic of the fact that Nathan Sr. loves perpetuating the cycle of trauma/abuse by orchestrating situations where he can cause his old Murder Puppets to create new ones who are just as or more brutal while still thinking they're in the right, and B: another hint towards the End Reel having been created by Nathan Sr. in his twisting of the Ink Dimension from the heavenly paradise that Joey dreamed of into the hellish prison that he, himself, now relishes; mayhaps the secret Grayscale Ending, if it exists, will also involve destroying the blasted thing?
Frick. You. Nathan Sr. I. Hate. You. So. Much.
Wanna read about some more highly suspicious songs I found and my concluding thoughts on BATDR's default ending? Those are in Part Four!
To Read the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Unexpected Part Four
#bendy and the dark revival#batdr#batdr theory#batdr spoilers#bendy: the lost ones#bendy: tlo#dreams come to life#dctl#the illusion of living#tiol#bendy spoilers#tw: abuse#themeatly#adrienne kress#allison pendle#allison angel#thomas connor#henry stein#joey drew#audrey drew#buddy lewek#susie campbell#twisted alice#wally franks#bill chambers#brant morris#batdr porter#batdr steve#batdr heidi#batdr keeper
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Some Inconclusive Squinting At Wilson And Audrey's Timelines
Probably someone else has already had thoughts on this, but here's some of mine!
WILSON:
World War 1 ended in Nov 1918. Given Nathan was shipped overseas in the final year, it's likely he participated til the end, meaning that if he got busy with Tessa the INSTANT he got home, Wilson would be born in mid 1919 and be, uh, 53 years old by the time of BatDR
No offense to Wilson but he is NOT looking good for 53
Also Wilson somehow sounds approximately a gazillion times older than his dad's audiologs, which, since they're about the death of Joey Drew and the opening of Arch Gate Pictures, are from just a couple years ago.
There's a few different ways headcanon could go on this I think, but I actually have a small speculation/theory on this one: Wilson has been in the Ink Realm for over a decade, thus "removed from the march of time" in reality, but since he's human (the only human!) and not an ink creature, he's been aging while in the Ink Realm.
We know he's been in and out before, and a decade or more could give him enough time to learn about and do all the bullshit he's doing. Henry mentions that he hasn't eaten in years, which could be a mistaken guess -- but if he's correct, would mean he's been captured a lot longer than the 211 days they've been ink-demon-free.
This could also fit with Wilson's weird note about being hidden in plain sight:
"It's been years and my face is still a mystery to my coworkers. They don't know me. They avoid me as if I carried some infectious disease. At first, this was an insult. But now... it is a gift. With the right costume, I can play the part of anyone. I can go completely unnoticed, hidden amongst the shadowed walls. As a clerk, an artist, a producer. Or even... a lowly janitor."
I don't think it's controversial to say that Wilson is eXTREMELY DISTINCTIVE AND VERY NOTICEABLE ACTUALLY, and even the man himself describes being intentionally avoided as if he's diseased, which is sort of the opposite of being unnoticeable. But if Wilson came out of the machine looking over a decade older and was suddenly treated like a weird old man when he's only in his 50s... both his offended confusion and his later realisation that this is an opportunity to be unrecognisable could fit.
(do i think this is intended? tbh probably not. do i think it makes more sense? YES)
anyway next up,
AUDREY:
We hear the "tell me another story, Uncle Joey" line in BatIM, which takes place in 1963. Joey describes his previous attempts as those that "came before" Audrey, so most likely he had not created Audrey yet.
This would mean Audrey was created in 1963 at earliest, and is a young woman by the time of BatDR in 1973
This does not look like a 10 year old:
So Joey didn't just create her as a ten year old and then by BatDR she's 20; Something weird happened with her aging. ...this isn't like, a plot hole or anything; she's an ink creature and she can grow up however quickly she wants/Joey wants. BUT IT DOES RAISE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT EXACTLY HOW THAT WENT DOWN, especially considering that Joey died only 2 years ago, describes having a pretty significant relationship to her, and then in BatDR she has completely forgotten he's her dad. There's so many pieces;
Wilson (dubious trustworthiness) says she'll forget everything, implying that on entering the ink realm she'll lose her memories -- though afaik none of her other actions or comments seem to reflect a loss of memory on any other topic (for example, confidently telling Wilson "I've never done anything to you!" rather than a question of "What did I ever do to you?!")
