#bendy employee handbook

[angelofthepage]

Thoughts on the "Updated" Bendy Employee Handbook

Before we go any further, let's make it very clear what kind of post this is: we're not here to hate on the book, and none of anything I'm about to say is said with ill intent. I am here for analysis, constructive criticism, and discussion. This post is a little more critical than what I would usually share, so viewer discretion is advised.

Today we're talking about the newly updated Bendy Employee Handbook, which just recently released as of this month at the time of this post. And I have a lot of questions about this entry, and really, game guides as a whole in our modern gaming world. This book appeared to advertise itself as a rerelease of the original handbook with additional content for Bendy and the Dark Revival, but upon comparing the two, I've noticed there's actually a number of changes they've made, some good, some bad, and some that I'm not sure what to make of. So come and join me under the cut, and if you have some thoughts of your own, feel free to comment or reblog and add to the discussion. Without further ado, here we go!

Part 1: The Baffling Amount of Cut Content

Our story begins where most stories do, the table of contents. So right off the bat, when comparing this book to the original, you'll notice something off.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, an entire section of the original book was cut, on top of making other sections shorter. And the weirdest part? Some of these things were exclusive to that original book, they didn't appear anywhere else in the Bendy franchise. So already we're off to a weird start. Some of these missing pages aren't so bad though. In some cases, they're just format changes to make the book flow a little better/take up less room. Sometimes they succeed in that, sometimes they end up feeling more cramped, it's pretty subjective whether or not this improved the book. But it certainly does cut down on pages. Case in point, the beginning of each chapter of BATIM.

Don't worry, Joey's letter hasn't been cut, but it has been moved to earlier in the book, so it's no longer in Chapter 1. This was a very odd change. Other things that are missing are character monologues, but it's inconsistent. Alice Angel's speech about the screaming well of voices and Joey's monologue right before the final boss were kept, but Sammy's "sheep sheep sheep" speech and Bertrum's audiolog right before his boss fight were inexplicably cut.

Here are a few cuts I found pretty significant.

These pages are all missing from the update. In the case of this newspaper article, what does that mean in regards to whether or not this is "canon" or "retconned"? Joey Drew, did you or did you not have plans to expand into a Bendy themed toothpaste? The people need to know! X''D But seriously, while some of this is inconsequential, some of it matters. The mascot costume in particular, that's the only sketch we get (that I'm assuming came from Bertrum or Joey regarding that part of the parks, no one is specifically credited for making it). It doesn't show up anywhere else in the series (to my knowledge). It's strange that it's just, gone now. The Bendyland spread is such an unfortunate loss, that's some of the closest we've ever gotten to seeing the map of the park. Yes you can see it in BATIM, but being able to get up close and personal with it without having to control Henry was really nice. It makes me wonder if they're trying to erase the past details so they can do more with Bendyland in the future, something that's different from the original vision. I don't think that's it, but it could be, though they'd also have to go back on The Illusion of Living too, given it’s discussed there with some really fun details.

Speaking of which, that's the weirdest piece of cut content: the missing section that ends the old book (that was reiterated in The Illusion of Living). It's Joey Drew's tips for making a cartoon. It's formatted differently and has no images in TIOL, but the basic information is still the same. What's not the same though, is the loss of the tutorial pages for drawing the toons. These are another thing that don’t show up anywhere else in the series, making them a much more permanent loss. And even though this section is cut, it’s still referenced on the back cover of the new book, which is a bit odd.

These were really cute and showed so much personality for not just the toons, but for Joey as he described them. Cutting this was genuinely disappointing for me. Same with the paperwork in Joey's apartment. Those were some of the highest quality images we had of what was on his desk and bulletin board, and I liked being able to see them clearer. The biggest loss of the cut content isn’t just the pages themselves, but the personality they gave to this book, and the Bendy world as a whole. 

This was the very first Bendy book to be released, and therefore our first look into this world in this format. And while I don’t think it’s the greatest thing in the world in terms of being a game guide, I didn’t pick up the original for a game guide. I picked it up because I wanted to see if it provided more context for the world. And when it does that, it does a good job. The memos from characters we know, Joey’s financial records, the images from the desks of people like Joey and Bertrum, they give us insight into how things were going at the studio. Some of my favorite details from the original are Joey’s memo about how Susie was replaced by Allison, and the receipt for Joe’s Fine Dining. The fact that that memo was distributed to everyone but Susie enhanced what we already knew from BATIM, and it paints him as a much crueler character than we knew him to be. Not to mention the repeated use of “I have to say, I’m an instant fan”. Having Joey say those words makes the concept of him creating the cycle so much more interesting. Like did he script out every little action these characters take? Or is this something Susie picked up and recycled from him after potentially finding this memo in real life? Oh there are so many delicious possibilities. And the lunch date, oh my gosh. One, it started my quest to build the Joey Drew menu using all the things he eats in the books, because damn does he have good taste. And two, it was so cool to have a look into an interaction Susie told us about in that one tape. Like that was REALLY GOOD. Give me more like that! When you have other parts of the series back up things we’ve heard only one character say, it gives more credence to the idea that they actually happened that way, or gives us a clue that we need to check for character biases when they tell us their side of the story. And in a series where MOST characters are unreliable narrators, that is REALLY IMPORTANT for establishing timelines and figuring out what’s real versus what’s fabricated. That was my biggest hope for the update, for more flavortext and world building that expands on things we already know. 

But um…the dark revival part of the book doesn’t do that. 

Part 2: The Dark Revival’s Minimal Offerings

After an abrupt jump from Bendyland to BATDR, we get into the new stuff. The Bendy and the Dark Revival section of this book is alarmingly short and has very little substance. There is no new expansion of the worldbuilding or insight into these characters. I mean, the book describes Heidi as being a female lost one? So if you wanted a confirmation on her gender, there you go I guess? I guess that detail was never like, stated explicitly, but this is me stretching to find something new that it gives us. Actually, wait, it does give us one new thing, but I’m gonna be honest, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

The book refers to Allison having a “pet wolf” when we get her introduction in Chapter 1. It then later describes that Tom “likes being pet” when we get his introduction in Chapter 5. Which by the way, is the only image of Tom in this entire book, since his original render from the old version was cut. Now, I’ll be honest, I used to like that second detail, I thought it was cute that he doesn’t just tolerate Audrey, he actually LIKES being pet. Those are two different things, having some insights into Tom’s feelings and characterization would have been a breath of fresh air. But no, when I reread the book and saw that first detail, that made that really weird and uncomfortable actually. It would be one thing if in-universe, Tom called himself a pet, or Allison called him that with consent. Heck, if there was another character in-universe who wanted to purposely insult Allison and Tom by saying that, that would be fine too, then it’d be reiterating the narrative. But on its own? I take issue with taking Tom of all characters and calling him her pet. The Safehouse Boris never got treated that badly, hell, Buddy in the books never got dehumanized this badly when he became a Boris. But Tom, Tom gets to be the one that’s dehumanized? There is something that really rubs me the wrong way about that. Especially if he turns out to be Thomas Connor or has some connection to him. I can’t assume if he is or isn’t anymore given all the stuff BATDR pulled with Allison and Henry. But on the chance he IS Thomas Connor, do you have any idea how bad that looks, to have a character that, because of details written in Dreams Come to Life, many fans speculate to be a person of color, referring to him as Allison’s “pet”? And even if he ends up not being a person of color (I say as I groan about the inevitable discourse for the DCTL graphic novel that’s coming out), it’s still kind of awful to say that about anyone. Tom is a character that has repeatedly gotten the short end of the stick in this series. He’s relevant to BATDR for all of a couple of minutes, and he’s incredibly underutilized and lacking details or depth for most of the series. Thomas Connor, he gets a bit of depth as of The Lost Ones, that novel does great things for him. But Tom Wolf? Short end of the stick. And I’m sad to see that continue here. 

The one positive thing I have to say about this section is that it’s really nice to have so many of the audiolog character transcripts here. Most of the notes and logs from BATDR are here with all their words typed out. The ones that in-game had a chiller styled font are transcribed a bit strangely, as now they’re written like the messages written on the walls in-game. But it’s not the worst. If anything, all of this gives me a great resource as a theorist. Having a record of all of these and what chapters they appear in makes my goal of constructing a timeline and cross checking information much easier. 

Though from a graphic design standpoint, these pages frustrate me a little bit. They’re so cramped, and there’s several spots where the text isn’t centered properly within its text block. I get the sense on some parts, it’s because it’s placed so close to the spine of the book, so they don’t want any information getting cut off, but it still looks funky. And there are several spots where that explanation doesn’t really apply. There’s also some weird placement of fun facts. While I love that this book lets us in on some secrets, they’re not always placed in an area that makes sense? Like, there’s a note about how to get the Inkjets Concert, but the steps for how to get it are placed way after a point in the narrative where you’d be able to get it, and I’m kind of scratching my head as to why it was done that way. Is it to encourage a second playthrough? Or is it to not spoil the story? Why not split the information up? Or have a dedicated secrets page like they do with the achievements and theMeatly’s cutouts? 

