#and then there's his non-Bendy version;

[thatonecrookedsmile]

From the depths of the studio - where darkness prevails and the voices of the puddles grow louder - a message is echoed to the rest of the world. A promise filled with hatred and,at the same time,with conviction. Words coming from someone who was more than confident that their blasphemy would come true.

A message that is directed to one creature,and one creature only...

"I will become the very being You never could be"

----- "A Promise Sent from Below" - Return to the Studio AU.

Oh hey, I have an AU, I forgot about that (lie)

I've had a similar idea in my head for a month now. It wasn't possible to do it last month, but no problem. May would make more sense. I did something with this little guy for 414 last year, and I wanted to do something with him again. April 14th of this year would not be possible, but May 14th or 15th? Oh yes. These dates are better because it was between these two (actually it was the 14th I think, but I consider both dates) days that I created this guy above! Consider this drawing a celebration made for…well, me. Of course, he wasn't created with the design above in mind. His original, main design is quite different from this alternative (and less original) iteration. The drawing above shows his current situation in the "current" moments of the RTTS AU.

His creation, which dates back to 2020, was the result of some Bendy-related thoughts of mine intersecting on the day. These being about new things in canon lore that came out at the time (plus speculation about this new information), a theory that at the time I started to understand better (which maybe based on the drawing, you probably know which theory I'm talking about ) and a funny bug found in one of the games (do you remember Ghost Bendy by any chance?) And then,boom. I created Atlas. I remember at the time I was thinking of other names for him because Atlas was just a codename that I had in mind to refer to him while I thought of a definitive name for the guy. But the codename ended up sticking. Plus, Atlas is a cool name and I wanted to give an OC that name.

Even though some details changed over time, I think I eventually managed to solidify his place in the AU. Not that his story is 100% thought out and completed. Hell, my AUs that I have are still not 100% thought out either, so what to expect from their characters. But I think that, currently, I have at least decided on the general idea of his place and purpose in RTTS, and I am happy with what I have come up with.

I don't know when the next time will be that I will show him again. In general, showing things from my AUs is not and probably will never be my strong point lol. But I'd like to draw him again eventually. So uhhhhhhhhhhh, one day. When that "one day" will be, it's up to you to decide

Happy Birthday Atlas. You and your other 2 alternative versions are cool to think about. Here's to another 4 years of chaos for you. 🙌

I can't believe it's been 4 years now, damn.

[artbyblastweave]

So I blew through Ultimate Marvel Team-Up in order to get context for when Daredevil starts sticking his horns back into the main Ultimate Spider-Man book, and what's really interesting to me is that Bendis's rendition of basically every non-Spider-Man cape who shows up in that gesture at what could have been an extremely cohesive Ultimate Marvel setting;

Hulk is very visibly classic Hulk in every respect, but with the added implication that he's currently neck-deep in a thriller-conspiracy uncover-the-truth kind of plot regarding the government experimentation with super-soldiers that's upstream of all of superhumanity in the Ultimate Universe. This idea was later binned, Banner was framed as neck-deep in spook shit and unlikely to try and defect from it in the way he was implied to be trying to do.

Iron Man's origin is changed so that he got abducted by rebels while attempting to sell weapons technology to a right-wing U.S-backed junta in Guatemala during the Reagan Admin, and moreover in direct retaliation for attempting to do that; this is upstream of his decision to stop selling weapons technology, and the two-shot where he teams up with Spider-Man involves Latveria attempting to steal the Iron Man Armor- with Tacit SHIELD Backing, because Nick Fury is willing to let Dr. Doom have that tech if it increases the chances of the U.S. Government eventually getting a crack at it. This extremely interesting cold war dynamic between stark and Fury also mostly got binned.

The Fantastic Four are nearly identical in function to their 616 counterparts, except that instead of a spaceflight they got their powers on a years-long expedition to the Negative Zone, having Challengers-of-the-Unknown style adventures, which both neatly resolves the datedness of the spaceflight origin and allows them to have their veteran hero status simultaneously with the idea that the heroic age is just starting out. The Negative zone was also mentioned to be the home dimension of the Skrulls, Kree, and possibly Galactus, neatly explaining why so many spaceborne threats keep making themselves earth's problem so specifically. Ultimate Fantastic Four was just good enough (And Bendis's two shot otherwise boring enough) that I can forgive the parts of this that they binned. I mean we got Marvel Zombies out of it, that's worth everything in the world

Ultimate Dr. Strange is interesting in that he's the son of the original Dr. Strange, whose origin, career and supporting cast are actually largely exactly the same but also linked to the IRL time period of Strange's debut, the early 60s through the early 80s. Stephen Strange Jr. is the inheritor of a legacy his disillusioned Mother Clea spent twenty one years trying to keep him well away from, rapidly attempting to learn the ropes under the apprenticeship of a long-suffering Wong and largely coming across as a scientologist-adjacent crank in the media. This is actually a really fun way to put Strange at the Metaphorical kids table with the rest of the aged-down heroes while also keeping him from breaking every story, and although Bendis did get to keep using him in this capacity it ultimately didn't amount to much because he got turbofucked during Ultimatum after only a couple of appearances.

Shang Chi is introduced in the middle of a Kung-Fu walking-the-earth situation, with Spider-Man haphazardly (and unsuccessfully) seeking him out for martial arts lessons when he realizes he's just leaning on his powers as a crutch in most fights. He offers him like 20 dollars

The broad outline of a lot of these ideas, and the political themes they were gesturing towards, survived their later delegation to other authors to some extent, but were corroded by Millar's cinematic bombast on The Ultimates in particular. I mourn the version of the Ultimate Universe where they just gave Bendis enough amphetamines to have him do all of it. At any rate you bet your ass that if I ever commit to trying to do some kind of fanmade unified Marvel Timeline I'd poach all of these

[starryredpandawrites]

So with Bendy copying Audrey to be a person (based on the two bendy bites) would that mean he would also copy the cat?

The reason I thought this is because imagine Audrey comes home to see the cat in loaf form only to turn and see Bendy also loaf-

AbsoLUTEly he would, you genius!

Loaf Bendy would be so precious, both as a toon and a demon XD Toon Bendy is gonna be limited to non-verbal imitations (loafing, stretching like a cat, pushing stuff over etc.) but our big inky boi has no such limits.

There's so much potential here for animalistic behaviors and I'm such a sucker for that, like:

Imagine he starts hissing at Audrey as the Ink Demon. The first time he would probably freak her out. By now, she's gotten fairly used to all his noises and he probably has been using his own version of gurgly hissing that's only called hissing for lack of a better term. Then one day, she does something he doesn't like, like reaching for the remote while he's watching TV, and he just full on cat-hisses at her. It would still be garbled cuz that's how he is and I imagine it would be a lot harsher than a regular cat's hiss. This new sound would definitely cause Audrey to at least flinch and possibly jump back (if she was on the couch, she would probably fall off b/c funny) in fear/shock.

Now, I'm split on whether he would feel bad and not do it again for a while (he hates it when he scares her accidentally, it brings up bad memories) or if he would try to abuse it to get her to do more stuff for him since she's used to all of his other threatening mannerisms. It would probably depend on the severity of her reaction idk

Another possible first scenario where Audrey hears him hiss for the first time could be her overhearing him playing with the cat. Cat thinks it's normal, he learned it from the cat so he obviously thinks it's normal, but Audrey would probably freak out even more because she's still secretly worried he's gonna eat the cat at some point. (I just remembered I named the cat Inkblot so I'm gonna start using that name again lol). He would be super offended by Audrey's overreaction, especially if she tried to separate them. Maybe he starts lecturing her on how Inkblot needs to learn boundaries through his language since he doesn't speak English or sign language and Audrey is just reeling that he's mentioning boundaries when he's constantly pushing hers

OMIGOSH HE COULD LEARN TO PURR

GUYS, I HAVE A LEGIT EXCUSE TO WRITE THE INK DEMON STRAIGHT UP PURRING IN THE FUTURE

Ohhahwaqihufaiouqouihfd I'm so excited for this

yeah sure, it's gonna be garbled af and I was already planning on writing plenty of inky rumbling in the fic but now I can straight up call it purring which is splendid

ESPECIALLY IF HE LEARNS IT'S POSSIBLY HEALING

Problem, I don't think scientists figured out that purring is helpful until recently. (Google has confirmed they first started to suspect it in the 2000s, ugh)

Other problem, can Audrey get sick? For the sake of sick fics, I wanna say yes, but she's also not human so the logical/world-building side of me says no.

Screw logic, imagine Audrey with a cold, just chilling in bed, trying to get better, when Inkblot jumps up on her chest and starts purring. Audrey would appreciate the attention (since she's the cat's third favorite) but she also likes breathing and would keep moving the cat off.

Eventually, the cat leaves and she thinks she's free, closes her eyes, and suddenly the pressure is back but 10X heavier and way rumblier.

It's da Inky boi in his full demon glory, laying practically his whole torso on her and shaking the room with the power of his rumbles. Cue Audrey complaining and trying to shove him off, but not only is she sick but Bendy is obviously way stronger than she is. She has no choice but to submit to the cuddles, but she does convince him to just put his head on her so she can actually breathe.

Okay, I think that's enough silly self-indulgent ideas for one post lol

[oneanxiousdreamer]

So, the 10th Anniversary week of FNaF is over. Looking back on this franchise and how special it is to me, remembering how I became a part of the community after the first two games came out and the third one was being teased. It's still crazy to me that 10 years ago, FNaF was a horror game that was created by one man and 10 years later, FNaF is one of the biggest horror franchises in gaming history! I can remember beating the first two games on the Kindle and it was such a surreal moment, but who would have thought that there would be many sequels after the main trilogy (4-UCN), many spin-off games (World, FiS 2, FiS 3, FR), two incredible VR games, an AR game, the biggest Non-VR installment with a phenomenal DLC (SB/Ruin), tons of merchandise, countless fangames, talented people who made the greatest fansongs for the series, pillars of the community in the form of YouTubers (Markiplier, MatPat, Dawko, 8-BitGaming, FuhNaff, RyeToast, etc.), the fans, the loved composers making absolute bangers for the games and the movie(s) (Leon Riskin, Allen Simpson, A Shell In The Pit, The Newton Brothers, etc.), the many iconic characters not only created by Scott Cawthon himself, but by bigger organisations of people who made it their mission to carry on the legacy of Scott (Steel Wool Studios, Illumix, Mega Cat Studios, etc.) but also by the fans who work tirelessly to figure out the lore of the series and give characters their own style of personality, bringing life to those who seemed to have none, the insane amount of theories and headcanons within the puzzled minds of theorists and fans alike, the crazy amount of books that still wrack our brains to this day (FF, TFtP, SE trilogy, etc.), the nostalgic easter eggs hidden throughout every installment that inspired others to create their very own hoaxes to fool the community, and most importantly the massive success of the games was unexpectedly recognised when Scott was losing hope in his career when his previous game (Chipper & Sons Lumber Co.) didn't have the same effect on people that FNaF eventually would and therefore, led to the production and overwhelming success of the groundbreaking first ever FNaF movie! Seeing it in the cinema on the big screen was an incredible experience that I will never forget. It still amazes me that I went from a small Kindle screen, to an Xbox/TV screen, to a cinema screen and just thinking about the depth of it all made me emotional because I've never stopped loving and caring about this franchise. The impact of it's very existence is still unrivalled, many have tried to recreate the feel and atmosphere of the mascot horror genre that FNaF created with their own games (Poppy Playtime, Garten Of Banban, Tattletail, Bendy and the Ink Machine, etc.) Some succeeded and even became their own stand-alone franchises, of course FNaF didn't completely create the mascot horror genre, it not only reignited it but made it grow in popularity, hence the creation of many beloved fangames of the series. This is such an exciting time for the FNaF community, and I could say much more about the entirety of FNaF, but there's just simply too much of the surface to scratch. Here's to the eventful 10 years of Five Nights at Freddy's!