Similarly, her "Well, newsflash! I didn't even know my father!" line does NOT sound like she suddenly can't remember her dad -- the emotion in it sounds like something that's been kind of a sore spot for a while. Even a new, fudged memory wouldn't have the time to build up this frustration in the Ink Realm... it feels pre-existing.
Joey (dubious trustworthiness) asserts that she's chosen to forget.
With her age being weird we have no idea when she left home; she could've been out on her own for a few years, and depending on the circumstances, may have had reason to forget/dismiss the memories of a very anomalous childhood.
Nathan never mentions her and does not have any explanation for Joey's boosted spirits (when you would think "apparently he adopted a child!" would be a pretty reasonable guess), so she does not seem to PUBLICLY be known as Joey's daughter
With absolutely no information there's space for a lot of speculation -- since she's his creation, can Joey tweak her memories? Can he give her a different backstory? Or did Audrey just end up in a different living situation and her brain decided her "ten years of growing up crammed into 4 years of time" memories with Joey didn't make sense? Did Joey have to give her up for some reason? Or did she and Joey have a huge argument/falling out that led to her leaving home? Did Joey try to demonstrate the truth to her and it was so weird that she just blocked it all out? etc etc etc
She still has the animation cell signed by Henry, and the TioL book with Joey's storyboard notes, which I feel like, she must've been given by Joey? So like, does she know Joey raised her, and she called him "dad" with the assumption he was her adoptive father, and she just wonders about a birth family that must exist but that she never knew? This one feels the most sensible to me, but also doesn't track with Memory Joey making the assumption that she's "chosen to forget" -- though it's also possible he's just being dramatic, or that Memory Joey just didn't know. Or, combine this with the one about Joey telling her the truth and her just repressing that because it's too weird, so she remembers her relationship with her father but not the origin story??? And like... I guess also this would mean the machine DID scramble her memories some so that Memory Joey wasn't shocking to her to meet?
Anyway, I haven't been able to cobble together a SATISFYING THEORY about Audrey's timeline so much as a bunch of really interesting headcanon fodder, depending on how you want to interpret Joey.... Just feels like there's a big space there where SOMETHING Obviously Happened but absolutely no clues towards what it might be.
#batdr#bendy and the dark revival#batdr spoilers#batim audrey#we all write on the walls#batim wilson#I don't know why im still thinking so much about this game lmao#the wilson theory would make even MORE sense if he got that eye scar in the ink realm#but honestly im very attached to the idea that he just already had that#just got an injury as a young adult and lost that eye#its unrelated#audrey drew#wilson arch#an ink stained nightmare forever stuck on repeat
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Things you might want to know before BATDR releases (in terms of lore)
I've had a lot of conversations in different corners of the fandom about the Bendy books, Boris and the Dark Survival, and now the BATDR trailer, and I think I've got a pretty solid grip on what those pieces of media tried to do to set the stage for this next story. So today I'm gonna go through the pieces and put together a guide with all the details I think you'll want to know for BATDR. We'll see how this holds up on November 15th.
Warning, spoilers for BATIM, Boris and the Dark Survival (BATDS), The Employee Handbook, Dreams Come to Life (DCTL), The Illusion of Living (TIOL), The Lost Ones (TLO), and Crack Up Comics ahead.
Our story begins at the end of Bendy and the Ink Machine. Henry makes it to the machine, he plays a tape that says "The End" after a brutal fight with the inky beast and a monologue from Joey about how he can fix everything. When the boss fight ends and the screen erupts in light, we see Henry enter Joey Drew's apartment. A calendar on the kitchen wall indicates that the year is 1963, the month is August (the calendar date actually changes randomly per playthrough to show it's any day in August except the 31st, you cannot get the 31st to load).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgWN7R4-wPw&t=298s
The bulletin boards are where I want to draw your attention. I'm going to focus on Allison's letter, because it gives us this nugget: she's working for Arch Gate. This was the first time we'd ever heard of Arch Gate, and it didn't have much meaning then, but now it does.