Though speaking of not spoiling things, this book is really odd about what it chooses to focus on. So, Henry’s model is in this book, right next to a passage about a “mysterious man” you can meet in the Cyclebreakers area. They showed his model but didn’t name him as Henry? I don’t quite get that choice. Also, despite the cyclebreakers being very important to this story, they aren’t really mentioned before this very brief section. However, Porter? The character shown for all of a few seconds? He’s got at least three images throughout this book. The balance feels off with what this book chooses to put emphasis on. 

Also, this one really annoyed me: Allison. So for everyone who’s actually played BATIM, you would know that Allison Angel is never referred to as Allison within BATIM. We only know she’s called that because people dove into the game’s files and revealed her and Tom’s names upon the release of Chapter 4. And the book follows suit with this, it does not call her Allison in the original handbook whatsoever. HOWEVER, the BATDR section messes this up. When it introduces her, even though in-game she introduces herself as Alice, the book introduces her as Allison. But when we get to Chapter 5, the part where she’s actually named Allison by Audrey, it suddenly switches to calling her Nice Alice? It’s a weird choice and I don’t understand why this happened. 

It leaves me wondering just how much the new author of this section and their editors know about the Bendy series before going into this project. What context were they given to write this thing? It makes the book feel unpolished to have so many mistakes in its formatting and information. I don’t know what the quality control team for this release looked like, but a part of me wonders how many editors this went through before making it to the final release. I don’t work in publishing to know what that looks like, but I’d genuinely love to learn more on this subject, it’s fascinating. 

There’s also a very strong dissonance in the imagery. While I’m glad to see the renders from BATDR’s advertising so clearly and up close, the difference in their coloring looks strange when put next to the rest of Bendy’s usual color palette. It leaves me wondering what assets the book team was given for use in this release. There’s a lot I could say here about the importance of press kits and brand guidelines, especially in this day and age when so many fans are making just as high quality of content as the official releases of media. And that leads me to the most disappointing part of this book. 

Part 3: Stolen Content

If you’re active in the Bendy fandom and know its many creative members, then you may already know what I’m about to dive into. MLSpence3D is an artist that enjoys 3D modeling, rigging, animating, and rendering. He can often be found engaging in all sorts of corners in the indie mascot horror community, such as playing a notable role in the production of SuperHorrorBro’s upcoming title, Glitched Out, as well as providing the renders used on the Bendy Wiki of the in-game characters. Spence has had his work mistaken for official renders before, and unfortunately, it’s not just fans making that mistake. The render of the Piper used in the BATIM portion of the original handbook is Spence’s, and it unfortunately hasn’t been removed in this update, nor has he been credited or asked for permission to have it used here. I’ll admit, his stuff looks so official that I’ve mistaken it as such too, and it speaks to a much needed conversation on assets, metadata, and protection for artists of all mediums. 

Our fandom is not the only place where this happens. Back when FNAF: Help Wanted was in production, the cover art mistakenly used fan renders as a part of its photomanipulation. Developer Scott Cawthon was quick to apologize and make things right, removing the renders and replacing them with officially made FNAF models. Heck, we had something similar happen right here with Bendy back when the voice cast of BATDR started working with Streamily. The initial post that advertised their Streamily debut used renders from Spence and a few other artists that had to be tracked down, and they didn’t have the rights to use them, nor were they credited. It makes a lot of sense that this happens, when you don’t have sufficient resources and aren’t an active member of the fandom, if you’re a graphic designer trying to make a piece to advertise something, you’re going to need assets to make that. And if you’re not given sufficient assets by the people you’re designing for, you turn to other sources to get the job done. They may not know what on Google is official vs fan content. The fans are so skilled and passionate about what they do, and with the number of series that have fans steadily joining the official teams, it’s incredible what can result from being passionate. But it also makes for a much needed reminder to add metadata to your files so that they can be traced back as belonging to you. Watermark your stuff, clearly mark your work as fan content in the tags, captions, and descriptions, in an effort to protect yourself. Don’t use images you find online unless you have a very clear idea of where they came from, so you can direct people back to the source when they ask about it (or better yet, link the source in your description from the start). Give people another reason to pause and double check their work in the chain of command (they should be pausing to double check anyway, but let's be real, we don't live in a perfect world). In a world where credit and sources are more important than ever, remembering to give credit where it’s due from the start will save you all kinds of headaches in the future. Video game developers, especially those of you in the indie scene: please develop press kits to give to people your teams collaborate with. By giving them assets they can reliably use to advertise for you, you will save everyone a lot of hassle in the long run. And if this is still happening even with a press kit, it merits having some conversations to evaluate why and solve the problem. If there is no other takeaway anyone gets from this post, this is the big one I want to see some positive change on in the future.

Part 4: The Functionality as a Game Guide

This book works for your first time through BATDR, but not for any kind of sequential playthroughs. The way it directs you through the game uses the audiologs and notes as waypoints. Once you pick them up, they are removed from the environment, and so if you’re picking up the game after a long time away from it, you’re not gonna remember where those were, so it’s likely not going to be useful for navigating. It reminds me a lot of the way my parents talked about one of our old hometowns. We lived in Vermont for a little while, and there were two things about our area that we laughed about. One, never leave your car unlocked unless you want it filled with zucchini. Two, if you ask for directions, you’re not gonna have a clue unless you’re a local, because they word everything in a similar fashion to “you’re gonna drive past where the old barn used to be”. At least give me a landmark that still exists, or a map! The BATIM chapters aren’t much better, they sort of give you a layout map, but it’s not helpful. Especially in Chapter 3, the place where you arguably need a map the most, there is no kind of instruction for how to get through Alice’s fetch quests if you get lost. 

In my mind, a game guide is something you turn to when you need help getting through a game. Now, mind you, I am not the target audience for a game guide. I don’t own game guides. There are a few in my household that my siblings own, for stuff like Super Mario Sunshine, and I guess technically my Pokedex for Pokemon Black and White 2 DOES double as a game guide. But like, we now live in the age of the internet. If you want to know how to get through something, there are a million articles and Let’s Plays that detail how to complete the base story, find secrets, and even suggest strategies for tackling difficult challenges. Some of these are designed to be informative, and some are more reactionary and built for entertainment, there’s lots of flavors to choose from! 

And it makes me wonder, what does that mean for the medium of game guides as a whole? I think they still have their place. For one thing, different people benefit from different learning styles. Being able to read a guide may work better for someone than a video depending on their brain wiring. And for people who don’t have reliable or frankly any internet, or rely on a library for that, it’s nice to have a book so that you don’t have to wait to keep playing. I’ve never seen anyone get a game guide from a library, but I absolutely think it’s something a library could have. It’s also just really convenient to have all of that information available in one book, as opposed to having to search through multiple forums and sources and risk getting spoiled. And when they’re done well, sometimes they can have secrets not even the existing player base knew. Like I knew that there was this secret about a ghost train that appears if you set your system’s clock to 4:14, but I didn’t know if AM or PM mattered. Thanks to this book, now I know that it doesn’t matter, both work, which is really handy to know! But uh…most of the secrets that were revealed in this book were things I knew within the first month that BATDR came out. None of them were new to me as someone who’s plugged into the world of Bendy. There have been multiple videos detailing how to get these secrets, and how to play this game, by many different indie horror enthusiasts. It almost makes it feel like this book came out a bit too late, and it’s only released about a year or so after this game came out.

Which really begs the question, who was the target audience for this book? Was it for new fans who were struggling with these games? Was it for longtime fans who wanted a memento of the occasion and a record of all the stuff in these games? Was it for lore hunters hungry for new secrets and world building? Having read both versions of the employee handbook, I still can’t definitively say who the target audience is. That kind of frustrates me, that’s the first thing they taught us about back when I went to school for graphic design. It’s important to keep your audience in mind when designing something, that way it caters to their needs, appeals to them, and gets your message across effectively. 

Part 5: Final Thoughts

I still can’t say for sure what I was supposed to get out of this.The parts of it that I found charming and appealing were not continued or built upon in this update. There is no new world building or lore. It doesn’t do an effective job as a game guide given its reliance on non-permanent elements of gameplay. It doesn’t give us tools to cross reference what we know from previous entries, nor does it expand upon details that lacked clarity within BATDR or BATIM. It removed some of its more charming content, and it still has stolen artwork from its previous iteration. By the time I got done reading this book, I was left feeling disappointed and kind of exhausted. No joke, I grabbed a friend, and we went through it all to compare it page by page to see what changed. It was something you could make a drinking game out of, not that I would recommend that. 