🎉🎂

(Below are my Mini / Plush versions of Sun and Moon. They may not be the best, but I'm still quite happy with how they turned out.)

[ultimateloserboy]

ok you know what im gonna say it with my full chest. literally nobody talks about bendy (the character) like who he actually is and ive been tired of it since the old game ended. i think hes genuinely one of the most incorrectly fanonized characters like ever at this point. and i genuinely believe it changed the actual canon and it bothers me a lot.

as for the physical version of him/ the ink demon— in the original batim game there was literally a whole plot point about bendy being non-human and how he came out of the machine physically and mentally sloppy compared to the other creations. hes not a fully fledged-out person and that’s LITERALLY an entire section of the original game. he has no human soul or mind, hes sentient but about as much as a gorilla. he attacks like a zombie or an animal with instinct and not like an angry human being. he cant speak because his mouth is fake and he cant walk properly because his limbs are liquid sludge— hes literally an abomination— a mockery of actual human life. its crazy to even call him the “villain” of the story because he doesnt have the thinking ability to genuinely be malicious. its like calling zombies the villains of zombie movies, they cant be because they dont have the brain function to be.

a lot of people ignored the obvious fact that he isnt human-like so they could sexualize him, which isnt as bad as sexualizing an actual animal— im not claiming that— but what bothers me is how the creators made him MORE HUMAN to lean towards these people and ill never think otherwise. yall can argue with me or call me chronically online, but bendy WASNT able to speak or was human-like at all until the dark revival, which was so obviously fan service its not even funny.

im not claiming that people who sexualize bendy are zoos or something— thats too far. what im claiming tho is that this genuinely interesting character was given consciousness and the ability to speak after previously not ever having those things JUST so booktok ass teenagers could swoon over him like they do venom, taking away the interest of his original character. he wasnt fully sentient until it made money for the creators and then suddenly hes speaking poetry in a deep sexy man voice with a fucking 8 pack. how does that not bother anyone? im not even trying to say its morally weird— im just saying its bad writing in general!!! like why do yall let these games ruin characters for fan service and not even give a fuck, and then have the balls to ask why newer ones are so poorly written?? no fucking shot EVERY one of yall was ok with them retconning his entire existence like HES THE MAIN CHARACTER???? DO YALL REALLY WANNA SEXUALIZE EVERYTHING //THAT// BAD TO THE POINT ITS OK TO REWRITE THE ENTIRE MAIN CHARACTER AS LONG AS IT MEANS YOU CAN FINALLY SEXUALIZE HIM CANONICALLY??????

and before people say anything— no i dont think its wrong for bendy to develop a voice or to become more human over time— BUT COME ON DUDE ARE YALL DENSE?? IVE SEEN LESS FAN-SERVICE STARING AT MY GOD DAMN AIR CONDITIONER!!!! they didnt “develop” bendy more— they retconned him to please freaks online!!! surely ONE of yall had to have noticed like… when tdr dropped the sexualization was so bad i genuinely didnt have fun with the series anymore. and I CANT because its justified now! the creators retconned him to be more sexyman so now you cant even argue against it!! literally why cant we have ONE thing online without people wanting to pound every single fucking character??

im sorry if this sounds mean but ive been upset about this for YEARS!! bendy was my favorite character as a kid and NOBODY gives him justice NOT EVEN HIS OWN CREATORS. it would be one thing if there was just a small portion that treated him like this but now its literally everyone and the games lean into it and i just want to explode and die at this point fr.

it genuinely makes me a little ill knowing he was once just a confused, soulless being fighting and killing out of the confusion, rage and fear that his cruel existence caused him to feel, but now hes just a deep voiced venom-ripoff villain whose just a big meanie and hunts you for sport or some stupid shit.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

Image ID: Two glitter texts, reading as "NIGHTMARE FACTORY – DEVLOG 0". End image ID.

Hi, I'm Garça Visconde Mirigis, and I'm VERY happy to announce that this post you're reading is the first devlog ever for my nightmare game, a 3D platformer parody of mascot horror genre! And yes, nightmare, not dream game, because making my actual dream game is way out of my current abilities at the moment!

Ever thought to yourself how different a horror game would be if our protagonist decided to help the monsters instead of... [reading a list off-screen] killing, imprisioning, sacrificing, exorcizing or even banning them to other dimensions? Because I have, for ungodly amounts of time, and after literally years I decided that the time to actually make this thing has come. Welcome to the NIGHTMARE FACTORY!

OKAY BUT WHAT IS THE SYNOPSIS?

As previously mentioned, NIGHTMARE FACTORY is a parody of mascot horror games, set in an abandoned toy factory that also used to host a theme park. You play as Vera Torres, a 57 year-old mechanic who used to work in there. One day, our dear Vera receives a call from an old coworker: The higher-ups are going to sell the factory and the theme park, but they need a good inspection, and no one is accepting the offer! Feeling a bit nostalgic and wanting to help her friend, Vera decided to help take a look inside...

... Only to discover the place is now filled with strange monsters whose leader has, somehow, decided that she's actually his mother?! But she only had one kid ever in her life...?

Yeah, Vera is CONFUSED, and it's now your duty as the player to help her figure out just what the heck is going on!

... AND WHAT THE HECK IS THE GAME ACTUALLY ABOUT?

The game is a lighthearted and pink look at mascot horror as a whole, featuring little references to other games and lots and lots of silly jokes. It is also a long love letter for the genre, because as much as I like poking fun at FNaF, it did change my life for the better and it will forever have a soft spot in my heart. I love the franchise despite it all, and making a whole game just to poke fun at it and other similar games feels stupid. No one can create a good parody if they don't love the thing they're parodying even a tiny little bit.

NIGHTMARE FACTORY is not an "aha look at how stupid this is" look at mascot horror. I want it to be as sincere as possible, and the end product needs to be honest and not ironic in the slightest in order for it to be a success.

HOWEEEVEEEER. Despite the silliness, NIGHTMARE FACTORY can and will feature grapphic imagery and disturbing content due to its nature as a horror title. Trigger and content warnings have not been currently set, but shall be added as development continues.

WHAT ARE THE ~ INSPIRATIONS ~ ?

HEHEHE. HAHAHHAA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. MY FAVORITE PART!

The gameplay is inspired by the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy, Pac-Man World 1-2 and Rayman 2! These are my favorite platformers ever and I played them for hours as a kid, and since NIGHTMARE FACTORY is all about toys and childhood I figured it would be the perfect fit!

For themes and story, NIGHTMARE FACTORY is inspired by Five Nights at Freddy's, Bendy and the Ink Machine/Bendy and the Dark Revival, Tattletail, Poppy Playtime, Silent Hill 1-4, Welcome Home, My Friendly Neighborhood and the Lacey series on YouTube! Some of the themes include loss of childhood, the horrors of motherhood and girlhood, corporate corruption, trauma recovery, grief and rage.

For visuals, however? Alice: Madness Returns, Hello Kitty Roller Rescue, Strawberry Shortcake: The Sweet Dreams Game, Disney Princess' Enchanted Journey and old dress-up flash games are my references!

THE SETTING

The game is set in 2020s São Paulo, Brazil, AKA where I live, and it can and will feature elements of brazilian culture. The final version should have both english and brazilian-portuguese translations, with cultural notes being featured to help non-brazilians understand some jokes and themes better.

CURRENT SITUATION

NIGHTMARE FACTORY is currently sitting at "the single gamedev is desperate to start programming but he's busy with uni work" stage of production, but do not worry, the single gamedev is also working on the story, how level progression shall go, how the game should feel to play, and, of course, planning the mechanics, AKA the most important part of a fun game. I'll make an entire devlog detailing every single main mechanic as soon as I'm able to finally start fully working on this!

NIGHTMARE FACTORY is being made with Godot, Blender and Krita, and it will be released first for PC.

NOW A LOOK AT HOW THE SINGLE GAMEDEV IS ALREADY ANXIOUS ABOUT MAKING THE GAME

It wouldn't be a project I made without me losing my mind about it from day 0!

Nightmare Factory is a 3D platformer game, with around ~30 levels planned, divided into 5 acts/chapters/arcs/sessions. You can think as these sets of levels as Crash Bandicoot's Warped level selection, like this!

After answering some asks relating to mascot horror as a genre, I remembered a conversation I had with my amazing partner some weeks ago about how I want to release NIGHTMARE FACTORY. YES, I didn't even start programming it, but this is the type of thing I need to settle on before I build a good chunk of the game. It will be important!

But then. There's the problem: I don't like it when games are "released" but you have to pay more to get all of them. Yeah, each chapter would be super cheap so they would have a full game price when combined, but also. Do I want to do this. Do I genuinely want to do this. Like? Am I sure this is the right way to do it?????

Image ID: Screenshot of Crash Warped for the PS1, with Crash standing in front of a warp room with 5 blue buttons on the floor, each marked with a number from 1 to 5. The 6th button has the face of Tiny Tiger, signaling it to be the entrance to a boss fight level. End image id.

My first plan was to release each act separately so I could both get feedback and also have more fun, because by getting feedback I would be way less worried about messing things up + I could update things like character physics to be less wonky or more stiff in case it was a common complaint, which could change the entire level design. And also because I'm a clown and I want to make a mascot horror parody, and releasing it in chapters aligns perfectly with how I want this to go.

Anyways, this has now lead to me deciding that the game should be a "pay for it once" type of thing. I'll still release it in chapters, but the updates will be for free. Will I regret this decision because liking it or not I need money + I am an indie dev + there's nothing wrong with game devs expecting to be, y'know, PAID for their work? Absolutely so!!!!! But I think that, for now, this will be how I develop this silly game.

Anyways, this is getting long enough, so I'll finish it for now. Character introductions will be made after the gameplay-focused devlog, so see you guys soon enough! Byeeee <3

[popculturebuffet]

Supermay! Finale: Legion of Super Heroes Episodes 1-4 (Man of Tomorow, Timber Wolf, Legacy, Phantoms) (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy legionarres and welcome to the grand finale of supermay, my monthlong tribute to the man of steel. Before we begin this final entry i'd like to thank all of you for reading this one: some reviews have done well, some not so much but your all appricated and i'd like to thank Kev, Emma, and Brotoman for their support. This event was enough of a success you can expect it back next year and please feel free to comment with things you'd like to see. Even a major cold wasn't enough to end this event on a down note.

In fact we're ending with , thanks to the schedule shakeups, one of my favorite pieces of superman lore and one I hope to revisit if this review does well, the Legion of Super Heroes!

For those less familiar a quick refresher: the Legion of Super Heroes were initially created as supporting characters for Superboy, at the time the man of steel when he was the boy of steel having adventures as a teen, and proved so successful they'd soon take over Superboy's stomping grounds of adventure comics once the boy of steel got his own book.

The Legion are a group of teenagers from a thousand years from now, idealistic teens inspired by the heroes of our present, paticuarlly superboy and later superman, all coming together from across dozens of planets. They were possibly the first teen superhero team and certainly the most succesful of their time. They've been rebooted four times, technically five, been through the wringer a lot and currently are twisting in the wind a bit, but the legion endures and I have faith they'll come back to promience eventually. They may not be one of DC's most prominent teams due to their unique setup, but their easily one of my faviorites and i'm happy I got to celebrate them this super may.

As for how it was easy: I choose the 2006 cartoon, one of the best versions of them and one of DC's best cartoons from my memory binging it over a decade ago, and i'm proud to say it held up beautifully.