We get a few more disconnected pieces in Boris and the Dark Survival. BATDS is a game where you play as Boris (or a Lost One or Sammy) walking through the studio to collect a set list of supplies for the safehouse. There are other collectibles hiding in lockers, Boris corpses' chests, etc, that give us a number of things to think on. The Milla Legna tapes give us an interesting story that I believe might be tied to Susie Campbell's backstory, but nothing is confirmed. What I'm going to focus on are Wally and Sammy's details. By collecting hidden pieces of pipes, we can assemble a mini game that has a high score set by Wally Franks. If we manage to beat his score, we can an audio log from Joey where he sounds extremely nervous. He begs his friend Nathan to help him out with financial trouble. This was the first time we heard of Nathan, but it won't be the last.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2savP-5Y4BY
Additionally, once we've unlocked Sammy (by finding his candles and mask to summon him), we can play as him, and he has two unique abilities. One is that he can teleport through cracks in the walls (which is necessary given he's the only character who can't run), the other is that he can play instruments in the hallway. There's a code for the instruments above where you place his mask (fun Easter egg, it's the same code that originally got us his secret lines in the pre-update version of Chapter 3), and if you play instruments throughout the level, you'll get an audio log from the Unknown Voice to tease Dark Revival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7UG4H4XVng
The Unknown Voice has also appeared on the JDS YouTube page with this mysterious audio log.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFpgqSnE7zQ&list=PL5adzFCvE4-8cJXkyv9eqp0pOLQPmEamN
If this voice sounds familiar, it's because we've heard him in both of the BATDR trailers, and now we have a face for him. Many suspected this was Sammy, the Ink Demon, or Nathan before this point, but it looks like this fellow might be named Wilson (assuming the guy on the posters and this dude are meant to be the same, I would not be surprised if there's something impostor-y happening). His voice actor is still being kept a secret at this time.
Turning to the books, there's not a lot for me to note from DCTL at this time. This book takes place in summer of 1946 and follows protagonist Buddy Lewek as he becomes a gofer for the studio and ultimately ends up falling into Joey's schemes. The big things we get in this one do more to further our understanding of BATIM, such as telling us why Henry left the studio ala Norman (to spend more time with his wife, Linda). We learn that Sammy got addicted to drinking ink and starting sacrificing people once enough of it was in his system, hearing voices, we get Norman's death off-screen along with most of the art department (save for Abby, we'll talk about Abby in a bit), we find out Joey purchased a theater to expand the JDS building, and we learn part of what the machine is for. Joey wants to bring his characters to life, in part to have meet-able mascots at Bendyland, the upcoming project he pitches to investors (and the scene where he refers to Bertrum as Bertie and pisses him off, we actually get to see it happening in real time!). We also get a cryptic mention from Allison at the party to not forget what happened to Susie when talking to Buddy, to which he responds "who's Susie?" This is important, we know Buddy has never met Susie within this year and that Allison is the voice of Alice Angel by this point.
We know thanks to the Crack Up Comics’ introduction that by 1972, Joey Drew is believed to be dead, and Nathan Arch, head of Arch Gate Studios (a location we see mentioned a few times in the background of the BATDR trailer) has purchased the rights and assets for Bendy. Nathan is a steel and oil tycoon, never having shown a real interest in cartoons before, so why would he do this? Thanks to the JDS website’s press archives, he tells us it’s to keep Joey’s legacy alive, but is that the full truth?
https://www.joeydrewstudios.com/archive
We assume he wants it for the ink machine, it’s an invaluable piece of technology. But we also see several things in the trailer and on the JDS website that point to media preservation. A museum dedicated to Bendy’s history, a banner advertising “Joey Drew The Man and The Demon,” which sounds like a documentary. Even the animation cell we see Audrey working on is taken from the cartoon Cheap Seats, the first time we as fans got to see Alice speak in a cartoon. TIOL and the Crack Up Comics are framed as being projects that archive Joey’s legacy with the way that they’re released, and while Nathan tells us that he hasn’t messed with The Illusion of Living (which was originally released as Joey’s memoir in 1942 in-universe, right as Bendyland was being conceptualized and Joey got into contact with Bertrum), we don’t know how truthful it is. His anecdotes and annotations within Joey’s memoir do leave you wondering just how good of friends they really were. It begs a lot of questions, what is Arch Gate up to? I get the sense the motivation is a little bit of wanting the machine for a greater purpose and another piece achieving Joey’s dream where he could not, bringing cartoons to life. But we can’t be sure.
