#bendy book spoilers

[angelofthepage]

Thoughts on the "Updated" Bendy Employee Handbook

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

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

Part 1: The Baffling Amount of Cut Content

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

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

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

Here are a few cuts I found pretty significant.

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

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

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

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

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

Part 2: The Dark Revival’s Minimal Offerings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Part 3: Stolen Content

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

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

Part 4: The Functionality as a Game Guide

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

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

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

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

Part 5: Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

[thatonecrookedsmile]

"Bendy smiled back."

Look, I know that in the end, this wouldn't be something to worry about, and that this book ended in an "all's well that ends well" situation. But the fact that that is the final sentence the book gives us put me on an edge I didn't expect to be put on.

Rose, why did you do this to me.

[spirit-of-beetlejuiceblues12]

In light of the Book of Bill, y’all should listen to this cuz it’s been on my Ford vs. Bill playlist forever

[sirensea14]

I may be sick but that doesnt stop me from making daily IMinktober doodles

Mild spoilers

[mickeys-malarkey]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(NEW!) Bendy: Fade to Black is an interpretation guide to BATDR, confirming that the Memory of Joey = Nate Sr., Ink Demon/Bendy = Real Joey, most new Gent people = Children of the Machine, etc. as Audrey explains both her own and other people's trauma/recovery-&-relapse/etc. cycles, and more through Rose and company.

(NEW 2!) The Employee Handbook: Updated Edition is what's left of Nate Sr.'s scrapbook after he chopped out anything that both contradicted the narrative he's been carefully curating since Joey's death (which includes the TIOL excerpt because he's realized what everyone was doing with their books and decided it's better if the public ignores them entirely) and didn't hold too much sentimental value for him to let go (it's the wedding invite. I'm talking about Allison & Tom's wedding invite)… with some chime-ins from Wilson, once we get into the new material that's been added.

(NEW 3!) The Dreams Come to Life graphic novel is Nate Sr.'s maliciously butchered retelling of Buddy's story, meant to either deceive its readers into misunderstanding what Buddy was saying happened or discredit his reliability as a source of information entirely.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

She also shied away from making the female characters worse a lot of times imo. Not denying at all that their reprehensible actions were directly a product of the society's conditioning but going the 'she is a good person but this MAN made her do this fucked up thing' for every single female character - where is the fun in that?

Hmm I disagree, I think acknowledging the context isn’t really absolving an action. Like Valentina sucked but she was a fun character. I enjoyed her arc. Hualit was also rather cruel— though I feel her ending was narratively pretty mean spirited.

I liked how most of the women were handled! I just wish the men weren’t so one dimensional. Like Victor and Fortun were entirely one note awful lol. And meanwhile Santangel I guess is the one “good” man but khjgfd I mean he is who he is.

The supporting cast just didn’t have much dimension in general. Like Teoda and Gracia were barely there. And Perez wasn’t really a character rather than a plot device.

[reanimationstation]

Saw some people on twitter saying that FtB demonised mental illnesses with how it handled Joey and some characters

I can't read it and I'm unfamiliar with plot atm

Can you please give your personal input if it's okay? :(

I doubt that what they're saying is true but I'm worried a bit

full disclosure i am not an expert on any of this so going forwards is just my personal opinions. also i don't use twitter so i have no idea what the original posts mightve said about it

going into the book i was worried about this as well! i had watched a livestream with Kress in it and she had mentioned that this book would be touching on themes like that, which had me slightly concerned, but (IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY. feel free to check out the lovestream or fact check me) she did mention that a lot of research was put into it.

i will try to keep this as vague as possible, but do be warned that discussing it reveals some broader plot points

there's one character with an actual named mental illness, who i think was handled with respect and tact. they're never demonized.

some characters experience hallucinations, its a large part of the book, but they stem from the ink. our protag has to handle a lot of it, but the people hallucinating are never really treated with hate or disgust. the hallucinations themselves certainly aren't benevolent, but gestures vaguely at the fact that this is a horror franchise. the evil ink hallucinations are, in fact, not good.

now onto joey. i need to start with saying that at this point in the timeline joey is not a good person, which we've seen a bit of in previous books. but! it is never really implied that he's a bad person because he has mental problems. reading it as such does the character disservice, in my personal opinion. and it's clear that he's spent a lot of time around ink.

anyways tl;dr i think its fine, there's a lot of things at play and i think a respectful job was done for the more realistic depictions of mental illness, and for the more horror oriented ones it's clear that its cause is unnatural

[zahri-melitor]

What can you infer about the editorial meddling Young Justice went through?

Oh god. It’s like the old quote about pornography: you know it when you see it. Spend enough time reading comics and you can just tell.