I would struggle to recommend this book to any Bendy fan, unless you’re a completionist like me who wants to own every book as a physical copy. The original employee handbook was a far better read, and if you can find a copy secondhand or at your local library, you’re in for a small but tasty treat (quite literally if you decide to make the bacon soup recipe, which fun fact, originated in this book and was developed by the wife of Bookpast, one of the writers on this series!). The Dark Revival section feels tacked on and not as well thought out as the original book was. There is a very odd disconnect between the two. I’m genuinely confused as to why it was put in a rerelease of this book rather than making an entirely new book for Dark Revival. Dark Revival is a much longer and detailed game than Bendy and the Ink Machine. I would expect a book that describes how to play it and its world building to take up a lot more pages and go in depth on different details than this one did. So why was it done this way? Does this have to do with some sort of contract with Scholastic that we don’t know about? Was there a time constraint, or a page count that had to be met that they couldn’t meet with just BATDR? Did the people working on Bendy have too much on their plates to dedicate the time to a new book? What happened here? I wasn’t expecting to leave this book with more questions than answers, but here we are. 

Overall, I don’t think it was worth what I paid for it, but it’s going to live on my shelf with the rest of my books. This will be handy for when I need to reference the audiologs and don’t want to look up a YouTube video to remember what was said. It’ll also be nice if I’m traveling. See, whenever I visit my grandparents, their wifi is pretty limited, so if I want to draw anything while I’m up there, I have to print out references or download images on my phone before I go so I can do that. Having some of the new renders in this book will be useful if I decide I want to draw Bendy stuff or theorize while on the road. 

Now it's your turn. Tell me your thoughts on the Updated Edition of the Bendy Employee Handbook! Is this something you want to read? If you have read it, did you enjoy it? Were you left wanting more? If we ever get another book like this, what sort of things would you like to see? Let's talk about it. And remember, if you did enjoy it, that's not a bad thing, absolutely no judgement there. Just because it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not going to be enjoyable for someone else. Every work of fiction has its audience. <3 Here's wishing you a wonderful rest of the day, and happy reading!

#bendy employee handbook spoilers #bendy employee handbook #bendy spoilers #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #batim #bendy and the ink machine #bendy books #bendy book spoilers

[mickeys-malarkey]

Omigosh there are totally two different authors in the BATDR section of the updated Employee Handbook. I recognize those hint-dropping and description styles and that snarky cadence! That's my boy Wilson(/Wilton, rofl)~!

How'd you get your dad to let you touch his creepy scrapbook, bud?? What's the story, here?? 👀👀👀

#bendy employee handbook #jds employee handbook #employee handbook #bendy employee handbook spoilers #jds employee handbook spoilers #bendy spoilers #wilson arch #nathan arch sr. #bendy and the dark revival #batdr #bendy and the ink machine #batim #fan reactions #employee handbook spoilers #the mug and the maiden #tmatm

[reanimationstation]

HI I READ THE BATIM BOOKS IN ONE DAY SO YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW NORMAL IVE BEEN SINCE THEN

i wanted to redraw this scene from DCTL the second i read it, both because sAMMY DID YOU TRY TO FIGHT THOMAS CONNOR, and the fact that Tom was repeatedly described across books as Big and Strong and built like a wall made me absolutely need to see him next to my below-average-height-for-Sams Sammy.

#victors art #thomas connor #sammy lawrence #dreams come to life #bendy and the ink machine #batim dctl #if youre wondering if its just that tom is absurdly tall and sam is a normal height. or that toms a normal tall and sams absurdly short. #the answer is yes /j #buddy in the closet like 😬📄🖋 #IF ANYONE WANTS TO SEND ME ASKS ABOUT THE BOOKS... PLEASE GO AHEAD #(i didnt read employees handbook or the comics. yet)

[sillyvisioncorner]

Look what came :D

#sillyvisoncorner #bendy and the ink machine #batim #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #joey drew studios #bendy books #employee handbook

[reel-fear]

Wow, so umm... This looks bad, not only is it inaccurate due to using the wrong ink demon design [unless this is confirmation BATIM Ink Demon has been outright retconned... Which would make me pissed enough to make a new post just about THAT] but from an art standpoint this is just... Confusing and poorly done.

I wouldn't care if this was fanart, of course you should support young, indie artists... But for a Graphic Novel making sure your cover doesn't look like something Butch Hartman shat out in an afternoon is kind of important. Remember they're going to be asking us to give money to them to read this. The artist likely won't see any of that money and neither do the authors most of the time, not to mention this art screams of the artist being underpaid and overworked.

Like they Had to get something on someone's desk and their boss said 'good enough'. A concept Joey Drew Studios is very familiar with considering the allegations of poor working environments that Kindly Beast. Not to mention Mike Mood admitting in a Reddit AMA that they did in fact rush projects like Showdown Bandit. [Which they sold at full price]

He also says they can in fact say no or yes to designs involving their IP. Either Mike or Meatly had to say yes to this cover, according to his own damn words.

And do you really think this company in particular would care enough about its fanbase to not sell them garbage? They have done exactly that on several occasions. It's not like they care particularly about art either, considering their previous use of AI Art. There was no apology or even posts addressing it... Instead, they just rushed out an archives update to their game to get people to stop talking about it... Even forgetting an entire character in it. Again

This company is [or at least SHOULD BE] on thin ice when it comes to being suspected of misleading their fans or rushing out crappy products to them.

So with all that context in mind, I'm gonna talk about why this cover sucks ass.

The light sources are all over the place? Why does it look like someone put maces or knight armor on his shoulders but it's just flesh?? It looks both gross and weird [not in a good way either]

To explain more I'm going on a rant below but sadly this seems to have been confirmed to not just be a rough pass but the final cover and man... I am not excited about this graphic novel just at all. This felt like it really drained any possibility of it turning out good for me and I already had expectations low.

Okay first point, the light sources?? And there is no consistency here with the shadows or lighting, it looks like there's a hundred light sources all at once but none of them are even consistent!

the arrows here represent all the different light sources I can make out and yet the the shadow clearly implies there's only one. I understand wanting to use highlights to give the character a more clear shape but then just give him one or two lights behind him or in front of him? No matter how u follow the light sources, the highlights make no sense and the shadows make even less sense.

Why are the shoulders like that? Like on the legs it's a little understandable, at least those are clearly very heavily affected by perspective, for me I think they are so exaggerated it makes it look like one of the legs is either huge or one is small but that's maybe subjective.

However, the shoulders are unjustifiable, what happened there, what did they do??

I could pick on so much more honestly, how the color choices of piss yellow with no other colors being used, and the harsh pitch black being used for every part of his body is weird. How it looks straight out of Butch Hartman's recent crappy art. But to put bluntly bad start! Also what the HELL is going on with this background??

Seems once again the Bendy team is fine with sending out stuff thinking it's "Good Enough" for Bendy fans and honestly the people trying to tell me to "Be Grateful" for this are just proving that no matter how many times you betray your audience some of em will defend you!

Which is sad tbh. If anything we should be putting MORE pressure on the Bendy team to do better. Cause we deserve better than this, honestly we do. There are amazing artists in the bendy community who could do so much better for a cover. They've employed their fan artists before... Wouldn't it be great to do that for such a lore important book? The book that gives us the identity of one of the main characters in BATIM? The character you spend the entirety of Chapter 4 fighting to save? Not to mention will give several major characters their human designs?

But I guess this is... Good enough...

#ramblez #batim #batdr #bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival #sorry I've been on a positivity streak with bendy I know but I have to be honest and being honest I think this sucks lol #Im sure plenty of people Disagree and while I would argue this is more objective than subjective people will ignore me if they want to #maybe Im just a hater idk #but I do know one thing I sure do hate this and Im pretty sure Ill hate this novel and its designs #but maybe I wont ya never know #anyways if they do retcon batim ink demon I will make a post abt how much I dislike batdrs ink demon design #and why I think all the people saying its better than the og seriously arent understanding #what made batims ink demon good or character design in general tbh #to put bluntly just bc something is popular opinion DOES NOT make it right or a good idea design wise #not everyone is qualified to be a character designer and thats just good advice in general tbh #anyways yeah thats it sorry im being mean today </3 #I simply think corporations shouldnt be able to rush out crappy products to their fans and get paid for it but ig thats a hot take now #but esp with how bad that updated employee handbook was too and it still had stolen renders from fans in it... #yeah I dont think theyve learned a damn thing

[scarlet-cookie]

Employee handbook questions that I still wonder

1.Chapters

if the employee handbook we have aligns up with the in-lore one that employees would get to read when they get employed, why on earth would they have “surviving your first week” labeled with five chapters of BATIM? Not to mention that the pages weren’t printed on and it’s basically just a bunch of scrap paper and photos pasted on. The only few things “printed on” are just regular employee guide stuff Ex.axe guide, room guide

and ink marks/dialogues

2.Employees specifically stated

There’s pages that shows the sort of chart thingy of how many jobs there are and who works under who, and they would include a few snippets from in-game (batim) characters. Everyone (from batim so not counting characters like Buddy Lewek or Emma LaMonte) was mentioned besides Bertrum. Why? Even Lacie got her own little mention and it still called Bertrum “Bertie”. He had every reason to get his own little name card too but he wasn’t there. And again, if this was the in-universe employee handbook, why those employees? People like Joey, Grant, Sammy, Wally and Thomas are quite understandable since they either have an independent job or an extremely high position with a massive department under them (which also makes me wonder why they ignore Grant so much. His department was massive as heck, even bigger than Sammy’s tbh. There should be quite some lore there) but .. Lacie? Shawn? Jack? Norman? Explicitly labeled to not be a big head of anything and works under aforementioned characters. I don’t mean to say that they had lower positions and shouldn’t be credited, but there are thousands of employees that were under those positions as well. If they wanted to credit Jack, head lyricist, what’s giving that they shouldn’t credit the chief sound engineer? How about a film editor or some random archivist? Just.. a really random choice of characters honestly, makes me wonder why them.