There’s a lot we have questions on for BATDR, but I suspect it’ll be an exciting ride going into it. The one question I have is will we see Abby Lambert.
For those who don’t know, Abby is a very important character to the books. She’s a friend of Joey’s in the late 20s, an artist who’s not super traditional (she wears a lot of men’s suits and I believe was described as having short hair?), and she’s responsible for connecting Joey and Henry. Upon going to an art show where Henry’s work was on display with Abby, Joey started getting ideas about producing cartoons. Then he tried to come up with main character’s concept, and Abby tried to draw it but missed the mark. So she invited Henry over to help, which Joey was a little miffed about since he didn’t want a lot of people to know yet, but with a little back and forth and critique, Bendy was born (and apparently he’s named after a dead photographer from the detective story in this memoir, but that’s a rabbit hole I’m not ready to go down). After that, Joey and Henry start JDS together, and after Henry’s left, Abby is finally available to come on and works as the head of the art department (according to Joey). He talks to highly of her in TIOL, but when we see her in DCTL, she’s exhausted, frustrated, and he’s kind of dismissive of her when Buddy’s caught stealing from the department. Abby is important to the history of some of our central characters, and while I don’t think we should need the books to understand BATDR, I do hope she makes an appearance with some context. Bendy exists because of three people, it feels like she should be there.
That’s all I have for now for details you might have missed from the books and spinoffs that I suspect will be relevant to this game. Here’s wishing you all a fun time with BATDR tomorrow (2 AM EST on Steam to be exact), beware the ink demon!
#bendy and the dark revival#batdr#batdr theories#bendy theories#bendy summary#bendy#bendy and the ink machine#batdr trailer spoilers#I told you I'd get it posted in time!#sorry for cutting it close#it's been a MESSY couple of weeks here
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I... have been very irritated lately by the sudden discourse or debate (depends on how amicable these sort of discussions ended) over the Ink Demon design in both Batim and Batdr.
Now on a usual day, I'd say "They're both great and everyone's entitled to their own opinion" but today is not such a day. What triggered this you may be thinking?
The whole notion of one demon being scarier than the other.
That..... hmmmm.... that got me.
So I have decided... to do a thing. I would like to say beforehand I really do like the Ink Demon the character. Both Batim and Batdr (Even if I'm more biased to DR). But all this talk of who is better is really irritating. And it repeats over and over and in such a medium-small, relaxed fandom on its way to sleep mode rn: that's something akin to a broken record.
And I hate being told the same things over and over and over again.
So I'm gonna, perhaps quite harshly but at best, just criticise and at very worst completely trash both the BATIM and BATDR Ink Demon's designs and mechanics because as much as I love this character and his flaws, I'm two bad takes of "one is scarier than the other" away from just never interacting with anyone in the Fandom again.
If you haven't caught the vibe already, I don't take anyone seriously who says one Ink Demon is scarier than the other.
Are you seriously trying to convince me that Batim's Ink Demon is scary? BATIM? The guy whose head looks like a crescent-shaped stress ball smacked onto a malnourished human body? The guy who can get stuck to a crate during a chase? BATIM? Ink Bendy?? Gtfoh
BATDR Ink Demon ain't very scary either. Grotesque, maybe, certainly more than stress ball. But the gross does not scare me very much
Almost like horror is pretty subjective and its not worth fighting over what's scarier
BATDR: The hunchback ain't it chief. Why couldn't we see him in full size, back straight in places where his height wouldn't be restricted. Your posture sucks babe.
BATIM: The legs. The fucking legssss. Need I say more
BATDR's thighs are stick thin and honestly no way will his lower body be able to support his gigantic upper body. I'm not willing to "cartoon logic" reason him out of this.