Notable problems with the Young Justice 2019 run that smack of interference:

You can really tell there was external pressure to include Steph in the run and that she was not originally intended to join the team or appear any further than occasional cameos such as the flashbacks at the Hall of Justice as a link to Tim’s final scene in Tynion’s Tec run. Structurally her story makes no sense whatsoever for how to put a plot together. Steph’s not an original Young Justice character, the run already was supporting two new female characters plus a reboot of Amethyst introducing Amy to a new generation, even before we look at the crossovers from other titles in the imprint. The fact they ended up throwing in a single issue entirely about 'what Steph has been up to and her fight against Cluemaster' in the last section of the run makes it even worse, as that was valuable page time wasted pandering that could and should have been used to give Jinny Hex or Keli Quintela more development.

The entire ‘Drake’ situation, which for a costume change had very little build up, was under-designed, and then disappeared with Tim back in the Robin costume between two panels. It was a test balloon from someone that was comprehensively shot down by some mix of the fandom and editorial, and I remain convinced that DC is gunshy about a new costume and identity for Tim all the way up to the present day because of how badly it was handled.

It was being used as the anchor for Wonder Comics, leading to the required mega crossover (that also spilled over into Bendis’ Action Comics to give it some more space), putting even more pressure on the title to be telling a big crossover story when it was still trying to re-establish “your favourites are back” and suggesting potentially expanding the Young Justice lineup out to around thirteen characters, a massively oversized team that the title was not set up to handle.

Lost in the Multiverse was where the story started to get bogged down by being pulled in too many directions by expectations.

It’s also super telling that the last third of the book got turned over to essentially doing one-shot character pieces about the Core Four, the last defence of a run that can see cancellation coming and doesn’t feel confident launching a new story arc they don’t expect to get to finish. Some of this stuff was clearly background character work they would have preferred to have dripped out over a longer run.

Also I know I’m repeating myself, but having the Tim piece focus on Steph mostly, in the frame of Tim and Steph’s relationship? That’s not where I’d be spending my time when looking at Tim Drake in the focus of Young Justice. How he’s coping with his returned memories of having two or three different lives now? Thinking about what ‘Tell Conner you’re sorry’ means? Discussion about his feelings in terms of moving on from being Robin or not? Nah let’s talk about Steph's problems with her dad instead. That’s not a natural fit compared to what everyone else got and does not follow from any of the preceding story.

Still ropeable that the whole set of storylines about regained memories and alternate timelines doesn’t get to intersect with Lois Lane (which spoilers but also is committed to storytelling about ‘people have memories of other places bleeding through’ prior to the full Infinite Frontier retcon) or explore how those memories change things for Tim, Bart or Cassie (Kon at least does get a story about reconnecting in Action).

And that’s just off the top of my head, ignoring any of the more subtle signs.

I love Young Justice 2019. It is a run that adores Bart, Kon, Cassie and Tim (and particularly Bart. I cannot explain to you how much this story adores Bart if you’ve never read it) and the opening 6 issues make me feel warm and fuzzy every time I read them in terms of how cleverly it works to explain how we get everything back. There are clever subtle moments in the text that give a lot more depth to the story that are implied rather than spelled out: how Cassie suddenly remembers Bart when Bart comes near her, suggesting that her returned memories are a Speed Force side effect from being a lightning rod to Bart; Cassie and Tim sense Kon using TTK and recognise it as familiar, something the new characters cannot; the fakeout in the art where when Tim’s memories are restored, he sees Cissie in his memories, but unless you know the exact YJ98 page being referenced you’d think it was Steph; etc.

But gosh it would have been so much better if it had not been required to devote so much page time to crossovers and to pandering to fans, among other elements.

[denv2]

Felix and the Cats Around Him

Chapter 181~ I reread the part with Felix for the first time in a long time, and there were so many elements that I hadn't noticed before because of my relative lack of knowledge. It's so good... I like it👍

Below are my thoughts as I went through the chapters + drew pictures + IM chapter 181~ spoiler warning! (scroll through carefully lol)

When I first read IM, I knew Felix, but I didn't love him as much as I do now, so I hadn't seen the official cartoon anime (and I had seen all the Oswald anime by then, lol I love all the original characters, so if I like them, I'll watch all the original media and buy the game).

So when I read the Felix part during the hallucination created by the labyrinth in chapter 181, I actually... at that time... I just read it while just following the story, so I didn't remember much about it, and later, after I finished the fic and realized that my favorite character was Felix, I was thinking that I should read the part about Felix's past properly again later, and then I recently re-read that part...