(The second question was the reason why I added an extra special role to those employees in my headcanon/AU, but what are your thoughts?)

#Batim #Questions #Employee handbook #CONFUSED #WHY #Bendy and the ink machine #batim employee handbook

[multi-level-shipper]

Just to avoid reblog chaining/ bendysplaining on lucky-dreamfisher's post, I'm gonna throw this Tweet up here and talk about it.

Here's the thing, Meatly has labeled the all the books as "fun extras." All the books, meaning the Employee Handbook, Illusion of Living, Crack-Up-Comics, DCTL, TLO, and Fade to Black.

And yes, they are bonus content. You do not need to read them to understand the base games. It's just odd to me that they're being treated as if they have no connection or impact on the "canon" of the games. It just feels a little disingenuous.

Illusion of Living is Joey's autobiography. Yes, it is completely fair to expect people NOT to read it, because how well it holds your attention largely hinges on how much you like Joey, and Joey talking about Joey. But you CAN'T ignore the fact that this is a giant life story dump from one of the most integral characters to the plot.

And then we have Buddy from DCTL being HEAVILY implied to be our Boris. It was never confirmed from what I remember, but the timing of the transformation lined up with BATDS. So we could argue that even DCTL still has SOME lore relevancy as far as the games go.

Even the Employee Handbook has notes and other details from the lives of the JDS employees (on top of being an actual game guide lol.)

I guess the main thing that confuses me is this; if you are going to have books that tie into Bendy's canon, why call them "fun extras"? Why separate them?

I'm all for the authors having their creative freedom, (I've said before how much I love Adrienne Kress's work and how much she breathes a soul into these characters,) but specifically pointing out how the authors "make things their own" in the context of this Tweet seems to mean it separates the books from canon entirely.

Maybe I'm reading the tone of the Tweet as too dismissive. I am biased. I do not like Meatly. It's frustrating to see him as the creator of this franchise twirl his hair and go "well...actually the books are kind of the authors' thing idk..." when, hilariously, the books are just echoing the game's characters and lore nearly down to a tee.

TL;DR The Bendy books are plot relevant, why are we (TheMeatly) just now deciding to separate them from canon?

#i hope this makes sense #my main gripe is with “the books dont mean anything teehee” yes they do you little shit #bendy books #illusion of living #dreams come to life bendy #themeatly #batim #batdr

[skemford]

I like talking about bendy characters so it’s time to touch up topic of… Joey Drew himself

Doing it before fade to black release on purpose :)

Here’s my analysis of his behaviour and on the illusion of living philosophy

It’s a huge read and I’ve enjoyed writing it!

(Continuation under the cut)

1. Joey’s family situation was hard on it’s own

Joey doesn’t talk about his parents way too much and mostly focuses on story elements (his father being a shoe maker and how his parents affected his childhood) rather than on his parents as their own people.

They weren’t rich and Joey talks about their family earning a “honest living” but at the same time, he describes how hard it was for his father.

“We weren’t rich. There was an honest living to be earned and Father did that with Mother keeping the books” (TIOL, page 18)

“I definitely saw her (mother) more than I saw Father, who sometimes would only appear briefly at the dinner table, hunched, brow furrowed, silently eating his meal. He’d disappear downstairs right after, and I’d help Mother with the washing up. (TIOL,page 18)

He comments on his father creating fake scenarios (elves helping him to work) to distract from hardship of needing to work a lot to be able to feed their family.

Joey has hard time of understanding ‘why’ he does that and how fantasy can help to work but he wants to believe. He tries to prove to himself that magic can be real.

"I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it” (TIOL, page 19)

“I couldn’t see the elves. They must have been sitting on the table itself, hidden behind Father. I pushed the door open just a little bit and stood taller on my tiptoes.” (TIOL, page 21)

Joey switches between wanting to believe in illusions and not wanting to. He’s scared of not being perceived as normal by others.

He says that it’s not okay to be deep into the fantasy but notes on the fact that he can grasp the concept.

“I knew about make-believe. Played it all the time with my friends. But I didn’t know that adults knew about make-believe too. I nodded. (TIOL, page 23)

After he asks his father directly, he explains his reasoning and says that make-believe helps to feel less lonely (I’ll note on this part, it’ll come in handy later) which changes Joey’s perspective greatly:

"But the make-believe, the little characters, the songs, that changed his reality. What was reality except what we perceive it to be? Elves and magic? Well, why not? (TIOL, page 24)

It’s everything we’ve got to know about his family.

Hard working to earn money for living, using escapism to cope and distant from each other because of their struggles.

This distance likely has continued to grow with years, since for some reason he escaped his home when he was 15 y.o (+ signed up to army); no one seems to actually care and he was left on his own.

1.1 Stage name

Talking about Joey’s distance from his family, he doesn’t use his real family surname or full form of his name.

It’s not something that was explored a lot in Bendy (among all of its content) but we know that he doesn’t like to be referred this way.

'Joey’ was a nickname that he picked up for himself when he was 19 y.o.

"I’m Detective Adam Sinclair. You’re Joseph Drew.” “Joey,” I said. It was a new nickname I was trying out, ever since I moved to the Village. (TIOL, page 88)

Usually he’s referred as 'Joseph’ by his family members or people who are distant to him/don’t know him well.

But "Joey” is not the only one name he gave to himself.

'Drew’ doesn’t look like a real surname. He likely picked it up after getting close with Henry.

Imo Drew is a fun pun name that’s related to Joey owning the studio (and “Joey drew Studios” (literally) in the case of the cycle)

It has never sounded real.

Employees handbook mentions some “Dempsey” person who invests their own costs into the studio:

(Receipts: Investor Deposit, J. Dempsey)

Their initials are “J.D.” which makes it’s obvious who they are.

Joey’s house also doesn’t look rich which would make sense if he put all his earnings into the studio itself.

Bendy devs like to pick names that fit characters & “Dempsey” means “arrogant person” which does fit Joey perfectly.

1.2 Joey is deeply ashamed of the way his family lived.

Everytime someone mentions anything he associates with his past (shoes, for example) he overthinks and creates imaginary conflicts with these people.

His negative thoughts about them take whole paragraphs of text; he tries to make himself believe that he doesn’t care about looking “less” in someone’s eyes. He looks for reasons why they're worse than him constantly.

"Probably trying to figure out my past, and that was none of his business. Then I told myself it didn’t matter because I didn’t care what he thought. I didn’t care much for him in general. He might have been richer than me at the time, but that’s where his superiority ended." ( TIOL, page 26)

He often downplays people because he's deeply insecure and is scared of being outcasted, especially by rich successful guys.

After doing so,he switches toward praising himself and names reasons for why he's better (classic Joey Drew behaviour)

He was a year younger than me, hadn’t fought, hadn’t signed up like I had, hadn’t lied about his age to fight for his country like I had. What could he say to an answer like that?Nothing. Absolutely nothing (TIOL, page 26)

Не believes that they need to feel sorry for this because they have no idea how much he struggled in the past.

2. He's insecure & scared of things he can't control

I could've continues this in previous paragraph but it's a bit different.

You see, while Joey was insecure of his past (things he associated with it acted as "triggers") he still was full of himself.

It was an act but it looked convincing enough; with time it became harder for him to keep it up.

It easily explains his behaviour in batim tapes.

When Joey tries to reassure everyone that he knows what's going on, he actually doesn't. He's as lost as everyone else, he tries to act only when he's forced to do so.

He lies to people and runs away from responsibility because he's scared of abruptness, something out of his control.

Joey shows fear of everything that's unknown to him but he tries to play it off somehow: he tries to be on top and be unpredictable to others.

He treats himself as a human that lives around unpredictable fictional characters that he can't control or read intentions of.