You cannot tell me that between DCLT and the first cycle of Henry's newborn hell that the Ink Demon is still limping from the injury Buddy gave him. What happened to invulnerability
Ways to incapacitate/kill the Ink Demon (Guarenteed to work): Go for the Legs Apparently (on both of them).
Look: getting chased by a monster is scary and slightly distressing in certain situations, but if the monster constantly gets stuck/glitched in the stairwell and amongst the crate and debris while you're trying to run away from him, he loses intimidation and a lot of it.
Also does not help if a good amount of his chases are scripted. Also does not help if his story presence is next to nothing in the most lore heaviest chapters.
Speaking of glitch: The glitch of the Ink Demon being able to get you in the vent. Makes my eye twitch.
"But Precious these are game glitches that's not fai-" I know
Honestly the nature of being chased by the Ink Demon on both games is relatively the same. It all ends with you hiding from him. Why does it matter that he chases you vs appears in front of you after a certain amount of time. You're still experiencing the same anxiety of trying to find a place to hide before he can kill you.
BATDR's claw length is annoyingly long. Honestly a lot of his body proportions are annoying. If he insists on walking on his hind legs holding his hands like a Jurassic Park Velociraptor, he best prepare to fall flat on his face. His balance must be so off holy fuck.
I still find BATIM's zombie walk wack, I'm not sorry.
BATIM's design just isn't all that visually interesting imo, this I am sorry for.
BATDR's design is interesting but it's both too little and too much. I'd list what I like but this is meant to be a negative post. I'll keep my positives in different post perhaps. I think Dark Revival's would benefit from some cartooniness but not as much as BATIM's ugly stress ball head.
This felt good to get out.
#ink demon#I'm tired of the Batim Ink Demon vs Batdr Ink Demon discourse and debates#so this is going to be scathing to some who really likes one over the other#batdr#batim#bendy and the dark revival#bendy and the ink machine#the ink demon#batdr ink demon#ink bendy#long rant#was trying not to be based honestly#i had to put aside my nostalgia for batim and my crush on batdr to make this#was this petty? yes#do i care? no#will i really leave the fandom if it ever gets bad? i left Animaniacs for less so yes yes i will#will still enjoy the game but i will not fandom interact again
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The Big Grand DCTL Review/Critique
In my previous liveblog I said that I’d do an overall review/rating kind of thing to summarize my thoughts on the book, so here you go.
No Spoilers: So I’ll preface by saying the book isn’t bad. It has it’s... moments, but it’s pretty enjoyable overall. The FNAF books, for example, were fun to read but they were also a hot fucking mess. This is not a hot fucking mess - it has its flaws but it’s pretty decent over all.
Spoilers below the cut:
The Canon-ness of the Book
I would like to say first off that I really don’t think this book is meant to be 100% canon - not to say it isn’t canon, but I don’t think it’s supposed to lie up with the games perfectly. It was approved of by Kindlybeast, but they didn’t write it - Adrienne Kress did, they just helped to develop it.
To explain better: There are a lot of contradictions in this book with the main lore. Some are more minor and could potentially be waved away, but others are extremely glaring. Here’s a short list of the ones that come to mind:
In the book, the Ink Machine is secret and almost no one knows about it. In the game everyone knows and actively complains about the machine on a daily basis. In the Employee Handbook, there’s even a memo from Joey proudly introducing the Machine to everyone.
The book claims you put ink into the Machine and it changes it in some way (effectively running on ink). In the game, it seems to produce ink itself - Joey’s memo kind of indicates this, as does the blueprints, and Wally’s “who really needs that much ink anyway” makes less sense if they’re putting ink into the machine rather than it making the ink.
Plus on Thomas’ board he has a list of the gallons of ink produced each day, with the highest amount written with exclamation points - if it ran on ink this doesn't make sense, as to get 423 gallons of ink he would’ve had to have put 423 gallons of ink into the thing to begin with.
Sammy is wildly OOC in this, as he’s basically a feral asshole throughout the thing, while in canon his merch description calls him a “decent person” and he generally seems agreeable most of the time, except for when he’s annoyed. The book even claims he doesn’t refer to women by their last names, while Susie’s tape tells us the exact opposite (as according to her he referred to Allison as “Miss Allison Pendle”).