The cartoon came about because, much like Superman the Animated series a decade prior.. Warner Bros wanted a tie in for it's latest superman movie.. which this time for better or worse, actually got finished: Superman Returns. Something good had to come out of that I suppose. So they wanted a series with a younger superman and luckily for us producer James Tucker was able to succesfully pitch a legion of superheroes series, which fit the criteria they wanted: focus on a younger superman fresh out of smallville, and that fit perfectly with the legion recruting a younger clark, updating that concept for a modern age as it hadn't been part of superman lore in a while and was just on it's way to being restored to continuity.

Intrestingly the cartoon was originally meant for Cartoon Network, where most other DC shows had gone at this point, but they passed for whatever reason.

But thankfully kids WB picked it up for two great seasons before it's sad collapse, and the result was one of my faviorite superhero teams got a cult classic tv show. Also just to be clear, as it's a rumor so prevelant James Tucker clearing it up shows up on the wikipedia page, while it's oft rumored the show was retooled from a DCAU version seemingly set up by a legion centric episode in Justice League Unlimited.. that was never the plan. The Kara episode was it's own thing, the timing was concidental, let's move on.

LOSH blends pieces from the first two legion of superhero continuites. The legion has FIVE diffrent continuties: the original which went away then was brought back, a soft reboot that was later deemed non canon, a full on reboot in the 90's that's wonderful and sadly stopped being collected by dc, a second reboot in the 2000's that was a bit more radical and finally a reboot a few years ago by Brian Michael Bendis

This one uses the idea of superman being recruited as a teen and being the inspiration for the group that was foundational to the original continuity, as well as the delightfully cheesy silver age names I adore, while using characterizations more in line with the more fleshed out 90's cast , as well as the more fleshed out versions of their home worlds. The result is a cartoon with silver age wonder, a well built world, and some really awesome redesigns I wish the comics would pick up, giving us a stylish well done cartoon that sadly was gone way too soon. You can see what I mean under the cut as we look at the first four episodes and see how Clark Kent Became superman.. again.

Man of Tommorow:

Man of Tommorow opens mid action, with the Legion getting their asses kicked and one of them, Lightning Lad wondering "Wher'es superman when you need him"

We cut to hours before this, centuries before this in smallville, with a young Clark played by Ben 10 and Spider-Man himself Yuri Lowenthal, who does a fantastic job. Clark is at this point a shy nerd whose unsure of his place in the world and is getting ready to start his job at the daily planet as a copy boy. Sadly in this timeline he does not have a whimsical college roomate or feisty love intrest to help push him out of his comfort zone.

He does however have the local fair which he's going to... and which Ma reminds him to be careful at as "your not like other people"

I'll admit this characterization isn't nearly AS bad as say Man of Steel. Mostly because how could you possibly worse than "You should've let them die clark instead of possibly exposing yourself and i'll throw myself into a tornado to prove it", but I hate versions of the kents that make clark feel.. bad for being different. It's one thing to caution him to not overuse them, it's another to make him feel terrible for having them or constantly remind him "your not normal". He knows ma. He knows. The Kents work best to me when their totally loving and accepting, that they worry for their boy sure.. but they love him just the way he is.

After a bit of Clark almost hitting a thing only not to hit a thing at the county fair, we get introduced to our first Legionarres, a small party sent to go recruit clark: our initial trio are Braniac 5, played by former child star Adam Wylie who really shoudl do more voice work as he's terrific here, Saturn Girl, played by voice acting legend Kari Whalgreen and Bouncing Boy, played by voice actor and ocasinal actor Micheal Cornacchia who does great work here and I wish did more voice work.

This is a slight rework of how, traditionally, Clark's recurited to the legion in the comics, but it's one that works. In the original the three founders of the legion went: Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad and Cosmic boy, something Superman the Animated Series would do something similar to later as would Smallville. I ahven't seen smallville but you'd best belivie I know when the legion shows up in something.

Here it's reworked to better fit the cast: Cosmic Boy isn't a main character and is thus off on a mission and while Lightning Lad is, he's a bit of a bullying prick, so sending him on a recruitment mission, one he outright scoffs at later, would've been a terrible move. Instead they shift to a party that makes more sense: Brainy came up with the idea in this continuity, we'll get to the why later, and like in the original comics is the team's time travel expert and being one of the main cast and one of the most prominently used legionarres, it only makes sense to have him be one of the first to show up.

Bouncing Boy isn't as prominent, but still makes sense: He's friendly, personable, and like Brainy a tech expert, something we'll get more into in episode 2. It makes since to bring him on a recruitment mission, and on a mission where if something happens to Brainy they need someone to fix their little robot child.

Speaking of which Braniac 5 is changed a bit here, and I feel it works: instead of an alien like the original, he's robotic, ala the dcau braniac, with Colluians as a whole followint suit. This not only makes his issues with emotions a bit more literal, but also allows him to be a bit more dynamic in combat. In the original comics, he's not useless, having a powerful forcefield, but his brain is really his superpower. Here he has telescopic limbs to go with his genius, being essentially a robotic boy child reed richards.

The three head to the fair to find clark and soon find him trying to stop a faris wheel. While Clark is put off by three strangers who suddenly know his deepest secret, they prove invaulable in stopping it and we soon get a showcase of all their powers: Brainy we've covered, so let's move on to my boy, Bouncing Boy. Bouncing boy has a truly rediculous and truly wonderful power.. he turns into a giant bouncing ball. This power was seen as a tad goofy in the 90's and thus he was reduced to a non powered supporting character. The series splits the diffrence: he's still a pilot like he was in the reboot and an ace mechanic.. but he also still has his bouncing ball powers and is a reminder that said powers, as wonderfully goofy and unique as they are.. are also dangerous and useful. Here he uses them to prop up the hweel by inflating, but it's easy to forget that a gaint bouncing ball that's pretty invunerable is actually pretty damn threatning in the right circumstances. No one will call him the legion's power house, but put some respect on the name: bouncing boy can be dangerous and shows jojo levels of turning a seemingly inccous power into a threat.

Finally we have Saturn Girl, whose people are telepathic, and is thus a super taleneted telepath. The series finds clever uses for this but here she's mostly useful for tracking Clark and for crowd control. The heroes save the day but clark runs off in fear. Irma tells them not to follow as she gets Clark KNOWS he has a responsiblity and will listen to their offer more later. I love the show's version of Saturn Girl/Irma, as she's a telepath.. but rather than be closed off because of it uses it to be empathetic and kind, being the heart of the team while still being stoic on the surface.

The trio stalk clark to his house, and make their pitch: The future needs him, clark is better than he knows, and they can use him. Why they choose him at this point in his life is vauge, but I assume Brainy knew they both had a better chance of recruting him and they could HELP him become the superman he's destined to be. Stable time loop and all that.

Clark reluctantly agrees, aassured he'll be back in time for chicken and dumplings. With that our heroes go to the future where the rest of the legion are waiting.. or our main cast anyway. A nice touch I like from the series is much like the comics, they already have a pretty sizeable roster: Colossal Boy, Shrinking Violet and Cosmic Boy are all mentioned later and we see Element Lad, Blok and Tyroc in the next episode along with them. The legion in the comics usually has around 25 people max. The reason for this size orignally was simply silver age writers kept introducing more legionarres so the team kept growing and given the characters were interchangable personality wise, there was no real need to whittle it down.

They later found a clever workaround that later comics picked up on: since the team's in the future, the bulk hailing from various indvidual worlds which gave them their powers (though a few did get theirs by accident as per superhero standard), and were later confirmed to be duly deputized by the united planets, the future's highest governing body, it made sense the legion was spread out galactically. As such characters could be said to be "on mission" somewhere else in the galaxy, and thus whittle the team down to whoever was needed for a story. If the whole of the legion was involved, it was for bigger stories that were dire as hell. Stories often used squads of whoever the writer wanted to use at that moment for missions which makes sense.

The series uses this well: the team has other members, showing off it's scope and how many worlds bought into the concept, but focuses on a core cast on earth at Legion HQ: Superman, Braniac 5, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy and one more we'll meet next episode. They still go across the galaxy, the adventures are still cosmic in scope, but it helps narrow focus so we can flesh out who we have.

So speaking of which our other three members. First up is Lightning Lad, a founding member as mentioned, and in this continity an egotistical hot headed asshole. He's good at what he does, being great with his powers and easily the second strongest member of the core cast, but has a MASSIVE chip on his shoulder. This is a slightly exagerated version of his reboot version, who was also a bit of a hot head but not quite the ass. It still works as he makes a good contrast to the more humble and kind clark, whose friendly to the guy despite waving his dick around constantly. Garth is voiced by Andy Milder, a voice actor and recurring actor who also voiced Jay Garrick Flash in Batman Brave and the Bold. Good for him. Like the rest of the cast he's fantastic.

Next is Phantom Girl. Phantom Girl here is the sassy one of the group, quick with a sarcastic remark, but also understanding, quickly bonding with clark in episodes after this. She may joke but it's clear she cares for the team even if she busts chops constantly and we love her for it. Easily one of the highlights of the show. She's from the planet Btzl, a phantom planet parallel with earth. As such she can phase in and out of our plane and into hers, allowing her to phase through objects, people and disappear and reappear. She's played by Heather Hogan. Hogan mostly does video game work, and I haven't seen her in much personally though she was great as Clorica in Rune Factory 4.

Finally we have Triplicate Girl, one of my faviorite legionarres as the comics have found intresting thigns to do with the idea of a person who can split in three in the reboots: the 90's one had her have a distinct personality for each, and be considered abnormal because of it, with RJ BRande, the legion's backer formally adopting her as a result, and the 2000's one had her able to clone indefintely but down to the trio as three of them left the planet.. and found the others didn't accept them when they went back. Here.. she's just .. there in a go go outfit. The design, like all of these is clever, with her having tri colored hair and when split each duplicate takes on a diffrent shade (or two shades when just doing two0, and having martial arts based on their cloning technique.. but otherwise they don't... do much with her this season. Next season gets a pass as the execs told them to focus more on stuff boys would like and less on the girl characters

But here she's just... in the background. They didn't really know what to do with her. Outside of Chain of Command she dosen't get to do much plot wise and it's a shame.

The three welcome their new teammate.. and Lightning Lad and Phantom Girl are less than impressed though to her credit Phantom Girl's just a tad confused. Lightning Lad's a full on asshole doubting brainy got it right and generally being a dick.

Naturally being a dick he puts clark to the test with a bit of testing machinery to test clark's strength. Clark eventually fails and runs off upset and Saturn Girl berates Garth for being at a 10 on the douchemeter when they need a 2 and poitns out clark was lifting 500 tons.

So Saturn Girl goes to fetch Clark who while running away as fast as he can found the Superman Museum. The Museum is taken straight form the comics but adds the nice touch of using some silver age style panels to represent supes. Clark's finally found out WHY they choose him at all and what h'es destined to be, with Irma encouraging him he can become this and has it in him. She also explains when prompted why they need him so bad, something Phantom Girl covered earlier when Lightning Lad insisted they didn't need help: The Fatal Five.

The Fatal Five are on of the legions greatest threats, a group of the five deadliest criminals in the galaxy. In the comics they were brought together for a desperate mission and decided they were deadlier as a unit. Here

They are Mano, a skelington in a bubble helemet whose touch equals death, Tharok, a genius cyborg, Validus, a hulking monstrosity, Emerald Empress, a sorceress weidling the powerful emerald eye of ekron, an artifact similar to what the green lanterns use but powerful, evil and able to brainwash people and Persauder.. .he's an axe man, oh my god he's an axe man. The five are just sort of a vaugely ominous force here, still VISUALLY intresting but mostly there to provide a threat big enough to warrant clark. I haven't rewatched their other apperances to see if they get fleshed out better and in the comics I haven't read a ton of their apperances period.