"My father though was a real person. I knew that deep down. But in this moment I saw him not as a son looking at his father but as a viewer looking at a fictional character." (TIOL, page 50)

It's mentioned in the novels that Joey likes theatre and he expresses his thoughts about it to Buddy in dctl.

Theatre operates in "cycles":

Actors play their parts→ the audience applaud→ actors bow→ performance ends→ performance begins and so on.

It's has a pattern and won't introduce anything that will caught you off guard. It's "safe" and as a part of audience,you don't need to perform, you only watch.

Does it remind you of batim's cycle? Outside of holding grudges toward Henry and wanting to run away from everything Joey has performed with GENT, he also searches for control while not being included directly.

HE decides what will happen to the cycle residents. HE writes the story that other people can barely affect. HE blames other people for studio's downfall and makes them suffer for his wrongdoings.

Joey knows that he has failed but he can't process it. He doesn't know what will happen and he's scared of being put into situations he can't predict.

It's really shows how insecure he became with years.

3. Why Henry is important?

Why exactly Joey couldn't replace one man he didn't knew for a really long time? What made Henry so special to him?

We don't get a big insist on their friendship but it can be said that their short-lived bond was strong or at least Joey believed that it was.

Henry seems to be Joey's role model of sort even if Joey doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Joey notes on how Henry changed the course of his life without knowing about this

Henry is a determinated man who went for a career in art because he knew what he wanted & he stayed on this path no matter how hard it was to get any recognition.

Henry's the man who makes decisions and acts when he needs to.

Meanwhile, Joey feels lost his whole life. He searches for answers,purpose or a place with a "soul".

Henry gave him new meaning for life. Creative path with endless possibilities that Joey could build from scratch.

Joey was heartbroken when Henry left, doesn't matter for hard he tries to act like he wasn't.

"His presence was helpful, I can happily admit, but his absence was even more so. Not having him at the studio ended up being one of the best things that could have happened to it" (TIOL, page 138)

For some time his life was revolving around Henry. He knew what to do and what will happen, Henry always pushed him to the right decisions.

He says so directly in batim chapter 5:

"The truth is, you were always so good at pushing, old friend... pushing me to do the right thing"

With loosing Henry, Joey lost his newly gained purpose in life. It wasn't something that he was able to figure out by himself & it made him blind to the road that lies ahead.

He's angry at Henry for being like "other people" that he hates. For leaving him behind when he's scared of being alone.

We don't know about Henry's perspective much but he strikes me as someone who would be supportive of Joey at first.

He made some of Joey's ideas real and left only after a breaking point.

3.1 "Cartoon family"

Joey is deeply attached to main JDS toons that he "mutually" owns with Henry.

Especially, it's noteciable with toon Bendy who was called his child on a couple of occasions:

"Bendy was Joey’s child, and he felt just as strongly about Bendy as I feel about my flesh-and-blood son" © Nathan Arch (TIOL, page 5)

"He was my very first creation—one could even call him my firstborn." (TIOL, page 12)

Joey not only sees Bendy as his child but he also relates to him.

He draws parallels between them both, calls bendy manifestation of "the illusion of living" and shows some of his mannerisms (as he says)

Joey wants to see himself as Bendy.

A character who's loved by kids and adults alike and who always has friends around.

"I tell people that Bendy is the perfect example of my philosophy." (TIOL, page 12)

"To know that I needed a creation so perfect, so accessible to so many people, that it would help me change the way the world saw itself." (TIOL, page 13)

In Joey's apartment the only one picture in frame that he owns is illustration/animation cell of toons drawn by 'Henry Stein':

They're depicted holding hands with Bendy being in the middle of both; it's portrays closeness between them and Bendy's importance in the picture

But was it's actually signed up by Henry or Joey is the one who did it for himself?

We know from batim (and batdr notes) that Joey's signature is "your best pal" which makes this case...a bit complicated

Joey could've wanted to pretend that Henry is still close to him and decided to sign up drawing with his name

Or possibly it was signed up by Henry somewhere in the past. In this case, Joey could've adopted Henry's signature as his own.

Both speculations have place to be real and we can't prove any of them.

Joey's known for pretending (which would fit with the 1st possibility) but he's also stuck in the past and stole a lot of ideas that belong to other people.

Imo it can be interpreted based on the way you see him.

4. Why was Susie fired?

Joey's obsessed with everything that is related to Bendy which can be seen with him being angry about "crooked bendy dolls" or bendy expression sheet in batim ch 2.

We can speculate that Susie Campbell wasn't fired from the role of Alice's voice actress for any valid reason BUT because Joey felt personally offended.

As Norman says in dctl, Alice Angel was really popular for a bit, which possibly could have been unacceptable for Joey.

Bendy is the main character Joey relates to and he wouldn't have wanted to be overshadowed in any way.

Susie being fired and humiliated (for not knowing that she was in fact fired) is the consequence of Joey's insecurity.

Susie claims that "she was absolutely perfect for the role" at first so at some point Joey completely changed his perspective.

Any character getting attention would be good for the studio. Firing a voice actress that helps to get this attention lacks logical reasoning.

After Joey "calms down" he has a conversation with Susie about 'an opportunity' he has for her. This opportunity is Susie being the first (speculated to) human sacrifice. He believed that she'd have been a perfect Alice.

Joey puts Bendy above Boris and Alice (like he does with himself & other people) so him acting pitiful about any other character getting popular does makes sense.

But he still cares about them...to some degree.

"Boris was special, Alice was complicated." (TIOL, page 154)

Joey having complicated feelings with Alice as character is really interesting and it's perfectly reflects what he was thinking about Susie.

She was a perfect voice actress to others but wasn't to him. He thought that she'll be a perfect Alice (after the ink machine was created) but she failed to be.

"She was beautiful. And loved by all. She was perfect...No matter what Joey says." (batim chapter 3, Susie talking about herself in 3rd person)

In dctl he claims that he relates failed experiments to "people not being real enough" or says that they weren't pure.

At the end, Joey basically has decided to pretend that she never was real

Susie is never mentioned in his memoir and she's almost fully erased from studio's history.

In Batdr's studio tour (music department part) "Susie Campbell" was replaced with "Allison Pendle"; meaning that Allison is officially the only one Alice Angel voice actress according to him.

5. The ink demon

It's one of the most interesting parts here and I'm sure that a lot of people have talked about him better that I'll.

The ink demon is a "product" of mistreatment, Joey's unhealthy projecting and capitalism (duh)

Joey saw Bendy as his son

He wanted to be like Bendy, someone who's loved and can always escape from troubles

One of reasons to bring Bendy to life is his marketability. Joey wanted "alive attractions" he can get money from.

The ink demon wasn't able to fullfil any expectations that Joey had.

He was passive and harmless (at first) but to Joey, he's not a cheerful toon that he has always dreamed about.

One of main issues that Joey has with him is that he's off-model:

"Listen Tommy, i know you boys over at Gent are doing your best but I'm paying for living attractions,not walking abominations. Whatever that grinning thing was i saw walking around your office,you better keep it up locked tight! Might scare off investors!..." (batim chapter 5)

"Grinning thing" and "walking abomination." The ink demon is completely dehumanised because he's not marketable.

As it was mentioned earlier, Joey sees Bendy as a perfect being and relates to him

He doesn't want to relate to the ink demon; for this reason, he separates them both.

Joey has hard time with accepting "failures". They either get forgotten, dumped or he tries to change them somehow.

The ink demon is a mistake that Joey and GENT have tried to "fix" for years. "A monster" that has shattered Joey's dreams.

5.1 The ink demon's sense of self

It's Joey character analysis so this point won't be too big.

The ink demon was treated like a mistake for being different:

Closed off, isolated, put in the cycle,tortured.

He was in the place where no one would care because he's not "a perfect bendy". Most of it comes from Joey or is related to him in some way.

Everyone saw him as a monster and he has accepted this role.

We know how it went in batim/batdr.

Worth to mention that unlike Joey, he has never lied in batdr. It's either harsh truth or projecting.

6. Ink Children

Allison was close to Joey and had a good impact on him,as he claims.

Indirectly, she made him want to have a family with the help of the ink machine.

I doubt that this decision has come from the place of jealousy toward Henry (who has a family) unless future content will somehow prove that I'm wrong. Joey can have one good intention while failing everywhere else.

Joey could've wanted to have a family to prove that there's still something good in him.

He was scared of dying alone and being forgotten.

"I hadn’t known that at the time. It gave me chills. The thought of success only after death, now that terrified me. That was not the plan and would never be the plan" (TIOL, page 122)

We don't know how many children have perished until the final, perfect one. And we can't claim what exactly has happened to them.

We don't get much details about the creation process of artificial "almost humans".

The only one we heard (outside of Audrey) is "AD" (name of the file) from batim chapter 5

"Tell me another one,uncle Joey..." ("AD" in batim post credits)

And sadly,you can't say much based on this.