Bertrum is also OOC in this - in canon, he’s extremely egotistical and hates Joey for multiple reasons. In the book, they’re buddies (even hugging each other) and Bertrum seems more humble. He doesn’t even correct Joey on calling him “Bertie”, when he had an entire tape about how much he dislikes being called that in the game.
The timeline for this part is also very wrong - it’s treated as if they just met (which could explain why Bertrum doesn’t dislike him yet)... but Bendyland was in progress for years before the studio went to hell, and he even has his BATDR tape (wherein he’s actively disliking Joey) dated years before this book takes place.
This also makes it kind of impossible for him to be the octopus ride like in canon, because he literally just joined the studio when Joey started killing people (and keep in mind that designing and building a ride like that would have taken at least a year or two).
The ink is, for some reason, somewhat alive, able to move around on it’s own and possess people. This was never indicated in the game, ever.
Buddy wakes up as Boris. In the game, stuff like Grant’s tape indicate the ink creatures wake up and then transform (the files even have an unused transformation tape from Wally, who’s likely our Boris). You can kind of headcanon around this one if you try though.
At the end, Norman and a few background characters die. Joey says he didn’t use the machine on them because they had been infected by the ink for too long and didn’t have souls any more. This means that, according to the book, The Projectionist cannot exist (as Norman wouldn’t have had a soul to use and Joey outright says he couldn’t/didn’t use the machine on them in the first place).
Some of these are pretty minor, but some of them are extremely glaring and even casual gamers would pick up on this stuff.
Basically, we have two options: Either Kindlybeast doesn’t know their own story/characters too well, or they didn’t require this to line up perfectly with the games. Except the first option doesn’t make sense, because they’ve recently published stuff that contradicts what’s said in this book in favor of matching the actual lore from the games, proving they do know their own story.
For ampel, Bertrum’s BATDR tape, which lines up with the game’s lore and corrects the mistakes in DCTL, was released in March - long after this book was in production. The thing about the Ink Machine being secret was also disproved in the recently-released Handbook, which instead says they employees do know about the Machine, just like they do in the game. So Kindlybeast do know these things don’t line up with canon.
I think basically they approached Adrienne and were like “hey, can you write a prequel novel based on our game?” and while they offered her some guidance, she mostly just did her own thing based off of it (she even said it felt like working on fanfiction while writing it) and Kindlybeast liked it and published it. It’s an adaptation of the game and its lore, done by a new person - things tend to change in adaptations. I don’t think they needed or cared if it lined up like puzzle pieces, they just wanted a good story, which they got. It is canon... but it’s also not, if that makes sense.
So for our intents and purposes I’d consider this semi-canon - take what you can as canon (which is most of it, as the most major contradictions also tend to be the shortest scenes) and ignore the stuff that doesn’t line up with canon, unless otherwise stated by Kindlybeast or confirmed in BATDR.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Overall, I’d say this book is about 70% good and 30% bad. When it is good, it is really, really damn good - but when it’s bad it leaves an awful taste in your mouth that’s hard to get rid of.
The Good:
Like... the majority of the book, really
Buddy and Dot are wonderful characters with strong personalities. They’re super likeable, bring some much-needed heart into things, and have great chemistry.
While some of the aforementioned characters are majorly OOC, the ones that are in-character (Joey and Norman are good examples) are amazing - every scene with them is gold and the book really fleshes out their personalities.
Some of the new lore tidbits are great, and help explain some things in the game (like how Lost Ones are created) or are just interesting (like Sammy drinking the ink and the idea of the ink being able to infect people, which sounds like something that could have directly come from the games).
The book goes into way more depth about what being a cartoon/ink creature is like, which is some much-needed exposition and is extremely interesting.
It also has a ton of heart and good intentions. I was worried about it being overly dark, but if anything it has far more sweet moments than depressing ones.
The Bad:
The contradictions I mentioned above. Some of them are easy enough to ignore, but some are incredibly jarring and take you out of the story (and make it impossible to take it as 100% canon without breaking the space-time continuum).
I kind of mentioned it above, but the stuff with the ink being alive and possessing people comes right the fuck out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the game lore, is completely tonally dissonant to BATIM as a whole, and literally has nothing to do with the plot of the book, like, at all. It feels like a few pages from a Venom novel got mixed in with the early draft and no one remembered to remove them before publication.