So Clark heads back though Lightining Lad is reluctant to use him. Not out of jackassery for a change, but because he's genuinely concerned: Clark HAS seen action but "not like this".. and he's not wrong. Earlier it was clear clark did anonomus rescues before becoming superman, a trait i've always liked when he's not outright superboy: it fits the character and is something he should be doing. But this.. is outright combat.

Seconds into the fight Clark bounces out, seemingly abandoing the team to get smacked around. While they beat the fatal five the last time... that was with the full roster and BARELY. This time they TRIED to get reinforcements but Shrinking Violet was undercover, they seemingly coudln't reach the others, and Cosmic Boy could be there, but was far away enough he woudln't make it.

The legion seems beat.. Luckily clark was instead warming up. Granted he might of thought of doing this BEFORE but it's a fair fear response: it's one thing to say you can fight supervillians, it's another to see them. So he heads off going up up and... very slowly and awkwardly before getting his barrings, a joke I love.

He can fly though and confronts the fatal five and his sheer power gives them a chance with Saturn Girl, one of the only two still not brain zapped by emerald empress (The other being lightning lad who, douche canoe he may be DID prove himself by being the final one to go down), and encourages them to fight.

And fight they do as the ensuing fight is a gorgeous shocwase of what everyone can do, from Phantom girl nabbing persuader's axe to allow Triplicate girl to kick him in the face, to Lightning Lad teaching clark about his freezing breath, to Saturn Girl hyjacking Validus. It's an awesome fight, and ends with the five defeated. In paticualr superboy held off empress. They escape, of course, but they still won the fight and made it so they won't try that shit again. Brainy offers to take clark back but he decides to stick around... he realizes the legion can help him grow as a person and as a hero, and well. they CAN return him right where he left, so he's not exactly in a hurry. Clark adds the legion crest to his belt and gets his flight ring.

The Flight Rings are one of my faviorite legion things and weirdly I don't have a replica yet, simple golden rings that allow the user to well.. fly, and serve as proof of legion status. It means anyone in the legion can fly though some like superman CAN fly on their own. Also he's man instead of boy here, rights issues.

The Man From Tommorow is a decent episode... but is hampered by it's run time. It really needed more than the standard 20 some minutes as it had a LOT of ground to cover, and as such feels rushed: Clark grows comfortable with himself fast, the team goes down and recovers fast, and the episode could've badly used a second part to help slow it down, flesh out the rest of the legion and the story. It's still a decent opener, getting across the legion as a concept, clark's characterization for the series as an unsure rookie, and most of th elegions personaliteis to a degree, but it needed more time in the oven to truly be a great story. Thankfully the series only picks up from here and with this one doing most of the table setting, the rest of the season just leaps into the concept full speed case in point...

Timber Wolf:

The first episode was decent but the second. .is the show I remembered, with well done characters, intresting stories and balls to the walls action way ahead of it's time for this kind of show. The last part was present in the first ep but this one really let's us get to know the cast.. and adds one last member to our main roster.

The legion is on a space mission, standard stuff, with some fun banter as Superman dosen't clear it up right away because Lightning Lad wanted to "teach him something" , showing this clark has a sense of humor and a small but fun michevious streak. The team for this mission is Supes, LL, Brainy, Bouncing Boy, and Saturn Girl.

We also get to know Bouncing Boy better and get a fun b-plot with him and brainy as the two bicker: Brainy wants Bouncing Boy to use the compensators he installed and BB would prefer to fly himself. It's a nice clash of styles: Brainy is stuck to logic and routine and BB prefers human intution. Classic sci fi stuff that works great here and dosen't feel too stale as it feels rooted in character.

The Legion gets a distress call from a disant planet: Dr. Londo needs their help as a creature has gotten loose and our heroes naturally toucfh down on a spooky planet to deal with it. The doctor explains he does biological research and the creature got loose and killed his son and he needs it recaptured.

This episode is nicely horror coded, with a nice atmosphere that helps boost the story.

As you could probably guess from a mile off... the Doctor isn't being completely honest. The fact he told B and B to stick to the hangar is a clue and Bouncy learns the hard way when he eventually storms off after getting tired of Brainy micromanaging him and not trusting his ability to improvise. I also can't help but love the possibly unintetional autisim coding brainy gets, ala spock: Brainy is obnoxious in his need to order.. but genuinely dosen't get WHY he pissed his friend off when he's, in his mind right. On the spectrum myself i've been in that position before, if not to this degree and it's honestly more accurate than some attempts to tackle autisim outright i've seen.

Bouncing Boy gets mobbed by robots just for going off course, an entirely responable and not stupid security thing. Brainy rescues him as, while Bouncing Boy isn't helpless he is outnumbered, the two make up and decide to go snooping as something is clearly very wrong. Villian Pro Tip: NEVER overdo your security when your trying to keep heroic guests away from your creepy shit. Villian Pro Tip 2: Maybe don't call down super heroes to grab your son and expect it to end well for you.

And yup, while it's not the biggest twisty twist, that's what the creature is. We find out after said creature skirts saturn girl away.. but turns out, in classic monster movie fashion, he's sapient and allows Irma to pick his brain. Naturally lightning lad fucks it up, attacking him and accidnetly knocking her out leading to LL and Superboy caputting him. Thankfully by this point the brainy subplot has reached the snooping stage, and I love the gag of Bouncing Boy just.. shouting for them to join the party.

Irma has them free the monster, explaning they were idiots and with his consent getting the full story.. and helping Brynn Londo, the doctor's not dead at all son, assume a more humanoid form and maintain it and his ablility to speak.

The bad doctor shows up wanting his property back, the legion say fuck no to that and they stop him, with Brynn chasing his dad. They win the day, helped by the fact the various monsters unleshed on our heroes.. are not very fond of the bad doctor.

The Doctor brags, pointing out this isn't United Planets Space, so our heroes can't touch him. Also hammer can't sue. But his son gets the last laugh, not only pointing out what a monster his dad is but then destroying his equipment so he can't do this shit to someone else. While his dad TRIES to bait him with "how long wil you keep this form up"... it backfires as Irma vows to help and the Legion welcomes a new member. He gets a spiffy outfit I absolutely love and in a very nice touch recites the legion oath, with cameos from the other legionarres. I like getting to see my boy blok.

We stand Blok in this mojo dojo casa house.

Timber Wolf is a sharp improvement to what wasn't a bad episode, but badly needed mor echaracter. The rest of the legion gets fleshed out, the atmosphere is great and the twist, while obvious is still unsettling and provides a nice setup for Timber Wolf to join the team.

Legacy

Legacy features an intresting spin on an old foe of Supermans: Lex Luthor. It asks the bold question: What if Lex and Clark were into one another. A riddle for the ages. This being the 2000's it uses lex's female descendant but the question still stands and the episode still slaps.

While out flying around Clark rescues Alexis, a red headed thrill seeker. When he gets back to the gang their all happy he met someone. Even Brainy, which good for him not being jealous.. yet. More on that in a moment. They all soon find out he rescued Alexis, the richest girl to ever rich girl and the biggest celebrity in new metropolis apparently. Phantom Girl says she outs mopey rich girls her, which is saying something. Lightning Lad says he could never, Brainy says Superman cat get it, and Clark is convicned he won't see her again.. only to be proven wrong when she asks him out that night.

Brainy is a bit nettled though as that was their patrol night and thus

Yeah we really can't talk the legion of superheroes cartoon, this episode or brainy without addressing the elephant in the room: Brainy has a MASSIVE crush on superman. He's possibly not aware of it, emotional awareness and social awareness are not things the boy is good at and I can relate, but it's there. The producer admitted as much during an anniversary panel, citing that "some things" had to be gotten past the censors while Brainy's voice actor Adam Wylie at least flat out thinks Brainy was in love with him. Even back then when I was bad at picking up on gay subtext in cartoons, I could tell.

It's also ahead of it's time to have this so blatant.. .it's not super emphasized because network jackassery, but the fact one of the main characters is attracted to men and i'ts not hidden at all is amazing to me.

Brainy is sore because he and clark were supposed to patrol, and while part of it is again, he wants to stare at his crush for several hours, being brainy he also set out a logical pattern of patrols as the Scavengers are out there. The legion asks what we're thinking

Brainy DID send them a briefing.. but being Brainy made it 134 pages so no one , even Clark, read it. And when you can't get future journalist clark kent to read your whole ass document, you done messed up. I also like this detail with brainy: that he IS a strategic genius.. but he also over does it so much. It's better than 80 "in english poindexter" jokes". We get a few of those, it's only fair, but I like having a variety to how much Brainy overthinks things with his 12th level intellgence.

He explains: the scavengers are techno pirates, sadly not with matching costumes, and he wants to be on the lookout. However he can't resist a sad boy so he agrees to let Clark go on his super date, provided he keeps the coms on, and Clark promises to do two patrols in a row to make it up to him.

Unfortuantley Brainy once again messes up as he keeps calling every two minutes. Might want to take about ten percent off there Squirrely-ac five. His report.. is there's nothing to report so Clark eventually mutes him. The Legion Communicators PROBABLY shoudln't have a mute button, but they probably only due because of this.

Clark feels out of place with all the judgy rich people but Alexis arrives and really just wanted to put in an apperance and hang out with her boy. The two sneak into her lab at Luthor International. I like to think Maxwell Lord made a deal with Luthor's daughter and the companies merged.

AT any rate Alexis does relate to clark, as she's not sure what she wants to do with her life and like clark has a lot of pressure to be great NOW. While Clark's romancin and relatin, the rest of the legion gets slammed by the scanvengers. They do fine AT FIRST.. but eventually are overwhelmed and clark dosen't answer and OH NO BRAINY'S ARM GOT SHOT OFF

and... OH NO.... it's.. fine the next scene as he easily repairs it. The Legion's a bit miffed, ESPECIALLY Brainy.. but Clark genuinely apologizes and explains... and they all instantly forgive him aside from Brainy. Turns out even when Brainy dosen't have a crush on you he dosen't know how not to overmessage. Again can relate. But I like this nuance. That it wasn't "oh they can go without you one night" from alexis or clark making a mistake: Clark had a reson to turn his badge on silent and shoudln't have, but Brainy did abuse the coms and overthink it in a way he apparently does a LOT. Clark is genuinely sorry and cancels plans for tommorow.

Alexis is able to talk him into an hour of fun, but Clark is upset he's late and has to go. He misses patrol, brainy's upset, but Clark's gneuinely contrite.

Alexis.. then takes things a step too far as she fakes an attack to get Clark's attention. To his credit. while Clark DOES try to just let the sp handle it to not annoy brainy.. brainy tell shim to go save her. It's what superman would do. But Clark is rightfully pissed: the legion NEEDS him and while he would like to hang for days he simply can't and Alexis is too lonely and isolated and to a degree selfish to get that saving the world comes first. So she decides fine if he has to pick one.. she'll take away the other option. It's like super great grandpap always said from his perserved brain in the basement always said: if they love something else, kill it , kill everything else they love so they only have you.

So Alexis teams up with the scavengers, gives them an upgrade, and lures clark away so she can siege the legion's clubhouse. Unfortuantely for her, Brainy is not only as smart as her, but the legion aren't pushovers and while she does get them on the ropes , Clark arrives having figured out the ruse and a fight breaks out, cumilating in Alexis deciding "if I can't have you i'll just kill you" just like super great grandpap would, and ending up bald like him.

In Jail Alexis reassembles Woodhouse.. because of course her robot is named woodhouse, and plots revenge... then we never see her again because the execs decided the show needed more BOYSSSS SAND TO APPEAL TO BOYS AND APPEAL TO ALL THE BOYSSSSS. God I wish Warner Bros execs werne't grown in a lab somewhere.. and that they let David Zaslav finish baking.