They could've been physically unstable and die on their own terms

(milk packages from Joey's kitchen table in batim chapter 5. All of them were stained with ink)

If they stained object with ink by interacting with them, it could've become worse with time.

Again,with lack of context,it's almost impossible to debate for or against this idea. Was that's a thing for other ink creatures?

Susie does brings up in batim that she was "a shapeless slug" at first.

Joey didn't changed much and dumped imperfect ones

Honestly this part depends on how much you believe that he could grow as a character.

(memo from batdr, GENT building)

The way Joey talks about "other versions" sounds... indifferent.

Which is weird, because he did spend time with "AD" from batim by entertaining her with stories when she has asked him to

Does he tries to justify them being dumped OR he's distracting from the fact that they didn't had a chance to properly exist?

It feels like it was left for interpretation on purpose.

6.1 Audrey Drew

Second and last artificial child after "AD" that we canonically know about.

For Joey, creating something perfect that will outlive him could've been a key to his definition of immortality. He wanted to leave something after his death that people could know about. A piece of "perfect art"

"...Of course, I intend to live forever, so that will never happen! Ha, a joke indeed, but in a way not a joke, for what is art but a doorway into immortality? The greatest Illusion of Living then, living on after we are no longer alive. What is more of an illusion than that?" (TIOL, page 219)

Joey makes jokes about living eternally even before the ink machine's existence.

After it's creation, it's wasn't something that he has planned but he was ready for this fate (for one reason or another)

At the end of his life, Audrey has became a thing he'll live through eternally. And Memory!Joey is here ig

Memory!Joey basically calls Audrey his magnum opus:

"...My Greatest creation" (batdr, final Memory!Joey custscene)

Which further established that Joey is more proud of Audrey than he ever was on the Bendy franshise (it's hard to be proud of the stolen ideas, peoples deaths or the cycle,eh?)

Audrey seems to share adventurous spirit of young Joey (in his early 20s) & determination

They both got dragged into events they didn't asked for:

Joey (when he was 19 y.o) by detective Sinclair who has blamed him for a murder.

Audrey by Wilson Arch who has wanted to murder her.

6.2 Audrey and the ink demon

Similar trauma, different outcomes and treatment.

How present Joey was in Audrey's life? Why did they got separated at one point even before he has died?

Is there's something Memory!Joey hides from Audrey on purpose?

Batdr archives mention that Audrey has repressed her memories but what and why exactly?

In batdr the ink demon interacts a lot with Audrey which holds huge significance on the story.

In his first interaction with her he says "ink speaks to me and whispers your secrets" so the ink machine (who seems to hold some sense of identity) does know too.

The ink demon heavily relates to Audrey through the game. They were both left alone (in different ways) and they share one creator.

"You are without the purpose. Your very existence.. was a terrible lie...you're a mistake. A monster. Just like me." (batdr, the ink demon, last playable segment)

He heavily projects on her through this last interaction. Audrey does has a purpose,she was created to be a daughter Joey did wanted and loved. As much as Joey Drew could love at least, if you see this part as debatable.

But there's one thing he's right about, her existence is a lie.

Joey put burden of "protecting the cycle" on her while she thought that she's an orphan.

Batdr archives also question how much agency she has, which i find interesting.

7. "The illusion of living" (or TL;DR for this analysis)

The art of lying masterfully and manual on how to justice God complex.

Joey describes his life from early childhood (when he was 5 y.o.) and to the point of him being 42-43 y.o., a bit before the ink machine was created.

This book is about a man who couldn't find his purpose in life even with the help of other people and decided to blame everyone for this.

Lies, accusations, insults, distorted information, searching for "a soul" (literally and figuratively) and never ending hidden sadness after he lost Henry.

He tries to replace this empty gap with letting their creations become his whole life but it doesn't end well... (the ink demon,dead employees and the cycle)

He tries to separate himself from this and focused on creating a family.

Artificial daughters are electric boogalo №2 (unexpected direct sequel) which has ended working somehow.

But still,i wouldn't trust this man even a pet rock and the ink demon & Audrey are a proof on 'why.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trivial facts (bendy employees handbook/the illusion of living):

>He loves mac n cheese

>Joey meet Sammy at a theatre when they were teens

>Joey loves throwing peanuts at theatre actors

>In Joey Drew studios you can celebrate only main toons birthday or Joey's birthday. Other birthdays are prohibited.

>Joey stole award that Sammy has earned

> Joey officially is an employee of the month eternally...

> Joey stoles ideas for cartoons from employees and they don't get even a couple of cents for this (woah! How surprising /j)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Special thanks to everyone who interacted with my Audrey analysis earlier!

#batim #bendy and the ink machine #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #joey drew #bendy #ink demon #audrey drew #henry stein #susie campbell #I won't tag everyone who was mentioned #bendy the illusion of living #bendy tiol #my post

[doodle17]

Some DR theories that made me realize they should've hired me to write the Bendy Lore

I'm just gonna dive right in okay? Okay. First things first:

Audrey is not a Drew.

At least her soul isn't. Hear me out, why did all those failed attempts call Joey, her "father" uncle? That's not just some- weird flaw I don't think. Also, it has been proven time and time again that you cannot, I repeat, CAN NOT create a perfect living thing from the machine without a soul. Ink Bendy is a perfect example of that

One of the first things we hear the Ink Demon say is "A voice... A soul..." Why would he say that if Audrey was just made completely out of ink. It doesn't make sense.

Which is why, I think Audrey isn't a Drew. She's a Stein. This will come back later it is crucial to my next theory, I promise, so I'm quickly going to talk about:

"Everyone is just an ink copy"

See that? That's bullshit right there. I've already said you can't make a perfect thing unless it has a soul inside of it, unless you excuse the searchers and lost ones.

I really do think that Henry, Allison, Tom etc. Are all the real people. Henry is an interesting case, however.

I think it's in scraps of paper hidden in the Employee Handbook (the original one) saying something about how an employee was worked to death. Literally, found dead at their desk. Who's to say that wasn't Henry?

Joey could have had plans for an ink clone of Henry but was unable to execute it. So? Use the real Henry's soul for the copy. There ya go. It could possibly explain why some of Henry, and characters like Sammy, have their memories so jumbled up.

Now back to the topic of Audrey, what if Henry had a daughter? Joey always wanted a family, right? Seeing Henry have what he didn't definitely would have pissed him off.

So, if we were to assume that when Joey invited people over, like Allison, he could've totally sacrificed them to the machine. What if he invited Henry's daughter? And with her he could finally get what he's always wanted.

Audrey is Henry's daughter's soul

We learn that once your soul is trapped/bound to your character, you start to lose your memories, and even have false ones replacing who you really are. It happened to Buddy as he slowly forgot who he was, and started becoming more like Boris, until Buddy had seemingly faded away completely.

It could explain why Audrey has no memories of her childhood. Why she doesn't remember where she came from. Because she's not supposed to.

Audrey is really Henry's daughter, but her soul is now inside a different body, and believes she's Joey Drew's daughter instead.

Speaking of Joey, let me bring up my other theory:

Memory Joey was lied to as well

I know people think memory Joey is lying, and, while, yeah he totally could be, what if he doesn't even know he's lying?

Remember that Joey most likely made Memory Joey, and he could have told/made him to believe in everything he tells Audrey. The reason reason he seems so genuine in what he's telling us is because he was made to be that way. BUT remember when I said that you can't make something perfect without a soul? Remember how I said real memories can be replaced by false ones?

That could have happened to Joey. What if with his dying breath he became Memory Joey? He doesn't even remember who he really is or all the terrible things he's done because he designed himself to be the perfect "doesn't murder his coworkers for experiments" kind of boss, who made a few oopsies, but can easily be forgiven.

I hope this doesn't come off as ramble-y and doesn't make sense fam, but I swear this would have been a MUCH better concept

I love Dark Revival, don't get me wrong, but there is no way that none of the people we meet are just copies.

And I know there's a reason all the failed Audrey's called Joey uncle... That wasn't just some minor mistake...

#doodles rants #batim #bendy #batdr #bendy and the ink machine #bendy and the dark revival #batim theory #batdr theory #joey drew #henry stein #audrey drew #audrey batdr

[mlspence3d]

HD Version of the renders I did for the BENDY Wiki!

Surely they won’t steal my renders and put them into a Employee Handbook again

#bendy #bendy and the dark revival #3d artwork #art #blender #beast bendy #the butcher gang

[toaster-ay]

Alright folks. This is something I've wanted to talk about for a while now, but just now I decided to actually write it all down and hopefully make sense of myself.

Long ass ramble about BATIM and some lore from official books.

So far I've got my hands on two Bendy books, that is The Illusion of Living and Dreams come to life (I also have the Employee's Handbook but that one isn't lore important). I plan on getting the rest of the book in the future but let's look at these two for now.