The racist shit - it’s only like 1% of the book, but when that 1% of the book ruins a really good character it’s a pretty big deal.
A random NPC dies for no reason and this death has more relevance to the plot than Norman, who dies off-screen.
Also consider: They could’ve found Norman first, Buddy runs off to get back to his house, Norman follows and gets killed via neck snap. Fixes both problems at once.
There’s very little tension during the horror moments because we already know Buddy will die but not until the end and that Dot will live.
The Ink Demon acts more like an xenomorph than the Ink Demon in this - his behavior is bizarre and it feels pretty generically horror movie monster-ish compared to how he acts in the game.
The Ugly:
The B-plot with Buddy’s grandfather should have been cut. I know that sounds harsh, but really think about it: what effect did it have on the plot? It only crosses with the A-plot twice, and both times nothing came out of it. It gives Buddy a chance to learn how to draw and he goes through some character development, but I find it hard to believe that couldn’t have been accomplished by expanding the A-plot.
The main problem is that A) this is a BATIM novel so we want to see the studio, not Buddy’s relatives at home, and B) it makes it kind of slow towards the middle, wherein the stuff with the studio barely progresses while we keep cutting back to the B-plot.
I didn’t dislike reading it or anything, but it makes the plot flabby, and slicing it out would’ve given us much more time in the studio and the characters we like rather than trying to juggle two plots at once, effectively streamlining it and making for a more cohesive story.
The ending (like the last 5 chapters) is a hot mess in multiple and varying ways:
Sammy shows up and... gets knocked out by a projector. Which is funny, but it amounts to nothing plot-wise and makes Sammy’s whole appearance kind of pointless
Killing off a bunch of characters, one of which was a main character, off-screen
The weird Venom shit that has nothing to do with the plot of the books or the games and amounts to nothing
Bendy acting fairly OOC, especially with how he goes about killing people
Buddy grabs the idiot ball bard by trying to drown a creature made of ink in ink, then standing right near the spot so he can be grabbed and killed
Not only does the “can’t use them because they had been infected for too long and no longer had souls” thing not only raises the aforementioned plot hole with the Projectionist, but it raises a plot hole in the book itself: When the other are exposed to the ink they die, but when Sammy drinks the stuff he turns into a Lost One. Which one is it?
Keep in mind that that was more bullet points in those 30-some pages than I have for the entire rest of the book
There are only like... two actual horror scenes in the book, and one of those is the climax. While it makes sense that too much couldn’t have happened before the ending, it feels like there could have been more than that.
Not all of the characters from the games appear. I know it’s a tall ask but it’s also easy to see how they could have been integrated, and some of them could have easily taken the roles that were given to NPCs instead.
I feel like this book would be more engaging as a non-fan, as the plot tends to progress like a mystery, with you learning a bit more about what’s happening with every scene in the studio... except as a fan you already know what’s happening, so there’s little to keep you engaged until you get into that nice juicy lore at the end.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of little details that tell us new info and the character interactions are great, but a lot of the scenes are just like “Surprise, Sammy is crazy!” and it’s like thanks, we already knew that. The mystery is supposed to build and move the plot forward, but there’s effectively no mystery.
Overall Rating
I’m worried this review is going to come across as overly negative, as it’s much easier to critique what’s wrong than it is to say “this part was good!” like 200 times. But all of the stuff I was talking about that’s an issue? That’s like... 30% of the book, maybe less. Some of the most problematic scenes you could literally remove and loose nothing plot-wise (which is frustrating but you know). The bulk of the book is very good, the lore stuff when handled correctly is amazing and it even provides some extra answers that we didn’t have before, and the characters are great.
Overall, I’d give the book a solid... 7/10, I think. Not perfect, but pretty damn decent all around. If you’re a fan, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy if you haven't already.