So... so good.... I love the Felix storyline..... It's so interesting... I knew IM Alex was a badass (I really liked the Evil Author Day 2023 novella, so I read that a lot... I know it's a side novella, but I thought it had a great plot and the situation surrounding Bendy was interesting and I loved the Alex in it...) but I had forgotten all about the IM version of Kitty... WHAT?! Felix and EX relationship?!! What a crazy... Delicious (sorry for my taste buds) And it was Alex that caused them to break up? What the hell kind of crazy thing did Alex do that made Kitty feel guilty and Felix run away... Crazy! So delicious (sorry again)

I drew the original cartoon Felix and Kitty a while ago, and I feel weird because I drew them in an EX state in IM, and I feel a little sorry for them, but it's a worldview, right? The relationship between these two is so delicious... lol ahhhhh (yeah I love this kind of relationship too)

I also like villainous characters, so I'm very curious about Alex. Actually, he may not appear more, but after reading the above book... Of course, it may not have anything to do with the main story! To be honest, there's still a lot of information about the cult that hasn't been revealed, so I'm really curious to see what happens next.

Moving on to Felix... Felix was a ZANY superstar, but after Alex, he started to fall apart. Eventually, due to some sort of incident, Felix decided to give up on ZANY and left town. It's such an interesting backstory... But when I think about the early Felix, traveling the world after he left, I realize that he's so... Even better.

Giving up being zany and living with the things he was born with, like resilience and memory. I think he went through a lot of hardships... losing his wealth. He was really lost and confused, and then he met Professor Wilson, and he opened his eyes to archaeology, and he went to college, and he started studying, and he started doing archaeology, and he started adventuring... and that's how he became the skilled professional adventurer that he is today, and that's why I like him even more...

In fact, to be honest, the scene where he sees the last of Professor Wilson and he's so angry and fighting the cupbros, that was the first time I read that scene in the first book, I was surprised and bewildered because it was the first time I'd ever seen him this angry, and I was like, "Oh my god. Is this actually... Is this a fake Felix?" I was confused and then I was like, "What's wrong with Felix? He's fighting too much, that's too much!" But when I read it for the second time... I could relate to it now.... and I found the situation so interesting and I liked it... I liked Felix getting angry (this is just my selfishness... sorry to the cupbros) so much that I read it while screaming in my head. It's stimulating.

Wow...I talked a lot...I'm glad I reread it after a long time because there are so many elements I didn't notice back then. I should catch up and read it from the beginning, but you know, there are so many chapters...lol Anyway... I love Felix. I like cats and bunnies.... Of course, I also like the other friends!

I think the translator put too many and's in there... please understand the meaning and move on!

[wait----------what]

So update to that I geuss

Welp this was basically exactly what I was expecting, a new way for things to drop

Its an interesting idea dont get me wrong but I kinda wished the three teasers could be discovered in different ways, like instead of just doing the flippers in different combos there were more puzzles (as guy that's into puzzle games/had the portal games as the first ones they fully played)

But onto the other half of it... Riley Wills (?)

I wasn’t expecting her or any of her story but im on board for it- mostly.

As much as I like the idea of a new protagonist that'll be like 9 ( buddy + dot from dctl, brant + constance + bill from tlo, rose(?) from ftb, henry from batim, audrey from batdr and now Riley) like I know there isn't much crossover between the books and the games but it would be nice to have one of them show up again! Like Dot definitely wasn't dead after the book, hell she even got a mention in the lost ones, im not too sure about the one from fade to black since I haven't read it yet but im pretty sure she makes it out too - but it would be nice to hear from them again! I just feel like, apart from henry, most of the protags are pretty interchangeable after a certain point.

Anyways ill admit her fireing note startled a laughter outta me, mainly cause im pretty sure this is the first person we've seen that joey has actually fired

Uhhhh we got one of the nightmare run characters showin up + a new guy and... idk what exactly to say about the wall thing other than I saw clips from other people first n thought the lotta them dancin was made up but, nope! Its there??

But anyways those are my thought on it

OK so very very mild spoilers for secrets of the machine

OK so for some reason 8 can't show the screen shots I took but I already hate this fucker

Its eyes moving was fine but that giggle when it shucks out cans goes right through my head just- gods its so creepy!

[cabinetperson]

DCTL Graphic novel is.. not worth it.

Okay so I know we’ve all seen some leaked spoilers of the graphic novel and some people have been receiving them early and let me tell you.. it’s not worth it. I myself haven’t gotten it yet cause it’s still being shipped but atp after I’ve seen what people have told me about it and the spoilers I wish I never preordered it. I’m telling you all please please don’t get it it’s not worth it and please just go and buy the original novel like is accurate and has 10/10 writting.