The Illusion of Living is Joey Drew's memoir, written all by himself. In this book we get to know quite a lot about Joey, more or less his whole life.

We get to know that he comes from a family of shoe makers, that he lied about his age at 13 so he could join the war. Or that he likes to dress and look fancy long time before he actually is fancy, just because it makes him feel better and gives the illusion that he's someone important. We even get to know that he once joined a Detective when he was investigating murder. And that he can appreciate good art while also drawing slightly himself.

What I want to look deeper into though, is the way he and Henry met. Thanks to the game (and even fandom), most people assume they were best friends for a long time. That they would go to hell and back for each other. But that wasn't actually the case??

Joey and Henry met through a mutual friend, Abby Lambert, and he actually didn't like Henry at first. Joey didn't like the cartoon artstyle, which is what Henry mainly drew. So they didn't have anything in common.

That was until Joey got the idea for Joey Drew studios, and asked Abby for help to come up with the main character, since she could draw better than Joey. Well, Abby tried, but it didn't end up as they wanted. And then Abby took Henry for help and went to Joey together, and let me tell you, Joey actually wasn't really thrilled for Henry to come with her.

But, after a few tries, Henry was able to come up with the right design for Bendy. Joey and Henry decided to work together after that, but Henry left the studio not that long after. It's said that Abby started to work in the studio three years later, but it's also said that Abby and Henry never ended up working together. And Joey didn't really seem to care for Henry.

He acknowledges him, but isn't mad at him.

It's just so interesting, why is Joey so angry at Henry in game, if he didn't seem to actually care about him in the book? Could've been a mistake from the writer, or I don't know.

This is just something I've wanted to point out for a while, and I'm super open to starting a conversation with someone about this!

Now let's look at Dreams comes to life

This book is written from the point of view of Daniel Lewek, also known as 'Buddy', who is also the character that ends up being the Boris we all know and love in game.

I love how this book is written, since it's written after Buddy is corrupted by the ink, and he's slowly forgetting all of this, so he's writing it down so there's something left. So the truth is known.

Buddy is hired by Joey to be a delivery boy after a quick meeting when he's delivering him a new suit, but later gets promoted to an artist after Abby Lambert (who is now in the head of the Art Department) sees a drawing that Buddy's grampa actually did, but Buddy ends up lying, since being an animator is something he actually wants to do.

Buddy befriends Dot, who works in the Story telling Department, and she's a really noisy and sneaky character.

Now, something I think is interesting is that, Sammy Lawrence is probably the first character to get corrupted by the Ink machine. Buddy's first meeting with him actually traumatises him slightly, because Sammy jumps at him covered in ink after a pump bursts right above him. Throughout the book, Sammy is depicted to be really interested in ink, while also drinking some from the ink bottles.

Then Buddy has the luck to meet the Ink Demon himself, accidentally even letting him out from the room he was locked in.

And then, Sammy goes missing. That's when even Dot has the pleasure of meeting the Ink Demon, since she and Buddy went to the studio when it was shut down to see what other weird stuff they can find.

When we meet Sammy again, he's already The Prophet that we've seen in the game. And he even already made some sacrifices, Buddy and Dot (and Richie, Buddy's animation coworker) were meant to be part of them too but they were lucky enough to escape. But Buddy's coworker, Jacob, didn't. And when Buddy and Dot find him attached to the Ink machine cowered in ink (they are able to save him actually), they also find already dead bodies of Dave (another Buddy's coworker) and Norman Polk ("Of course no one would notice he was missing. Of everyone in the building. He watched everyone, but no one really saw him" – I'm sorry I had to add this, I absolutely love it)

Dot and Buddy end up having a small fight with the Ink Demon until they get rid of him. Or so they thought, because he ends up grabbing Buddy and pulling him into the ink with him.

When Buddy wakes up after, he's already in the body of Boris. Joey Drew standing above him, absolutely thrilled that they got a perfect cartoon after such a fail with Bendy.

Even if Dreams comes to life was mainly focused on Buddy, it feels like we've got so much lore for all the other characters. Joey shows how much of an asshole he can actually be. Norman shows up a few times, always unannounced and with some information no one else except him knows. Sammy and his grumpy ass that was slowly getting corrupted by ink. Hell, we even got Tom and Joey argument about the Ink machine (and Allison was with Tom!! Holding his hand!!).

These books are really worth reading, and I'm excited when I finally get my hands on the rest of the books.

Alas, that is the end of my ramble. If anyone read it all, here's a cookie for you 🍪

And I'm also super open to have a conversation with anyone about all of this!!

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #the Illusion of living #joey drew #henry stein #buddy lewek #sammy lawrence #norman polk #bendy and the dark revival #batdr #i love these books so much #and this game #its my everything fr #i also love overanalysing shit #did you notice #dreams come to life

[angelofthepage]

Hey gang! Today is the release day for the updated version of the Bendy Employee Handbook. I went on a trip to my local Barnes and Noble and found it, there was only one on the shelf.

The way this was advertised was that it was the old handbook plus new information to act as a game guide for Dark Revival. My reason for picking this thing up was less about what they added and more about whether or not things would be changed from the original version. To no one's surprise, things were in fact changed! But not in the ways I expected. I'd like to make a post talking about it later, I've got a lot of thoughts.

That said, if any of you have questions about this book, feel free to pop into my askbox and ask them. I've gotta get cooking (literally, I'm making bacon soup for dinner shortly here) but I'll try to answer later this evening or tomorrow. A reminder, please try to tag your spoilers for this book if you post about it. There's not really a lot to spoil, but you know me by now, I care about letting people experience things at their own pace.

#bendy employee handbook #bendy employee handbook spoilers #bendy spoilers #bendy and the ink machine #batim #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #bendy book #bendy book spoilers

[mickeys-malarkey]

Summary of the book thoughts across my analyses because my gosh.

Begging the Bendy fandom to stop declaring that all of its juicy, lovely books have gone to waste. You know it's getting ridiculous when they give a character a line about it that's so weird it can't be ignored, rofl.

(Sidenote: I'm actually really proud of this summary cause I suck bilgewater at those and this is literally the most condensed and sensical one I've ever managed. 😝)

Dreams Come to Life parallels TIOL and TMATM as a cry for help written from: someone having his mind edited, to: his best friend.

The Illusion of Living showcases how abusive of Joey+ and manipulative of the public's perception Nathan Sr. is. Hints that sepia = Nathan Sr.'s lies while black-and-white = Joey's truth.

Bendy: The Lost Ones is an interpretation guide to TIOL, with Bill, Constance, and Brant becoming personifications of Joey's fear, anger and shame.

The Mug and the Maiden is a full-series interpretation guide explaining Wilson's entire life story, including how he and his dad were involved in DCTL and TLO.

The Employee Handbook is a scrapbook of Nathan Sr.'s favorite parts of orchestrating JDS's downfall.

Bendy Crack-Up Comics contains hints at Nathan Sr.'s erasure of anyone who might be a liability and the perceived vs. true natures of his and Joey's relationship.

All are pointed to by the official Bendy shorts, especially Tombstone Picnic and the context around it (sepia thumbnails vs. black-and-white animation? Hint at Nathan Sr.'s editing. Supposed to be musical but mostly lack music? Hint at Sammy's Nate-y fate in DCTL. Missing Henry ending? Hint at Henry's Nate-y fate plus it being good that Bendy's tryna stop the Nate-y time loop. All but Tombstone Picnic ending with Bendy scared, frustrated, or sad? Hint at Bill, Constance, and Brant in TLO. Audrey's colorizing Tombstone Picnic at the beginning of BATDR? Hint at TMATM).

It hurts my soul that most of the fandom is convinced that everything before BATDR is retconned and/or the writing is terrible when I'm seeing so much gorgeously mind-blowing interconnection. 🥲

#dreams come to life #dctl #the illusion of living #tiol #bendy: the lost ones #bendy: tlo #the mug and the maiden #the employee handbook #bendy crack up comics #crack up comics #books #book analysis #book theory #a summary #bendy spoilers #batdr betty #joey drew #henry stein #sammy lawrence #nathan arch sr. #wilson arch #audrey drew #buddy lewek #dctl dot #bendy and the dark revival #batdr

[inkdemonapologist]

Yknow if were talking about rarepairs/crackships….how about Sammy/Grant? Listen hear me out- i think I started shipping them a few years ago back during the og fandom days, but since my interest in bendy has been reignited, so has my interest in this ship lol. And im ngl, have you ever noticed how similar Grant’s office is to Sammy’s Sanctuary? They both play that same whispering effect when you enter them, they both have an ink pipe in them, they both have a bendy item in them (sammys bendy plushie and grants bendy clock), both have writing on the wall…

Even just beyond that, its implied they died the same way too, from drinking ink? And how they both seem to put the blame on others for joeys mistreatment (sammys whole “useless sheep” bit in that newspaper and grants “STOP THE WASTERS!!” bit on his office walls). and even though theres like, BARELY ANY GRANT CONTENT IN CANON, he does have a minor connection to the ink demon, as one of the flashbacks in chapter 1 is of the ink demon on level S near his office, and although this probably doesnt mean anything, the fact that the first time we see sammys cult is when we open the door to the archives via a handle we had to get from grants office specifically….👀

Plus just the miscellaneous stuff like grants va being a musician, one whose song was specially placed in sammys office- idk, *marge voice* I just think they’re neat! :)

THATS AN INTERESTING ONE… I’ve seen it around a fair bit lately but it feels recent??