Legacies is an excellent episode, tapping into clark's need for normalcy, giving us a truly standout villian, and having some great jokes. The last part isn't important to an action show like this but I do like it. Tara Strong gives a stand out performance as Alexis and it's a damn shame we didn't get to see her again. Speaking of Cool Villians we never saw again..

Phantoms:

Our final episode for the day and this one's a bit intresting as it's actually 6th in production order, the 4th is the 6th aired episode fear factory. I would've kept it there but this is another superman centric one and it IS superman month, so it made sense. if this review does well, I might do the next batch including fear factory in october.

Clark has been visting the superman museum a lot, trying to find some clues about who he'll be. It's.. not super healthy. Also at the Museum is someone I forgot to mention during the first museum scene in the pilot, Booster Gold. Yes in a nice Cameo Booster is there... probably going to steal that legion ring eventually. That's how he flies. We also get a cameo from either lobo's descdeant or the main man himself in the previous episode as Alexis steals his bike.

Clark finds something and figures if it's his museum he can touch things: the Phantom Zone projector.. and accidently unleashes a prisoner.

It's here we meet Drax, vocied amazingly by character actor Greg Ellis, and his two pets, Eeny and Meany. Drax trashes the place with the awesome line "I see the altar but where's the god" and escapes. Lightning Lad is naturally the one to berate clark , but the rest of the legion is kind enough not to rub it in. The bigger issue is another kryptonian is now loose and he's bad.

Drax is an intresting character, in part because of what we know about him: he was created by Zod, something heavily implied by the z on his suit and the fact Zod is a terrible father every damn time, so it's no suprise he genetically eneeered a son just to murder superman, constantly has thoughts pumped into his head that he's evil and always has been always will be and said thoughts pump in with sharp pain if he gets off course trying to kill superman. You can see WHY the guy is such a monster when he hasn't really been given the choice not to be. He instead doubles down. He also has a swagger that's just.. unedeinable. I don't know what it is abotu Superman and british villians but it just works.

The episode is mostly the team tracking Drax down, but the cat and mouse works as their chasing someone as strong as superman, with no morals and two pet monsters. The ep is largely a showcase for the series great fight coreography

It does have some godo character stuff as we get the start of the sorta romance between Phantom Girl and Timber Wolf. They never offically hook up, but the tension is there as he spends the episode trying to protect her and she proves she can handle herself, but also has to learn in a team it's okay to have someone watch your back... just in moderation. The two weren't a thing in the comics.. but it works really well here, his blunt nature matching hers and his less than happy background nicely contrasting her being richer than god and her mom being president of the united planets.

The other notable runner in the episode is the science police: their the police but you know, science, present in every legion incarnation..a nd here their just the plain worse. Which tracks for police but begs the question why we still have them. THey don't like the legion which isn't a new take: the 90's version didn't exactly care for them either, and even preboot there was some friction, it just slowly lessened as some of the legion dated some of the science police. As you do. Here.. THEY FIRE ON THE LEGION WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT to try and kill the monsters

But wait this is somehow dumber! Not only are they firing on teenagers, if implied to be older teens mostly.. but as this episode mentions, Phantom Girl... is the president's daughter. If that wasn't enough, while it's not mentioned directly in this episode, the legion is formally sponsored by the united planets here, as they are in most versions, and unlike the UN the UP is more of a galactic senate and thus has a LOT of power. So their not just shooting at teens.. but teens who shooting at could cause a dipolmatic incident, and teens who outrank them!

Good lord. Anyways eventually Drax out manuvers them, using his monsters as a distraction.. while he goes for the Headquaters with only brainy left behind. It's here we find out something intresting: Brainy has a bit of kryptonite. He tries using it on Drax.. but Zod was smart enough to make sure that woudln't work, and Drax.. actually makes a point: That Clark DOSEN'T know about this, and ponders why brainy has this and dosen't tell him. It's understandble to have a fail safe.. much less to not tell him and hints to a darker side to our boy, a more pragmatic one we'll see more of in season 2.

For now the legion arrives.. and Drax finds the projector, using it to send them away. Clark explodes, utterly laying into Drax in a truly awesome fight, slamming the guy down bellow and even grabbing guns. Clark demands answers.. but Drax laughs, realizing Superman REALLY dosen't know and he won't tell him because well dick.

Thankfully while the fight is even the Legion narrowly escape, and in an awesome way as their stranded in the phantom zone at first, where the phantoms can hurt them.. but they can't touch them. Phantom Girl shows her awesomeness as she CAN and judo kicks a bunc hbefore brainy gets them to saftey and they find a hail mary: Brainy uses his shield generator , with a power boost from Lightning Lad, to punch their way home, and Phantom Girl phases them all. This comes with the massive risk of her possibly not being able to phase back.. but they have no other option and she bravely completes the circuit. Drax goes back, the kryptonite thing goes with him and Clark is left unaware... Brainy's happy to be rid of the ball and Clark's happy to find out the answers the fun way.. but there's still the unease that he didn't TELL clark what it was or why Drax was about to use it. That even as much as he loves clark.. Brainy can't ultimately be honest.

Phantoms is a solid episode. It's mostly a LOT of action, but it's fun well paced action and the climax's knock down drag out fight and darring escape is amazing. It's a well done episode with a great villian we sadly don't see again, though in this case it was likely the show getting cut short rather than executives being stupid pod persons.

And with that supermay is done. IT was a fun ride and the bigger likes than usual tells me ya'll would love to see this again next year, so you shall. Until then keep hope for a better world, look up too the sky, and thanks for reading.

[sirensea14]

Now listen 'ere partner, I'mma need that list or mayhem songs 🤠 also I'd love to know more, I've always loved weird ships that come out of nowhere with little to no possibility of it even being considered ( evident by my Marcus x cup ship, I actually don't know where that one came from) and I always love learning about them and why they happened :33

Wait-wait-wait--WHAT??!! SO YOU'RE TELLING ME THERES SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO SHIPS MARCUS AND CUPHEAD? 😨 Now thats... quite cursed... didnt even know that exists...

But anyway here's the songs with some explanation

Bendy songs:

Instruments of Cyanide (DAGames)

My favorite bendy song, i had different versions of this song as an animatic for inky mystery (i want to animate it but i dont have enough skills to do it yet and its quite long) but there's this one particular version in my head where in WitchBrew was singing chorus 1, Mayhem and Not-Cup had their hands as if spinning the cog with Cuphead and Holly on it.

This is the art for it.

Behind the curtain (squigglydigg)

(Watch the mv first so u can get what im saying lol)This one is where Cuphead is henry and alice angel was holly-turning-to-mayhem. Mayhem taunts cuphead about the fact that he didnt manage to save holly from the cog

Alice's Tango (You will be mine) by chi chi

Literally just Mayhem dancing tango with Not-cup. He might be newly possessed since i imagined this with him having a bitter expression. (Compared to the art ones where he is smiling af lol) But yea, but him frowning or smiling and dancing with mayhem is still him dancing with mayhem, no matter whoch expression you or i choose lol

All eyes on me (squigglydigg's verison)

I love the og one, Or3o's version, but the og one's for sarah, it had some sweet evil girl tone in it. Whereas Squigglydigg's ver had Alice with a kind of that evil woman voice which is suiting mayhem. Its about her capturing the questers, tying them to a chair and make them watch her sing as they show her that they suppressed her from the cog. Cuphead manages to escape (Oh no no no no babe, hey!;- this is the part of the song where she caught cuphead loose from his ties) and i then she becomes insane as she sing and captures him back while pointing at him, blaming him for uhh everything...? *shrugs* lol

Are you proud of me now? (DAGames)

Ah yes, also one of my favorite songs. This is about holly and cuphead pulling the cog in replacement of audrey and the ink machine in DAGames mv. They bury the pressure that is put on them the the bg figures (Holly: bendy, fanny and cuphead. Cuphead: vicious,fanny, holly and mayhem) and then Mayhem is trying to pull Cuphead into madness when a memory ball revealed that holly is mayhem that is fully influenced by the cog. Cuphead back steps as mayhem is trying to get at him.

Lemme tell ya bud, giving this into detail is quite hard, but i told ya this the best that i can

Now onto the non-bendy songs!

Show yourself (frozen 2)

Hehe, quite weird to see a disney song here eh? XD but basically, this song is about Holly discovering the powers of the cog and some runes in some kind of old hidden Micco Cave. She followed the light where it leads her to Lukahd singing her and transforming her into Mayhem. The questers appeared at the end of the song and Mayhem raind down a cloud of runes she summoned. Cuphead was left flabbergasted at what happened. Alice's angel runes and bendy's demon magic protects them from the attack.

A sad song (we the kings)

This one is based from the Gala heartbreak. Holly goes into full mayhem which makes cuphead heartbroken as she shows bloodlust. But we also get to see Holly's pov which is cuphead laugh off and having fun with fanny and walking away from her as they talk.

And heres the most heartbreaking part; mayhem holds cuphead in a chokehold with her magic as she floats on her broom. Cuphead looks at her with teary eyes, but Mayhem showed no remorse. She was smiling ear to ear as she watched him in pain. Her memory of being holly and messing with the jokester cuphead is vanishing. She chose to ignore those aching memories because of the pain he caused.

Enchanted (taylor swift)

Aint a swiftie but ngl this song is amazing. Perfect for colly heartbreak. Again, this is based from the gala. Also goes along with the storyline of A Sad Song. But this is more on holly's pov tho. This also includes some moments from the gala, when she spied on the cupbros (cuphead hung her on a tree) etc. and then shifts to mayhem attacking cuphead with regrets carved on his glassy eyes.

All of this is kinda hard to get into detail, i tried my best and thats it. Hope u understand my explanations😅

Meanwhile, heres a WitchBrew song but them in a fight:

Devil's Gambit (fnf: indie cross)

Yes, you read that right, an fnf song XD

This one's cool cuz i imagine Notcup having a bit of characteristics from Nightmare Cuphead's form (indie cross).

Kind of like this.

I imagine him assisting Mayhem of defeating the Questers cuz they were on a hunt for them during the song. Mayhem unleashing her most horrifying abilities and Cuphead shooting blazing hot pink bullets. He still has all of the potion bullets like the chaser, lobber and peashooter etc, its just in pink.

Or possibly theyre fighting sarah, instrument boris and the night terror cuz sarah considered mayhem (and possibly notcup) as anomalies.

Welp, i think ive got it all covered up lol. A LOT was running in my head back then when i was a silent fan.

Holy cuss its 11:30 pm XD i should wash myself now cuz its getting quite late (imstillnotsleepyhelpandimhungry)

Im still wondering how tf did someone got the nerve to ship marcus and cuphead💀

[rael-rider]

While I really love the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy, I really wish they specifically didn't have so much synergy with their comics counterparts. Obviously Bendis' habit of bringing in random Earth characters didn't help, but the team dynamic in almost every run but Ewing's has been just a worse version of the films'. Gunn's changes aren't bad for the movies' sake, but when they try and make the established 616 gotg act like them it just comes off as weird, and for some reason we're still doing it in the year of our lord 2023. I just wish the MCU didn't have such a profound impact on the comics so we could've had two very different but well-written versions of the team.

Synergy hit the Guardians harder than any other characters and it was inevitably going to happen even if Gunn wasn't involved because the moment Feige wanted to do a GotG movie the comic Editors wanted to make the characters more audience friendly and basically tasked Bendis (who really didn't want to do it and had to be convinced to, which also explains why his run is so bad) to be the person to do t.