I know I shouldn’t judge even if I haven’t read it all but I’ve seen enough spoilers to see how poorly done it is, you can already see that the artist have ignored so many of the important stuff there and features on some of the characters it’s crazy. Let’s take Sammy as an HUGE example, buddy described him as very pointy. Like he has a pointy chin, pointy nose and even pointy eyebrows and it was very clearly described in the book but the artist just ignores it. Also Sammy is like 70 or something in the book no no no that’s definitely wrong, cause canonically he was 30 something in dctl. And also that the artist gave sammy an HUGE mask is just living proof that the artist haven’t even seen the games. Like I can’t defend this book no more im sorry😭

I also heard that it didn’t follow the lore exactly but im not sure about it since I haven’t got it yet but still. I’m very upset about it all and especially upset how the game devs just choose an artist who has literally no idea what the games are and literally haven’t even been paying attention while reading.

It crushes hardcore bendy fans who were excited from the very beginning for the comic and now it’s just disappointment.

If theres any bendy fan considering to buy the comic DONT

Buy the original Dreams Come To Life Novel by

Adrienne Kress.

I’m telling you, you will have much more fun and feel more excited to read the original novel with accurate characters instead of whatever dirt bag the graphic novel is‼️

Oh yeah one last thing, I think that were all allowed to ignore the characters in the comic if the artist are gonna ignore the features in the book, I think we all can just make up our own/continue using the designs we already have in our head/drawn instead of having to suck up the inaccurate designs whatever the artist has done for us.

[angelofthepage]

Double Whammy Bendy News: New Game Announced and more DCTL Graphic Novel Pages Shown!

It is a very BUSY day for Bendy fans, holy cannoli! So here's the scoop: Earlier today, Twitter user TailiaCProd posted screenshots from the Scholastic website that showcased some new pages of the Dreams Come to Life Graphic Novel. Adrienne Kress would go on to post these images in higher quality. No idea if they have any awareness of the other's posts or if that was intentional, just sourcing how I found out about this. We have three new character designs revealed: Dot, the violinist, and the Ink Demon. The official Bendy twitter has retweeted Adrienne's post, and so far today, it's the only thing they've retweeted since yesterday's April Fools post.

Interestingly, the official Bendy twitter has not posted about our second announcement, a new game. Out of nowhere, a number of Twitter users discovered Bendy: Secrets of the Machine, listed on Steam and set to release on April 14th, 2024, aka, the infamous 414. Apparently it's also free to play! So far, none of the devs have acknowledged this thing's existence. Right as I found out this existed, theMeatly was tweeting out a poll about the best type of pizza.

What are your thoughts? How are we feeling about these new announcements? I'd like to make another post digging into what's on the steam page for this new game, because there is a lot to unpack, but we'll see if we get there. Overall, an interesting time to be a Bendy fan!

[thatonecrookedsmile]

"Gaze into the space between the pixels on the screen There, you’ll see a place between the signal and the screams Feel the oscillation of the crystal in your dreams Just switch off your brain and let it sizzle in the beams"

-----

It took a matter of months to finish this drawing. (/j, it only took. 2 weeks? I think? maybe a little less,but that's an approximate)

It's been a while since I made a digital drawing. So far between April and now I have focused more on traditional drawings with digital coloring. These are (mostly) cool to do,but it's nice to go back to full digital every now and then. This is one of the cases where the original idea and the final result don't differ that much from each other,but there was still a certain evolution from when I conceived the drawing and how I ended up doing it. The Main Thing of the original idea is still here,I just expanded it a little.

Also,the lyrics at the beginning are from "Tune Into The Madness" by The Stupendium and Dan Bull. Great song,and one that I was listening to a lot at the time I was reading the book (and much earlier too). Because,you know. Mix of horror and TV. It made sense. (And yes,I know this song is about a totally different game,and the TV context in both stories are very different (as far as I remember, it's been a while since I played LN2) but I thought the lyrics could match the drawing anyway + it's my chance to recommend peak, so yeah) Listen to the song, it's very good! (The video do contains flashing images and lights tho,so viewer discretions is adviced)

Also,alt. versions without the text,because I thought that without the text it looks good too (+ you can now see Bendy's face)

[pluckyredhead]

Did I just read your Super Sons primer from 2020 at 3 am on a Monday morning because I'm having a real normal one? Maybe?! I'm wondering how you feel about how they and their relationship has developed since then. IMO it's... Pretty bleak. 😩

I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT IT. (Also here's the primer for anyone who missed it.)

So I will say that 95% of everything Jon has been in since he got aged up has been hot garbage, but I do think the exception is when Damian is around. But let's take it from the top!

First of all, I don't necessarily think they should de-age him again. Generally speaking I think it's better storytelling to focus on fixing things moving forward, rather than undoing things moving back. Sure, if DC came up with some big cosmic event that reset Jon to 11, I certainly wouldn't complain, but I'd rather see them, uh...do literally anything with Teen Jon that doesn't suck.

But yeah, aging Jon up to begin with still makes me livid because:

I want my baby to have had a childhood.