Before I dive in, I do wanna address the ink-drinking – I’m a little biased, since I tend to headcanon the ink-drinking as unique to Sammy, but I feel like Grant also drinking ink is not something that’s implied so much as a headcanon that got popular? We can pretty easily accept that Grant transformed at SOME point, and the shared whispers imply that they were both under some inky influence, but that doesn’t tell us that ink-drinking was to blame. The note in BatDR about Grant looking ill could certainly be used for an ink-drinking headcanon, too, but as far as Evidence I think all it tells us for sure is that Grant was Very Stressed. [also trying to merge BatDR Grant and BatIM Grant into one entity seems messier the longer I think about it but I CANT GET DISTRACTED BY THAT NOW, THATS FOR ANOTHER POST]

ANYWAY, all the little things about this one having a valve in that one’s office and this one being voiced by a guy who did a song that’s in the other one’s office are neat but ultimately I feel like that stuff isn’t want sells a ship, for me – the biggest thing is a compelling dynamic between the characters.

There’s so much between these two that complicates them –

-- good money and hiring his own people were Sammy’s two big asks when he took the Music Director job, so he could easily be a source of financial strain and seen as one of the “wasters” Grant is so frustrated with, and it’s also not hard to imagine Sammy blaming Grant as one of the useless sheep who can’t do his job right once paychecks start coming in late. Add to that Grant being described as having no creativity at all in the Employee’s Handbook, and trying to imagine what he would relate to in Sammy “my special interest is music” Lawrence. Though I don’t know, that one could be fun. Does Grant like music despite not “getting” it? Can Sammy and Grant relate to each other through the intersection of music and math? Or does Grant just conceptualise music as a kind of math, which Joey thinks is boring but Sammy knows is not far off, and Sammy with his partially jazz background is INTRIGUING to Grant because what he’s making sounds good but isn’t following the rules…? IDK, Grant and Sammy learning to understand each other through understanding each other’s work is a neat thought.

On the surface they’re both frustrated men who want things to be under control and are frustrated with Joey’s spontaneity, but while Grant is having a meltdown over WHAT WILL JOEY SAY?, Sammy is screaming about pleasing a god rather than a man and certain that he’s found the one who will Set Them Free. Grant’s characterisation could be taken in a lot of directions, but it’s not hard to imagine him as the phobic to Sammy’s counterphobic.

Which is INTERESTING, because you get a dynamic that seems to work, as Sammy gives the impression of a leader who can offer certainty and something to depend on – and you CAN depend on him – but he’s actually a follower at heart who desperately needs someone to answer to, someone to believe in, and I don’t know if Grant can be that someone. Sammy and Grant BOTH want to be the one behind the scenes with someone else in the spotlight. On the other hand… we know Grant’s massaging numbers and fudging things and illegally hiding assets. It wouldn’t be hard to characterise him with a bit of ruthlessness as well, someone who’s not afraid to break the rules when he feels he has to; while Sammy seems frustrated, overstimulated, and perpetually at odds with a system he doesn’t fit in, Grant is willing to learn the system well enough to bend the rules to his advantage and know how to get away with it.

If you go with this take, you get a pair that could be dangerously effective but also dangerously fragile. I don’t think they would challenge or change each other so much as just reinforce each other’s ruthless caution – as long as they’re in cahoots, they’d be loyal to each other and value no principle above each others’ well-being. But the instant either of them mistrusts the other, they’d combust.

#this one's hard to talk about concisely b/c there are just a LOT of options for how to characterise Grant #but it's a neat concept... #grant x sammy #i'd say there was magic there #i know you have questions you always do

[jo3ydr3w]

Bendy Wiki mods don't read the books and it shows.

It is CLEARLY stated in the Employee Handbook that it is themed around Hawaii because the employees wanted to vacation there but hadn't worked there for long enough to earn vacation days to do it.

PLEASE get new mods that actually know the material.

📜

#📜 Illinois #bendy #bendy books #bendy and the ink machine #batim #please hire new mods

[lucky-dreamfisher]

So… what exactly from the books is canon? Are the Crackup Comics canon? Is the Illusion of Living canon? I know that the novels have a lot of differences from the games, but what can we even really take at face value from the games anymore???

Bendy and the Ink Machine implies that the actual workers’ souls ended up in that iteration of the Cycle through the coffin easter eggs iirc, the novels proceed to make that canon (although it’s largely only showing us a cast of people not connected to the game, excluding Sammy and some others), and now… Dark Revival is just ignoring all of that? Huh???

I guess Henry… was never real. Okay. What exactly is the beginning/ending of Bendy 1 then? Why would Henry experience something that akin to reality if he was never real?

And not only that, but what’s going on with Joey? Dark Revival’s surface-level narrative portrays him as a man who had done ambiguously flawed things in the past, but that he was ultimately a good and loving person at heart, hence the weird “memory” version of Joey (who is also… made of flesh, or so to speak, and also can be killed??).

And yet, despite this more sympathetic portrayal, if you dig deeper, you find a note implying that he made a variety of sentient Audrey’s and then scrapped them (hmmm, I wonder where I’ve heard that before), which seems like a pretty clear example of him being a complete monster? Like, you created life, and then you decided to just snuff it out or lock it away because it wasn’t what you specifically meant to make.

And yet Dark Revival doesn’t spend much time criticizing Joey for how he seems to have a careless attitude towards this life he’s creating. I mean, I guess it kinda does that in some places, but at the end of the day, the game ends with Audrey inspirationally quoting Joey, and then carrying on his legacy, and the game also has him inspirationally monologue to you twice about how you were his greatest creation.

I've been a longtime fan of World of Warcraft, a game which is over 20 years old at this point, and still gets a new expansion or book every year. With a game of this size, we're used to retcons, and the general rule of thumb is "if new lore contradicts old lore, then new lore should be treated as canon". I'm going to adopt the same rule for Bendy.

I think Crack-up Comics are canon, because they don't really contain anything contradictory other than Nathan being listed as the head of a film studio, despite rejecting the idea in one of his audiologs. That could still be explained with Wilson aka Nathan Junior being the head of Archgate Films and Archgate Pictures being its subsidiary.

TIOL is probably also canon, because it doesn't contain anything particularly lore-relevant.

The Employee Handbook... is more tricky. it definitely had some directions from Mike and Meatly, like that wedding invitation from Allison to Joey. But it also has stuff that was lifted from the Bendy wiki, and the info in the wiki is not always accurate. It literally has my outdated instructions for how to get a scythe, which wasn't accurate and was just me describing all I did in my playthrough until the moment I found the scythe. Half the steps in it is redundant and can be skipped. There's this weird thing with the letter addressed to Henry, where the date is a faded 194- and the stamp is from 1942-1946, but while looking around I found the same stamp on stock image websites so it's hard to tell whether the illustrator was explicitly instructed to use a stamp from the 40s, or just slapped a random oldtimey-looking stamp they found and never expected the fans to look into it. The relevance of that will depend on how serious M&M are about the different timelines concept they've touched on lightly in BATDR.

DCTL AND TLO are tricky... For one they show people turn into ink creatures and back to humans while remaining alive, including Sammy, which contradicts his coffin name in BATIM. Audrey's monologue at the end of BATDR about "Joey's world escaping into ours" made it sound like the ink dimension has always been separate from the real world, yet in the books ink creatures walk around like everyone else. Of course, Audrey only knows what memory!Joey told her, and what she's learned via notes, and like you said the notes and audio logs in BATDR portray a very different situation to the books and BATIM. Whether it's a retcon or a set up for Audrey thinking that she had a nice heroic dad only to find out the truth in the next game, it remains to be seen. There's still that promised BATDS update and the upcoming book so maybe they will shine more light on it.

I definitely hope that's the reveal they're setting up, because otherwise the most likely explanation for why Joey's crimes are swept under the rug, while every single JDS employee he victimized is portrayed as a thieving cannibal, is because he's the character most often compared to Mike Mood and the devs pulled a JKR, with that book she wrote where the protag is murdered by the evil twitter crowd after being unjustly cancelled for making transphobic remarks. Let's pray that's not it, because it sure makes it very hard to ignore the real life controversies surrounding the devs, when they insist on putting them in their games.

#bendy spoilers #bendy and the dark revival #joey drew #bendy and the ink machine