Even though Bendis has admitted that beyond reading Clarmeont and Byrne's Star-Lord he really didn't read or care much about the other characters. he was going to reinvent them and the plan from what I could tell was to synergize the movie with his own comic. But it's really that. Most writers that got involved with the Guardians really DGAF about them or just don't know what the hell to do with them. After the first movie came out you could told most just copied what Gunn did with them in the MCU. Problem with that is that no one is as good as James Gunn at doing his brand of humor, no one saw past the comedy aspect and reduced them to just jokes. Drax always took everything literally and couldn't understand metaphors or figure of speech. Gamora was always a flawless stoic badass. Rocket was angry 24/7. Groot had no personality. Peter Quill was a manchild that everyone disrespected and ridiculed.

This was especially bad during the period between vol.1 and vol.2 where everything was just a repeat of the plot in the first GotG movie. Guardians don't get along, Guardians find an ancient powerful Mcguffin, Guardians have to fight bad guy who wants the Mcguffin, Guardians have to band together and get along in order to defeat the bad guy. If they fought a bad guy it was usually Korath, Nebula, Ronan, or the Chitauri.

The GotG cartoon was notorious for this, and when it started bringing out non-MCU stuff it was things from the Bendis run and it's why you had multiples episodes with Asgardian and Symbiote related plotlines.

I also get the feeling that a lot of the writers that handle the Guardians don't really care about them as characters nor about their history. The current GotG writers for example feel like they really care more about writing a space western than really writing a Guardians story. The Guardians in the comic just feel like Guardians in name only.

[soleminisanction]

I forget.. how exactly did Tim become Robin again? Was it only because Damian left? Or something else?

There wasn't really a reason given for it in-universe. It was a gradual transition that played out over the course of a few different story lines and like five years.

What really happened, I think, is that the New52 attempted revision of Tim Drake was violently rejected by the fan-base, one of the clearest and most obvious reactions of "fuck no that's not our boy" in that whole mess of an attempted universe reset. And a big part of that stemmed from their total re-haul of his personality, motivations, backstory, and superhero career to insist that he was never Robin, he'd only ever been Red Robin, supposedly to "honor" Jason, because frankly somebody behind the scenes was sucking Jason's dick hardcore and dragging other characters under the bus to do it.

Thing is, DC always has a tendency to underestimate how popular Robin actually is because there's a certain mindset of straight white male comic book creator who's under the delusion belief that only straight white men like him read superhero comics. But Robin has always been popular with women and queer people. It's why Dick Grayson is the most sexualized man in comics, why Jason Todd exploded in popularity after they hired one of the Supernatural guys to voice him in the animated movie, why New Teen Titans could save DC in the 80s by being an unapologetic teen soap opera, heck, it's even the origin of the infamous Seduction of the Innocent "Batman and Robin are gay" claims, but that's another post.

Point is, New 52!Tim got a lot of backlash, so he was one of the things they focused on when they started dialing that back. To compound things, while Damian does have a fandom, he's not really popular as Robin, not Bruce's Robin anyway. Most of his popularity comes either from his relationship with Dick, or from Super Sons, which calls him Robin but treats him narratively as only "The Son of Batman" -- he could be called literally anything else and it wouldn't change the dynamic. And the thing is that you really kinda need a proper Robin to tell good long-term Batman stories. Even the animate series only kept him solo for a single season.

So they gradually nudged Tim back into his place. First came Rebirth with Batman Eternal where they were still calling him "Red Robin" but the only non-Robin thing about him was the extra "R" on his costume, he still looked and acted and filled the role of Robin in every other extent. And, more importantly, they had some measure of his original personality coming back.

Then he encountered with an explicit version of his pre-Flashpoint self (Titans Tomorrow!Batman) that starting bringing back memories of the timeline that everybody preferred, including all the Young Justice friends that people who'd rejected the New 52 Teen Titans were desperately missing, and he went off into Bendis's YJ run and just, started calling himself Robin again.

And then it just, stuck. Because it works, because they were bringing back the old status quo that the fandom preferred, because Tim is well-suited to the role they needed in the narrative, and because he's just the kind of guy who would go, "Huh, that very important job is not being done and nobody seems to see how important it is, somebody should take care of that" and then just, do it.

It's kinda how he got the gig in the first place.

[randomeanonjustwatching]

i read ur pinned and saw tom, so can you write for tom? either version youd like, and ofc u dont have to

and for trope,, (wholesome) only one bed ,? or honestly anything youd like its ur blog djbdhf

One bed? Yours.

[Gn!Reader x Boris!Tom from Batim/Batdr, written from third person/Tom's perspective? ]

(So Imma straight up say thank you for reading my pinned post and choosing a character other than Bendy because I swear everyone wants me to write him, but tbf the demon boy is popular.)

Tom had never expected this too happen.

But of course it did.

Allison had found another person similar to her, but they were more quiet and didn't talk much, only when they needed.

Oh how Tom wished he could talk, to blurt out everything to get Pendle to remember.

But then he saw you.

And remembered farther back. You were his lover. Before Allison.

But of course you wouldn't remember that. Not after all the years you've been here.

Right?

----------------------------------------

I felt my foot shift as I stared.

Is it really them?...

The features were similar, just more.....inky. Toonish.

"Hi." They said quietly, and I only nodded slightly, heading to the other side of the bunker to feed a fish Allison recently caught and kept calling 'Dolly'.

"Sorry about Tom, he can't speak and he's a little hard-headed." I heard Allison say, and my ear twitched.

Hard-headed?..Really?

I dropped a can of bacon soup into the tank and Dol...no, the fish ate the entire can in a bite.

Still don't know how they do that.

----------------

Tom didn't realize the main issue.

With Allison sleeping in one bed, that meant there's one bed left.

There's no couch, and Tom was fine with sleeping in a chair, but you kept insisting that it was his bed and you can sleep on the floor or something.

"It is your bed though, I promise I can just sleep on the floor." You said quietly, and Tom shook his head.

So you two made a compromise.

Sleep in the same bed, one on each side of the bed, different blankets and facing different directions.

--------

God, can't sprawl out like I normally do.... my arm hurts from the metal...I complained in my thoughts.

Eh, what are they-

You had snuggled up close to me, rolling and then hugging me in your sleep.

And for some damn reason, I didn't move you.

Maybe.......No, that's a silly thought, Thomas.

You mumbled something along the lines of "Warm.." and then just snored slightly.

My face blushed.

Even if you don't remember loving me....I'll still love you and Allison all the same.

'------------------------------------------------------

Extra random headcanons from this trope/one shot:

Tom probably tries to point out things to you that you two liked in your past, and if you get excited or happy over them it's one of the only times he truly smiles.

I BET you and Allison have a fish collecting hobby, and Tom just ends up making sure the fish don't eat eachother so you two don't get upset.

If you have longer hair (and whether your boy/girl/non binary) he braids it early in the "morning" for you.

He probably does it for Allison too, but you always compliment how good he is at it instead of a thank you, and his ears go down in slightly shyness.

I bet his robot arm gets squeaky and rusty tons, and Allison doesn't like doing it, so the entire time your oiling his arm he's just sitting there blushing but trying to hide it till you notice and ask if you're too close.

[r-rook-studio]

Cross posted from the R. Rook Studio blog.

So over the course of July, I’ve gotten material from me (yay!), Noora Rose, and Bendi Barrett, and forwarded all of that over to Jared Sinclair, the official editor of Roseville Beach (and really, all of Rose Island). I don’t brag much about my own skills, but I get to work with some of the most thoughtful and skilled people in tabletop RPGs. Jared wrapped up his developmental comments on this first round of documents late last week, so we’re ready to start making some previews.

Dim All the Lights (Announcement List | Kickstarter Pre-launch) is coming together, and to celebrate, we’re making some early-release zines!

Dim All the Lights 1: New Characters on Roseville Beach

While I call Dim All the Lights a “Mystery Book,” it includes new tools and toys for players as well as GMs. The first of these is a set of origin stories:

The Veteran has spent most of their adult life hunting monsters and studying the occult in the employ of the wealthy and powerful. Now you’ve come here to Roseville Beach to use your skills to keep a community safe. You’ve forgotten more than most people will ever know. Each session, you choose a background and during the session pick three skills you want to use as you need them. You also have a Go Bag from which you can make your own new Supply Checks for equipment others wouldn’t thave access to.

The Changeling was once a normal kid in the terrestrial world but were taken away to another. You’ve since grown up and returned, only to discover someone else has been living your life. Your time among non-humans has give you a deep understanding of what others are thinking and taught you a few supernatural tricks (that are more routine but easier than working magic with sorcery and words of power).

The Rose Island Regular has a job like everyone else, but they’ve had more Rose Island jobs than almost anyone else. Instead of a separate set of skills and backgrounds, the Regular takes a current job and two former jobs. They’ve also got a reputation around town, and know a lot of Roseville Beach gossip.

The Mainland Renegade came out to Roseville Beach for a short getaway. It was supposed to be a few days. And then you stayed. The Renegade is a slightly more mature version of The Fresh Face from the core book, and was inspired by Mary Ann Singleton from Maupin’s Tales of the City.

The book also includes a few more jobs around Roseville Beach (like fire fighter, drag king/queen, and bookstore clerk) and Rose Island (like an admin for the park department), and the option of being self-employed as a band member, writer, swim coach, or repairperson.

Dim All the Lights 2: Entities of Roseville Beach

Inspired by The X Files, SCP, and The Magus Archives, Noora Rose wrote five new “Entities of Roseville Beach.” Moonlight on Roseville Beach doesn’t have opponent, antagonist, creature, NPC, or monster stats: If you can figure out how to hurt something, it has up to 3 hit points. Instead, Noora took things in a new direction and focused instead on the entity’s victims and the evidence they leave behind.

Noora, who wrote the strange events generator of Moonlight on Roseville Beach, where ever die roll is a small, eerie fragment of a horrifying story, tackled this section, and I spoke after reading an early draft of her work back in June, but now Noora’s expanded the section, adding more detail and some GM notes.

Instead of focusing on the entities, Noora focuses on their victims, looking at what witnesses saw and what the victims recorded in their own journals and logs. Her work not only introduces the entities but creates clues and player handouts. I’ve mocked up a couple of layouts here.

Here, Dr. Jo Norris is logging her observations on a mysterious sea slug that she’ll soon learn can take the form of anything it’s near.

Here, we take a look at the diary of Nicole Wolf, a young woman who went missing after starting to date a singer named whose waterlogged diary was found at the beach.

Noora also added a bunch of GM notes on using the entities, and I've created a short mystery generator using the entities in Roseville Beach.

[alanshee-keeper-of-realms]

Working on another idea called the Kingdom of the Forgotten

It's a rewrite of Chip and Dale 2022, this time centralizing on Oswald as the antagonist. Here's a small snippet showing the tone of this version.

Bendy is fun to throw in as well I can't play the game due to all the jumpscares, which cause my POTs to flare. But I'm trying to learn the lore in other ways to include him in this,

This is seperate from the Off the Animation Table AU

------------------

Mickey slowly blinked consciousness returning, groaning as he sat up a hand going to his head. He remembered talking to Oswald and confronting him about his possible highly illegal Bootlegging operation.

"Well well well" his head whipped around at a voice that sounded deep and somehow wet,"Looky who it is," he scrambled back as he was met by a creature dripping in ink its face consumed by teeth, it was a demon toon of some sort however the mouse didn't care to find out more, his heart pounding as the creature slammed a hand down near him leaving an ink splatter

There was more laughter in the shadows as he squeaked curling in on himself, giggles ensued as the light above swayed, showing gleaming pie eyes surrounding them

"Alright, Bendy, you have had your fun. You'll get to have more soon my friend," the creature looked towards the other voice looking disappointed but his body morphed in a sickening blob that writhed until finally a toon emerged it looked like a cutesy Demon from the early rubberhose era, he smiled at Mickey, his pie eyes however shined with a malicious nature

"Of course, Ozzie!" He giggled, skipping towards where the voice came from before the rabbit stepped into the light with a smirk on his face as Bendy and was that Felix, stepped up behind the other,

Oswalds form was not of the Once Upon a Studio design, it was his Trolley Troubles look. However, he wore the same business shirt the sleeves now rolled up as he glared at his little brother, crossing his arms,

"Oswald? Why?" The mouse quickly stood up confusion running through his mind as the rabbit snorted

"Still have your eyes closed? You see Bendy here? That form is the result of experimentation, my son was lobotimized Felix was hit frequently by dip stained whips, all of us have been the victims of Human Primalness, this made us wiser then most,"

"So we can just demand an apology!"