It's fully character assassination for Lois and Clark. They would NEVER let their 11-year-old go to outer space with a supervillain. Lois would NEVER just abandon him out there, and Clark would NEVER respond with "Well, I'm sure he's fine, wanna have marathon sex?" I honestly have no idea what Bendis or his editor were thinking.

They have not done a single interesting with him since!!!

Putting this behind a cut because it got LONG. Also spoilers for Beast World in there.

I've said this before, but I have to assume that Bendis wanted to age Jon up because he wanted to write a Legion book. But he also in his wisdom decided to bring Kon back into continuity at exactly the same time, which means we have two nearly identical Superboys that DC didn't and still doesn't know what to do with. Kon clearly couldn't have joined the LOSH because he already had a team, but you know what Super teen was available, and not 11, and who has a history with the Legion that goes back almost as long as Clark's? KARA. But I will save that rant for another day.

And honestly, Kara dodged a bullet, because that Legion book was unreadable. Bendis at his most Bendis-y wall of text interrupt-y conversations and no plot. If I give Tom Taylor any credit it's that the second he got his hands on Jon, he torpedoed Jon/Imra as a ship. GOOD.

And when the LOSH book finally went out with a whimper (that JLA/LOSH miniseries! what was that!!!), we entered the Taylor Era. Taylor's quirks are less stylistic and more narrative than Bendis's. You can spot Bendisian dialogue at twenty paces, but a Taylor comic tips its hand when it sets up a really interesting premise or a really high stakes threat and then immediately undercuts it with a little wet fart noise of nothing. To wit:

Jon's starting college! This will be an interesting challenge for him to readjust to normal life after six years in a torture-volcano and an indeterminate amount of time in the future, and also considering he never graduated from sixth grade. I wonder what will - oh no he dropped out after three pages. (He has done NOTHING in his civilian identity since, btw. I guess he's too busy hovering just behind Dick at all times to work on his GED or whatever.)

Jon is going to confront Ultraman! Finally the comics will have to engage with all the trauma he must have - oh no Ultraman's dead.

Jon is trapped in the Injustice Universe! This is a really dangerous universe that might make him question everything he knows about - oh he just lectured everyone and flounced off home.

Beast World is a perfect example. Taylor seems to think that having a hero effortlessly solve a problem makes them look badass, but it's actually the effort that makes them look badass. So like, we spent five months keeping the Kryptonians and other A-class heroes away from the spores because the spores are attracted to power and if a Super got spore'd everyone would be in big trouble...but then in the last issue, they just have Jon fly up to everyone with a spore in them, wait for the spore to jump at him, and catch it? That doesn't make the Titans look smart or Jon look tough. It makes all of them look like idiots because it it was that easy, why didn't they do that in the first place?

On top of that, Taylor doesn't ever really earn relationships. Jon and Jay is the obvious one. Jay has no personality. There's no chemistry between the two characters. Jon might as well be dating a cardboard cutout labeled "Proof of Queerness." (Or "Bernard." Ahem.) But we're supposed to be like, yes, give Tom Taylor a GLAAD award for using queer characters as props, when he's going to turn around and kiss Chuck Dixon's ass on social for being homophobic about Jon? UGH.

Honestly worse for me though is the Jon and Dick relationship. Because Taylor is writing both characters, we're supposed to believe that there's this close mentor-mentee bond there? I don't think they EVER interacted before the Taylor era. (And don't even look at me with that retconned-in scene of Dick finding lost baby Jon. You're telling me that Superman, with his X-ray and telescopic vision, needs to call Bruce and Dick for help finding his own son? Fuck off.)

Anyway it all combines to make basically every Jon appearance for the past three years profoundly unsatisfying. Even the stuff that isn't by Taylor never goes anywhere. Remember when he was jealous of the Super Twins for two panels? And then everyone forgot about it forever? SIGH.

HOWEVER.

However.

If there is one thing that Bendis and Taylor and every other writer got right, it's that Jon is crazy bonkers in love with Damian always and forever. Jon has been written like shit since 2019, but he has also not wavered in his devotion for even one single solitary second.

THE EVIDENCE:

This is the first thing Jon does when he gets back to Earth:

He then tells Damian he's contemplating not joining the Legion because he'll have to leave Damian behind. Damian tells him to go and then come get him if it's cool.

Turns out the Legion is cool. Jon comes and gets Damian. The Legion isn't happy about it and Jon threatens to leave if Damian can't stay, while gazing adoringly at Damian's unconscious body cradled in his arms:

Eventually LOSH is canceled and Jon comes home and starts following Damian around by listening for his heartbeat. LIKE PALS DO!

Then Damian gives him a pep talk!

Then there's this ABSOLUTE CUDDLE:

The way Damian nuzzles into Jon's shoulder! Can you even stand it!