#bendy and the ink machine#batim#batim: dctl#dreams come to life#buddy lewek#dot#sammy lawrence#joey drew#outdesign posts things#batim spoilers#outdesign analyzes things#the good news regarding the canon issues is that buddy has memory issues and is a unreliable narrator#so you can take the bulk of the book as canon and just headcanon around the stuff that doesn't make sense and say buddy got confused
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DCTL Liveblog: Chapters 1-3
Man, I miss the days when I could be excited for stuff like tie-in novels instead of just being terrified that they’re going to suck.
I can’t help but compare this to the FNAF novels, as they’re both tie-in books to indie horror games. I guess the big difference is that the FNAF novels aren’t canon, but AUs - it doesn’t matter how bad they are, it doesn’t affect the lore. Heck, even when we thought TSE was canon before it was confirmed it wasn’t, it was just sort of focusing on a side event rather than the bulk of the story. For perspective, that would be like if DCTL was just describing some events that happened in the studio with the ink creatures during the loops or whatever. This is literally the entire backstory to the games, so it’s hard not to feel nervous.
Aside from concerns about what it’s going to do to the plot, I’m also concerned about mood/tone - Bendy has it’s own unique flavor compared to other horror games. I don’t want this to turn into like, Venom or a slasher fic or something, I want it to feel like a BATIM novel. The mood and tone might also end up too dark for its own good considering it’s literally covering everyone going to Hell - the game at least has some moments of levity to ease the depressing parts a bit.
With that said, I did throughly enjoy the preview pages I read online and I’ve heard over and over again from other fans, so hopefully my fears are unfounded.
Side note: This liveblog might be shorter than the others, as I’ve already read most of the first 3 chapters from the preview and therefore won’t have much to say about them. I also am not reading as many chapters as I will over the weekend because I have sleepy bitch disease.
Spoilers under the cut:
One thing I’ll note before I even start reading is that the cover has a really interesting texture to it, and it even has a spot varnish that creates drips of ink coming down from the top. It would’ve cost more to do all of that than to just do a regular cover on standard stock, so I appreciate the production value.
Heck, even the inside is really well designed - there’s ink dripping from the top again and the into page is totally black. It’s a minor thing, but as a designer I really appreciate that they actually made this book fit the BATIM aesthetic instead of just slapping Whatever on it (looking at you FNAF novels).
Going off the FNAF novel comparisons, this book seems better written in the sense that it’s incredibly detailed and vivid - the writing is very rich. The FNAF novels weren’t bad in this regard, but they do pale in comparison.
I love how Joey uses the word “swell”. everything was swell in the 1930s
Buddy gives him the option of Bud or Buddy and Joey immediately goes fo Buddy. at JDS your name will have a -y sound to it and you will enjoy it
I also love how Joey’s like “well I just met you, but you observed some stuff about Bendy immediately so I’m hiring you on the spot even though I don’t know your skills and we’re in debt”. classic Joey
Side note: one of the reasons I think Dot might be our BATDR protag is that Buddy doesn’t know if she’s alive or not. We’ll see if this is addressed in the book or not, but it’s way too weird of a thing to bring up if it’s not followed up in some way.
(I know Meatly said we didn’t know her name, but the book wasn’t out at the time and he might’ve completely forgotten that we already knew if from the description.)
Guessing Tom’s carrying the blueprints for the Ink Machine?
I really like how Buddy has an actual defined personality. In the FNAF books it’s like... characters had personality, but they were very average for the most part (save for William). Buddy is still relatable and isn’t overly coverful, but he’s interesting and enjoyable to read about.
I’m hoping his and Dot’s relationship will be wholesome enough to lighten the mood and keep the book from being too grimdark.
Before we get into the stuff with Sammy, there’s a good moment at the beginning here that handles the subject much better, wherein Buddy just notes that a woman being the boss of something is unusual. Aside from being interesting from a character perspective regarding Joey, it sort of acknowledges that the 1930s sucks for everyone who isn’t a straight white guy - but it still allows the studio to be disconnected from that, which works pretty well compared to what happens later.
love this violinist lady who’s just like “oh yeah here comes fucking sammy” while he just barges in covered in ink and blood. this is just tuesday for her
Thoughts so far: so far so good, don’t fuck it up
#bendy and the ink machine#batim#batim: dctl#dreams come to life#outdesign posts things#liveblog#got some thoughts regarding some Things but I'll let things play out more before I comment on those
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