"oh, you naive little mouse, that won't do anything," he shook his head,

"Nothing" Bendy snarled,

"But I wouldn't expect the King of the Known to know what happens to The Forgotten,"

"King of the Known?" Mickey repeated slowly head cocked in his confusion

Oswalds eyes met his, narrowing

"Tell me Michael brother mine, what do you think happens to toons like me? Like Bendy and Felix, ones that humans have forgotten like old toys and play things?"

The mouse paused and thought, he would think they'd be allowed to peacefully retire until they flickered or decayed to the point of non-existence, so that's what he vocalized,

"I would think you'd be told good job and retired to some place peacefully,"

Howls of laughter went through the space Oswald joining in, his friend elbowing him,

"Man Ozzie ya said he's so naive but I didn think he was this deluded!" Came from the Ink demon as Mickey shrunk,

"Told ya Walt's golden boy" the other quipped back, it struck at the mouses core a bit of anger now burning at the name of their creator coming from his brother's mouth like poison,

"We are torn apart Michael,"

"Experimented," came Bendys deeper more sludge like voice,

"Abused," Felix glared

The mouse felt sickened as more joined in shouting what had happened to them after their fame faded,

Assaulted

Burned

Cut open

Tortured

He felt his stomach twisting as Oswald held a hand up, the voices simmering down as he crept closer,

"Your the beloved Mickey Mouse, King of the Known" his brother leaned over with a smile as Bendy giggled and Felix smirked," You know who I am? I am the King of the Forgotten the lost and Mistreated you've met our darling Bendy from the forgotten Joey Drew Studios and you of course know Felix, my brother in law. But I won't dare forget my Citizens! "

Mickeys eye s winced as the Studio lit up before they adjusted and they went wide, hundreds of Black and White toons some dripping others flickered but all glared at the mouse who suddenly realized why Chip and Dale told him not to confront Oswald,

"Welcome to the Forgotten Kingdom!" He threw his arms out as everyone joined him in jeering and laughing,

[nayialovecat]

Bendy, what would you do in front of the Ink demon of BATDR?

And you, Sammy?

SATIM Bendy: I'm glad that in my version of Studio almost all the mirrors are non-functional… Am I so ugly too? BATDR Bendy: Hey! ==

SATIM Sammy: M-more Lords to worship? *he faints* BATDR Bendy: *nudges him with his foot*

It wasn't very surprising, was it? X'D

[animaniacsartmuseum]

General Tags, a-h

#aged down or #younger- Art where characters are shown to be younger than their usual, canon age. Character-specific: #young yakko, #young wakko, #young dot

#aged up- Art where characters are depicted as being older than their usual, canon ages. Character-specific: #older yakko, #older wakko, #older dot, etc.

#alternate clothing- Art where characters wear clothing that differs from their usual, canon outfits. Can be anything from a small subtle change, like Wakko wearing his hat forwards instead of backwards, to total outfit changes.

#alternate universe or #au- Art featuring Animaniacs characters in an alternate setting than the canon Animaniacs universe, usually consisting of multiple different posts from the same artist all taking place in the same alternate universe.

#animaniacs- Not really sure what use this tag has, it just felt right to tag posts with it.

#ask- Post that was originally an ask, where the author posts art in response to an ask, or fulfills a request from an ask. Art from pure ask accounts is not usually reblogged here, unless it's of an exceptionally high quality. (That art is wonderful and just as valuable as the art posted here, but there is a high volume of it, it can often require a bit of outside context to understand, and it's already relatively easy to find and access, so it doesn't really fit what I'm trying to highlight here. I may change my mind in the future. If you want to see art from those accounts, it is easy to go to their page and simply scroll through it.)

#angst- Art that's angsty, that contains characters seeming worried, upset, anxious with the world, or just generally upset

#animated- Art that is animated in some form. Could be a gif or a video, and could be anything from a few frames to a full fluid animation.

#animatic- Animation where characters are drawn acting out an underlying track from another source. For example, a character singing a song that's not from Animaniacs, or characters being shown acting out a non-Animaniacs movie scene with audio from the original movie.

#anime- Art where characters are drawn in an anime style, or shown interacting with anime characters/concepts

#animeniacs- Art featuring the anime versions of the Warner siblings from reboot season 1. Character-specific: #anime yakko, #anime wakko, #anime dot

#arson- Art featuring people or objects on fire, or a fire deliberately started by a character

#baby- Art featuring baby versions of characters. Character-specific: #baby dot, #baby pesto, #baby squit, #baby bobby

#brinky or #pinky x brain- Art featuring a romantic relationship between Pinky and The Brain

#christmas- Art featuring Christmas imagery, themes, or stories

#clothes swap- Art where a character wears the clothes of another character

#clowns- Art featuring clowns or characters drawn as clowns, usually in relation to Wakko's fear of clowns

#comic- Art that tells a story through multiple panels. Does not necessarily have to have multiple pages. Generally, art must have more than three panels to be tagged as a comic, though I'm not entirely consistent with this and consider it on a case-by-case basis. All "comic-type" stories are tagged with "#story", regardless of the number of panels or how comic-like it is. Comics that have multiple pages over multiple posts will be tagged with a single, unique, common tag, usually the title of the comic if it has one.

#crossover- Art that features non-Animaniacs characters. Art will usually also be tagged with specific tags about the crossed-over property and characters, so a post with Disney characters would be tagged "#disney" and a post with Mickey Mouse would be tagged "#mickey mouse". Common crossovers: #disney, #looney tunes, #bendy and the ink machine, #sam and max, #tiny toons, #betty boop

#crying- Art where a character is shown to be crying (usually requires the direct presence of tears). Does not necessarily have to be a genuine, sad cry.

#cute warners- Art featuring the Warners in their cute/chibi style from reboot season 1. Character-specific: #cute yakko, #cute wakko, #cute dot, #cute pinky, #cute brain

#dancing- Art where characters dance

#dialogue- Art where characters talk to other characters. Does not count art where the character is talking to the audience or just saying something to no one in specific

#different age- Art where characters are shown at a different age than their usual, canon ages

#dog wakko- Art where Wakko acts like a dog or exhibits dog-like traits

#drug use- Art where characters are shown using drugs, including legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco

#edit- Art that partially consists of an edit, for example, art of a character being inserted into a meme, screenshot, or real-life location that was not drawn by the artist. Pure edits, where no part of the image is an original drawing by the artist, are not posted here.

#family- Art about family themes. Usually applied to art where the Warners have a family besides each other, or talk about such things.

#family kiss- Art featuring a character kissing someone from their family, in a non-romantic way.

#fancy pants wakko- Art showing Wakko in his fancy pants

#front-facing hat wakko- Art where Wakko wears his hat forwards instead of backwards

#gag bag- Art featuring Wakko's gag bag

#ghost of christmas future/present/past- Art featuring the Warners specifically in their A Christmas Carol forms from the original show: #ghost of christmas future, #ghost of christmas present, #ghost of christmas past

#gif- Animation in the form of a gif (not a video, plays automatically, loops, doesn't have sound)

#gloveless- Art showing a character that usually wears gloves without gloves

#god warners- Art featuring the Warners as Olympian gods from reboot season 1

#hand drawn- Art that is drawn traditionally on paper in the real world. It is sometimes hard to tell with my untrained eye whether art is digital or hand drawn when the image is zoomed into the paper, so this tag is admittedly not very accurate or thorough.

#hatless wakko- Art that shows Wakko without his hat, even if only briefly

#horror- Art meant to be scary or art containing horror themes

#hug- Art where a character hugs another, can be platonic or romantic

#human- Art that depicts normally non-human characters as humans. Character-specific: #human warners, #human pinky and the brain, #human goodfeathers

#hypoglycemia- Art about hypoglycemia, pretty much all related to Wakko

Tags i-z

[star-going-supernova]

Um, would it be wrong to ask for an explanation of the lore of Bendy? I’ve seen the wiki page, but going from my experience of FNAF lore, it’ll take more than a few videos to truly get it.

A tall order, friend, but I like a challenge! My disclaimer, before I even start to get into this: I don’t know everything about Bendy, the timelines, the characters, etc. There are three games (Bendy and the Ink Machine, Boris and the Dark Survival, and Bendy and the Dark Revival) and some books. I know only BatIM and BatDR. So this is not comprehensive and probably isn’t completely accurate. Much like with fnaf, I also tend to cherrypick my favorite bits and pieces, and also I’m an old timer from when all we had were loads of theories about the lore. So in some aspects, I’m kinda set in my ways and thus haven’t fully absorbed canon that goes against my preferences.

Now, I haven’t watched all his BatIM videos, but I highly recommend SuperHorrorBro’s BatDR Story Explained. It’s about 45 minutes and he does a very good job of contextualizing a lot of the timeline and stuff, imo. His playthrough of BatDR is also very good, if you feel like going through the whole game. 

And here’s the final thing: so sorry if this is presumptuous, but if you’re asking with the intent to read my own stories, I largely use non-canon stuff as of the end of BatIM. So I do mention some differences between canon and my fics. Should go without saying, but there are a hecking ton of spoilers ahead. 

(Much like trying to explain fnaf, there’s no real short answer here. Bear with me, friend.)

Let’s start with some important characters: 

Henry Stein

My personal favorite character (which is HEAVILY reflected in my fics, lol), he’s who you play as in BatIM. He’s an animator who once worked on the Bendy cartoons before leaving the studio to spend more time with his family. He’d been expected to put a lot of crazy hours in, which understandably wasn’t working out. Now, in the games, he doesn’t have a ton of characterization (again, can’t speak as to the books), but he comes across as a pretty chill dude. What little dialogue we get from him in BatIM paints him as someone who’s friendly, optimistic or at least not easily beaten down, and concerned with the overall state of affairs. I personally write him as someone who upholds kindness above all else, whose determination gives him a spine of steel, and who sees the toons and goes into Dad Mode almost immediately. 99% of my BatIM stories feature dad!Henry, and he’s a very, very good dad. 

(Something else of note, and I’m genuinely not sure where it falls in terms of being canon or not, is I consider Henry to be the Creator. This has a pretty similar meaning across all the fics I use the concept in, but even with the differences, it boils down to him having a certain influence over the ink and often using those “powers” to help the toons. It’s got a little bit of a “chosen one” trope to it, and AU background stuff can influence how meaningful it is vs how symbolic.) 

At the end of BatIM and further confirmed in BatDR, we find out the Henry you play as is not the real Henry Stein. He’s merely an ink copy created by Joey Drew so Joey could work his frustrations out on a fake version of his old friend. 😐 The ink version of Henry is trapped in the inky realm created by Joey in an endless loop of repeating the same script (the game) over and over again. I don’t use this piece of canon. In any BatDR fics I’ve written/am writing so far, Henry is the real deal. 

• • • 

As a quick side note, any time I talk about the loop/cycle, I’m referring to an actual different world. Joey created this world and gave it a set script that all the creatures in it have to follow. These are the events of the first game. Everything resets after the end, and none of the characters remember/are aware that this is happening. You could argue that Henry now remembers if you start the game over, especially if you have something called the Seeing Tool (why did I think it was the Viewing Tool?? oh well) you get in the last chapter that reveals a lot of hidden messages. The set script is broken by the time BatDR takes place.