And then there's this:

The climax of Son of Kal-El, btw, is one of the several times Jon is saved by Damian and confides in Damian and turns to Damian for comfort or advice...and Jay is just sort of standing there off to the side. I am fully aware I have ship goggles on but the degree of emotional investment Jon has in these relationships is not the same.

Then they had a special issue teamup:

Then we got Dark Crisis, and I actually love this interaction between them, because they are very different people with very different upbringings and this feels extremely in character to me for how they would both handle the loss of their fathers:

But even when they disagree, they still instantly support each other. Jon comes back with information? Damian makes a plan:

Also, we got the 2022 Pride issue where Jon, Jay, and Damian go to Pride together. I know that story is...contentious...but leave me here with Damian sulking while Jon and Jay kiss, okay?

Then we get Adventures of Superman, which is objectively awful, but Jon does spend his whole time in the Injustice universe thinking about Damian like the seagulls in Finding Nemo saying "Mine? Mine? Mine?"

This whole arc is truly hilarious. Jon finds out that Damian accidentally killed Dick and his response is to a) go find Batman and yell at him for not supporting Damian enough for accidentally killing Dick, and then b) go find Damian to be like "Wow, that must have been really hard for you (accidentally killing Dick)." There's being ride or die for your BFF, and then there's whatever the fuck Jon has going on.

(Meanwhile there's an incredibly uncomfortable scene with him and Injustice Jay where Jay "tests" him by trying to get Jon to cheat on regular Jay. So. That happens.)

And then just this past month we got Nightwing #110, where we learn that Jon is still listening to Damian's heart:

He completely freaks out watching Damian in danger, and immediately intervenes when it looks like Damian is about to kill someone because he knows what matters the most to Damian. Also, this happens:

YOU WIN THIS ONE, TAYLOR.

AND THEN THEY BICKER I LOVE IT WHEN THEY BICKER:

AND THEN DAMIAN LETS HIMSELF BE VULNERABLE BY ASKING JON IF HE HURT ANYONE WHILE HE WAS A KITTY, AND JON GIVES YET ANOTHER SPEECH ABOUT HOW DAMIAN HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG EVER, IN HIS LIFE, AND DAMIAN STAGGERS OFF, LEANING ON JON.

This isn't even getting into the Trinity backup stories in Wonder Woman, which, like...Tom King is not valid but Jon and Damian are such an old married couple in them? It's truly incredible?

It took me like 45 minutes to parse Jon's line here as the general 'you" and not specifically Jon saying Damian wasn't straight. But like..."That's for straight people, which has nothing to do with us" is a hell of a thing to say, Jonathan.

I ALSO haven't even talked about DCeased because it's a different universe, but! Jon sitting with Damian while he dies??? MY HEART.

IN CONCLUSION:

Yes, they should never have aged up Jon.

Yes, most of his appearances since have been terrible and bland.

But OH BOY, do he and Damian remain in love.

[goddes-arab]

Felix & Oswald at the beach.

This is part spoiler of the chapter 276: Book 23: May There Never Be Peace - Marvelous Mays of Bendy and Boris in the Inky Mystery (@theinkymystery ) by @thisanimatedphantom .

This has been forever in my drafts but finally see the light of day. I seriously adore this story. It has kept me company during University and I can't even express how much it has made me feel.

I wanted to continue the rest of the chapter, but I realized I didn't remember what Kitty nor Alex looked like and I don't think I could create an image in my head if I don't have a visual reference of them, so right now this is all.

Felix hair fights me in every panel I swear.

[mickeys-malarkey]

BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision Pt. 4/4: Guess what? I found some more highly suspicious songs…

So, let's add some nice, juicy lyric/film analysis to our dish (sorry, Betty, I couldn't resist the joke rofl… Speaking of Betty's comment, “all those juicy, lovely books gone to waste. Only Keepers go in there these days, and they'll tear you apart limb from limb if Wilson isn't with you…” sure sounds like the fandom simultaneously lamenting that all the Bendy books are supposedly “no longer canon” after the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr.'s so-called “retcons” and, in a few cases I've seen, getting downright vicious towards anyone who tries to dig back into them)!! I'm very excited about how perfectly these wound up matching my theories, I had all but the first one in a playlist to watch/listen to later, and when I did and re-watched/re-listened to the first after writing Parts Two and Three? Wowzah… 👀

Before we start, summaries in case you haven't read/recaps because it's been a while since I posted the other parts.

(Sorry again that this part took so much longer to repost than expected… I live in shame.)

Part One: Wilson and Audrey have been trapped in their time loop for at least a year of real-world time, the game is actually taking place sometime between 1974 and 1992, and the beginning of BATDR is just a replay of June 18, 1973 like how the ending of BATIM is just a replay of August 1963 (there's also still all the evidence in my original analysis/theory that suggests BATIM and BATDR are both taking place sometime between 1978 and 1991, so do with that what you will). Also, there's definitely only ever been one studio and timeline, it's just that multiple entities have been editing everything beyond recognition (mostly Nathan Sr., whose alteration of the Ink Dimension is definitely symbolic of gaslighting, which I continue touching on throughout, but especially in the next part, which is my personal favorite).