• • • 

Joey Drew

The boss of Joey Drew Studios, he came across throughout BatIM as constantly pushing his employees past their limits, being a very obnoxiously cheerful dude, and not particularly caring when his delusions of grandeur began to affect the studio and employees. Speaking of which, he took a fair amount of his employees and sacrificed them and/or turned them into inky abominations. I’m not sure if it’s canon that all of the implied toon-ified employees are really them or if any of them are inky copies like Henry. I typically treat it like he full-on ruined a lot of people’s lives. We find out in BatDR that he didn’t work alone, though. There was some extremely shady stuff and lots of delightful implications of human experimentation expanded upon in BatDR regarding the Gent corporation, who I believe helped with the Ink Machine and ink supply and whatnot. 

Joey makes a proper appearance in BatDR as a ghost-like memory of himself. But in the human world, Joey has died.

I’ve personally written Joey in a lot of different situations and personalities. Sometimes, he’s an absolute monster in my fics. Sometimes, he and Henry are like brothers. I don’t know if I’d call him one of my favorite characters, but I love playing with him. 

• • •

Bendy 

The titular character, Bendy is either: A) a very cute little demon cartoon character who many fic authors write as mischievous, silly, and gosh dang adorable (he never actually appeared in BatIM but boy do we pretend he did), this particular side of Bendy is almost entirely fanon, B) an intimidatingly tall, lanky off-model form of the former who hunts Henry down, often written as either plain old evil or just misunderstood (I’ve done both), also referred to as “Bendy” with the quotation marks or as Ink Bendy; he’s one of the main antagonists in BatIM and is an instant death if he catches Henry, or C) an actual demon-looking character more commonly referred to as the Ink Demon, who is one of the main antagonists in BatDR, and he has a bit of a split personality deal going on where he becomes small cute Bendy and is friendly (this is the result of torture), but it should be noted that this small Bendy is somewhat childlike and mute, which I consider to be very different from the fanon version A. 

• • • 

Twisted Alice Angel (sometimes called Malice or “Alice”)

Much like version B of Bendy, Twisted Alice is an off-model version of Alice Angel the in-game cartoon character (who never actually appears as a character in the games). She’s got some Two-Face vibes, in terms of appearance, and she’s mad about it. She wants to be perfect and has dissected a lot of poor toons to try and fix herself. She’s the result of Susie Campbell, Alice Angel’s voice actor, being sacrificed and toon-ified. She’s one of the main antagonists of BatIM and a minor antagonist in BatDR. Fandom’s biggest gripe with her is that she took our friend Boris, mutated him, and made him attack Henry. :(  Very rude. Her obsession with being perfect gives her a bit of a crazy vibe, but make no mistake, she’s cruel for fun too. 

• • •

Boris (also called Buddy Boris because of one of the books, I think)

Boris the wolf is Henry’s friend in BatIM who gets kidnapped and ultimately killed. Of the main trio (Bendy, Alice, Boris), he’s the only one on-model. Without having played/watched Boris’s game, I don’t have much to say about him other than he’s a very good boy. Silly, helpful, nice to Henry, scared of “Bendy.” My understanding is that someone named Buddy was sacrificed and toon-ified to become him. Fandom gets pretty creative with Boris, imo, and I usually treat the three of them like siblings and give him a voice even though he doesn’t speak in the game. 

• • • 

Edgar, Charley, and Barley (The Striker, The Piper, The Fisher)

The Butcher Gang! They’re some of the only other named toons that exist, and I personally like them a lot. The trio have been mutilated and copied a lot of times over. They’re recurring enemies you have to fight in both BatIM and BatDR, though more so the former. It’s unclear who, if anyone, was sacrificed to make them. In BatDR, we find out about a potential fourth member, Carley (The Slicer), who’s a ghost girl. 

• • •

Notable Employees: 

Sammy Lawerence: He becomes a cultish inky man who calls the Ink Demon his lord, and is a minor antagonist in BatIM. He was the music director in life and comes across through his tapes as a no-nonsense perfectionist who is extremely Done with some of his coworkers. I’ve always thought of him as long-suffering, sarcastic, and always just on the verge of strangling someone. They did him so dirty in BatDR, lol.

Susie Campbell: Alice Angel’s voice actor who was eventually replaced. Pretty self-centered and dedicated to her role, from what I got from her tapes. I don’t actually know much more about her than that, as far as canon goes. 

Norman Polk: He was the studio’s projectionist and then became The Projectionist (I love his design). He’s a minor antagonist in BatIM who roams one particular floor that’s laid out like a maze before having his head ripped off later by “Bendy.” Bit of an eavesdropper in life. Can’t talk but sure does make some heart-stopping screeches! 

Wally Franks: The iconic “I’m outta here!” line comes from Wally (I throw it in to fics whenever I can). He was a janitor/handman, and I believe he escaped the studio unscathed. 

Allison Pendle: She replaced Susie as Alice Angel’s voice actor and inspired Joey to be a better person (His “be a better person” bit that he talks about in BatDR doesn’t actually portray him in that much better of a light). She becomes Allison Angel in the inky world, who is an ally to Henry in BatIM (mostly; a lot of us had mixed feelings on her to start with). She has a machete, which is cool. 

Thomas Connor: I think he actually worked for Gent technically, but he’s important because he was toon-ified into Tom, a Boris clone. Tom is mute, and he and Allison are a team in BatIM and BatDR. He’s also got a prosthetic arm. 

Shawn Flynn: A toymaker in the studio who also escaped unscathed. He’s in a medium-amount of fics because he’s voiced by jacksepticeye he was one of the handful of names we got in BatIM and we needed all the employees we could get, lol.

• • •

The Searchers

Faceless, moaning ink people who lack legs and drag themselves around after the player character. Recurring enemy in BatIM, but I think I only remember them in one place in BatDR. 

• • •

The Lost Ones

Ink people with glowing eyes. In BatIM, they were a group of mostly mute, shivering victims. Very tragic, big gut-punch moment. In BatDR, some have names and personalities and talk! Most of them are hostile, which I’m not a huge fan of, but it’s fine. The two notable Lost Ones are Porter, who gives you a teleporting ability and is a silly dude, and Heidi, who helps you get through a locked door after you play hide and seek with her. 

• • •

Audrey Drew

The player character in BatDR, Audrey gets dragged into the inky realm and has to survive and escape (this is the same premise as BatIM). She’s a young adult who’s an animator for the company that bought Joey Drew Studios and the Bendy cartoons after Joey’s death. She’s got a good sense of humor when she’s not understandably panicking about being dragged into a whole new world, she’s friendly and willing to trust others, and she is not happy about the Ink Demon stalking her. She’s even less happy to find out she’s not human! Joey’s memory shows up and tells her that she was created by the Ink Machine by the real Joey Drew to be his daughter. It’s established that she doesn’t remember most of her childhood or her parents, though I personally am unclear as to what happened. Joey only died about a year before the events of BatDR, so it wasn’t like he died when she was a little kid. How or why did she forget him? I don’t know. 

Anyway, Audrey obtains some cool powers during her journey, most notably Flow (a teleporting ability gifted to her by Porter). Her legs get ripped off in the final battle, and as a result, when the Ink Demon tries to convince her to give up, she surrenders and they become one. Soon after, she takes control of their body and ultimately resets the cycle, undoing everything. The last we see of her is her back in the human world with little Bendy. 

• • •

Wilson Arch

I hate him, he’s creepy. He tricks Audrey into helping him set up the Ink Machine before dragging her into the inky realm. He (falsely) claims to have defeated the Ink Demon and acts as the ruler of that world. He’s also the son of the guy who bought Joey Drew Studios. We find out toward the end that he wants to yoink Audrey’s soul and use it to bring his OC to life, lol. Instead, he ends up getting torn apart and becoming the new toon himself before Audrey and the Ink Demon sort of tag-team kill him. 

• • •

The Keepers

Monstrous toons created by Wilson who slither around and are much faster than they look. They talk slow and glitchy, like Daleks from Doctor Who. They work for Wilson and actively hinder Audrey several times during her adventure. 

• • •

The Signal Towers

Not a character but important to the lore of BatDR and deserving of a mention. They kinda look like plasma balls without the shell and have colored electricity zapping around them. They’re set up around Wilson’s headquarters, the Gent building and his retreat, to keep the Ink Demon out. They also actively hinder ink-related powers, like Flow. 

• • •

The Basics of the Main Games: 

Bendy and the Ink Machine

You play as Henry, who received a letter from his old pal Joey asking him to come back to the old studio. After turning on the Ink Machine, he progressively ends up deeper and deeper in the studio even as he tries to escape. He has to fight for his life against a multitude of enemies, ranging from intelligent to mindless. If he dies, he travels through an inky tunnel full of voices until he pops back up, alive. This game has my favorite mechanic. In Chapter 3: “Bendy” roams around and chases Henry if he spots you, and it was terrifying to play and I loved that. After  solving puzzles and completing fetch quests for Twisted Alice, Henry ends up in a final confrontation with “Bendy,” and if he makes it through the boss fight, he plays a reel with The End written on it, ending the loop and maybe killing “Bendy.” That doesn’t really matter, though, because Henry then finds himself in Joey Drew’s home, where a much older Joey rambles at him (Henry totally deserved to punch him), before Joey sends Henry through the front door and right back into the studio. It reveals Henry is stuck in an parallel dimension featuring an endless loop of him arriving to the fake studio, turning on the Ink Machine, fighting those same enemies, solving those same puzzles, going on those same fetch quests, all to make it to the same boss battle, where upon winning, he will start it all over again. 

It makes my heart hurt for him just to think about it. 

• • •

Bendy and the Dark Revival 

You play as Audrey, an animator who’s staying at work late to finish up some scenes. On her way to get coffee, she encounters Wilson, which ultimately leads to her being dragged into the inky realm. Upon waking up, she has to fight for her life against a variety of enemies. She meets some friendlies, too, like Allison who has forgotten she’s Allison, Porter, and baby Bendy. Over the course of her journey, she learns more about the state of the studio and its employees and how everything fell apart. She also meets Henry, who’s imprisoned in the Gent building with a few others. At the end, she finds out the reason Wilson brought her to this world: to serve as some soul fuel for him to create a new god-like toon to replace the Ink Demon, kinda. Obviously not down for that, she struggles and Wilson ends up being fuel in her place. She has to fight the spider monkey abomination thing with Wilson’s head sticking out of the middle (it’s… delightful). Before she can bring it down, it tears her legs off. The Ink Demon intervenes before she can be killed, destroying the monster as Audrey bleeds out. He convinces her to join him in the darkness and they become Beast Bendy, who is very large. Joey shows up with the The End tape. Beast Bendy promptly kills Joey’s memory (not sure if that’s a permanent thing or what) before Audrey takes control. Henry, who among others has been freed by Allison, gives her Norman's projector head to play the The End tape from BatIM on, and by playing it, she resets the cycle once again. 

I have yet to write a BatDR fic where she actually resets the cycle. I’m not a fan of that, tbh. 

• • •

And those are the basics! I think once you know the characters and the general idea of the main games, you’d be able to adjust pretty quickly to fic, if that’s your goal. Especially since a lot of fics do use their own not-canon-compliant rules. If you have questions about anything I mentioned or about things I didn’t mention, I’d be happy to try and answer them. Like I said, I don’t know the full story, having only played/watched a fraction of the available material. But only knowing BatIM/BatDR has gotten me this far, haha! I do hope this helped you understand this fandom at least a little more, friend! I promise, it’s a fun playground we’ve got here!