Part Two: Wilson told us his entire life story and explained how his dad always was and still is the true villain to us in riddle format (which The Mug and the Maiden is the key to starting deciphering). Information he divulges includes but certainly is not limited to:

Arch Familial Dysfunction (Understatement of the Century): Wilson is the younger half-brother of Nathan Jr. from an affair that Nathan Sr. had with their housekeeper in 1926 (yes, the year before Joey reunited with him at the Sparkle Unicorn in 1927 and he was looking for girls to dance with there; dude's a serial adulterer). It's heavily implied that Nathan Sr. was not just emotionally but also physically abusive of him, that he was the cause of those big honking scars of his.

Power Dynamics: while Nathan Sr. was never officially involved in JDS, he was always pulling strings behind the curtain, to the point that it's accurate to describe him as one of the Three Kings of JDS (the other two obviously being Henry and Joey); we're given intimate details of how manipulative he is, including that it was under his influence that Joey claimed responsibility for horrible things that he didn't actually do.

The Truth About TLO: Joey and Allison were in Atlantic City schmoozing Bill's dad in order to get out from under Nathan Sr.'s thumb after the events of and since DCTL knocked sense into them, but Nathan Sr. retaliated by orchestrating all of the events that lead to Bill's “death” so that Mr. Chambers would instead put a price on Joey's head and they'd have no choice but to come crawling back to him for protection from he who they thought would be their way out.

Wilson's Corruption Arc: Wilson spent his youth watching his dad's machinations from the shadows and warning people through riddles so that Nathan Sr. wouldn't realize what he was doing; when Joey created the hivemind, he connected to it in order to do this more easily. This is how he was actually involved in the events/writing of TLO and DCTL. Unfortunately, his dad caught him by the end of TLO because he'd done a little orchestration of his own to lure a wildcard – Brant Morris – into the mix in hopes of exposing Nathan Sr. to the world and he was punished, starting him on a decades-long journey to Murder Puppet/Decoy Villain status that eventually involved Nathan Sr. ordering his mom (again, the housekeeper, not Tessa Arch) to put him through some sort of obedience test and then drug him so that he would be there when the crate containing the Ink Machine “accidentally” broke. He wrote The Mug and the Maiden to Audrey (like Buddy wrote DCTL to Dot and, as I previously theorized, Joey wrote TIOL to Henry) under the unsubtle pen name of “Wilton,” taking inspiration from her childhood memories of a toy (the Cracked Mug) that reminded her of her dad (like how he took inspiration from Bill's memories of Alice in Wonderland for the riddles he sent to him, Constance, and Brant) as a last, desperate cry for help before his own dad finally finished turning him into a Murder Puppet (like how TIOL was a cry for Henry to come save Joey from Nathan Sr. before he did the same to him and DCTL was a cry for Dot to stop Joey and save everyone else before his mind was overtaken by Boris's).

True Identities: the Memory of Joey is actually either a puppet created and controlled by Nathan Sr. or just straight-up Nathan Sr. in disguise; he symbolizes the image of Joey that Nathan Sr. has carefully curated and ingrained into the public's memory. Meanwhile, Bendy is actually the real Joey Drew, forced back into the Murder Puppet/Decoy Villain role by Nathan Sr. postmortem but most definitely not the real monster; Dapper Bendy symbolizes the side of him that did his best to heal from what Nathan Sr. did to him and be a good uncle/father and friend and that Nathan Sr. brainwashed him into hating and suppressing, Freaky Teeth Bendy symbolizes the habitual remnants of his maladaptive coping mechanisms formed by decades of being manipulated and abused by the man in question which he doesn't want to be, anymore.

Signs To Watch Out For: does something about the story make no sense (e.g., facts like dates and how the heck the ink actually works aren't matching up, an event gets called out as as weird/odd/strange only to have questions about it brushed aside, characters seem to have very different thoughts/feelings/motivations in one game/book than in another, an event gets written off as accident/coincidence/fate, etc.)? Great news /s! That's a sign of Nathan Sr.'s interference. Also, if a character seemingly randomly says something weird/odd/strange, that's a sign that Wilson's sending us a warning riddle through them (especially if it gets directly called out as weird/odd/strange).

Part Three: Henry and Allison's so-called “story retcons” are actually blatant lies made up by Nathan Sr. to keep Bendy/Real Joey trapped and at odds with his two real best friends postmortem (and put icing on the torment cake by allowing those friends to still be friends with each other but not him); the truth appears to be that Joey did call Henry for help but Nathan Sr. had him murdered, and then Allison tried to switch sides for good and help Joey through recovery as a fellow reformed abuse-victim-turned-abuser, so of course Nathan Sr. also had her and Tom murdered. Audrey is neither a soulless ink creature nor a sacrificed human but instead has her own, completely new soul created from pieces of Henry and Joey's via the same ghostly soul-combination process that creates all “children of the darkness/Machine” (many of whom seem to be hiding messages in their audio logs/memos in order to rat Nathan Sr. out on their parents' behalves), making her Henry and Joey's daughter (Henry, Bendy/Real Joey, the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr., Wilson, and Audrey also appear to be the most powerful beings in the Ink Dimension because all souls are combinations of pieces of one's parents' souls in the Bendyverse, so all five of them have Royal Souls). Porter and Heidi are not Audrey's siblings, they were given their powers by the Memory of Joey in order to push us towards thinking that Joey was a cruel uncle/father who discarded the failed Audreys when he got sick of taking care of them (when, in reality, Joey was a very loving father who cherished every second with his baby girl and fought for her to have a better life than he did even though he made mistakes due to decades of being trapped in survival mode [e.g., having Audrey call him “uncle” in her previous reincarnations in order to cope with the grief of her dying over and over due to only having a partial soul] and it's actually Nathan Sr. who was the irredeemably evil dad, straight-up celebrating when they found Wilson's dead body on the floor of his JDS museum); Gent CEO Alan/Allen Gray/Grey appears to also be a child of the darkness/Machine, the son of Tom and possibly either Allison, Bertrum, or Nathan Sr. (who's definitely rewriting history to include Mr. Gray/Grey as one of his many Decoy Villains, regardless of whether he's his other parent or not), Grace the daughter of Norman and possibly Shawn, Heidi the daughter of Allison and Susie, and Steve the son of Wally and Tom. Bendy/Real Joey being the center of the hivemind and anyone infected with the right kind of ink becoming a personification of part of his psyche has confirmation out the wazoo, except it seems that Norman, specifically, may have become a personification of part of Wilson's psyche just because he's very powerful, himself, as another JDS Royal. “Cyclebreaker” doesn't seem to truly mean “person who can reset the loop,” but instead “person capable of breaking the cycle of trauma/abuse,” and Wilson's Keepers seem to be called that because Nathan Sr. gave them orders to ensure that his son continues obeying and remove anyone who might help him recover from what he did to him from the picture.

Both Parts Two & Three: many scenes appear to be heavily symbolic of or just straight-up Audrey leaning on/being tempted to lean on Joey's maladaptive coping mechanisms generational trauma-style and having a choice between cruelty and compassion. There's also quite a bit of evidence pointing towards Joey having intended the Ink Dimension to be a heavenly paradise for the salvation of suffering people (especially his fellow victims-of-Nathan-Sr. and people that Nathan Sr. used him and his studio to hurt/disappear), but Nathan Sr. having sadistically hijacked it and created the End Reel in the process of twisting it into a hellish prison to continue torturing his victims in postmortem (especially Joey).

Real quick, some thoughts I had while working on fanarts:

The cheese store man (from The Mug and the Maiden) may symbolize Porter and Steve McGregor in addition to all observers of the Joey-and-Nathan Sr. situation (a giant man with bits of cheese stuck in his beard? Sounds like Big Steve with all those bits of metal and whatnot that he eats stuck in his body. An old man with a long beard and ropes around him? Sounds like Porter, who got stuck in a pipe just like how Brant/Mr. Darble Mouse got stuck under the secret door in the warehouse basement/Governor's cellar… And the cheese store man knows the widow's real name but she calls him by the wrong one? Porter's definitely Brant Morris using a different name and he may have actually spied on the Memory of Joey in order to tattle on him, I love him even more now. Also… Brant/Porter is totally a personification of Wilson's sense of humor in addition to Joey's shame. Brant's the funniest character in TLO, Porter's downright mirthful about everything, Wilson/Wilton wrote the funniest fairytale I've ever read in my life… they also both apparently dealt with early hair thinning, interestingly), trying to push us towards investigating them in order to expose Nathan Sr.'s Fake Siblings plot.

The Decoy Villain and their Keeper dynamic is actually something we see repeatedly across Nathan Sr.'s victims, especially when the torch is about to be passed from one Decoy Villain to another… Arthur was Isabel's Keeper when it was time for her to kill Walter, Allison was Joey's Keeper when it was time for him to turn his employees into ink creatures (turning several into fellow Decoy Villains in the process), mayhaps we could even say that whoever figured out how to create the Slugs was Chef Buck's Keeper when it was time for him to start his “recycling” spree… and Heidi is Mr. Gray/Grey's Keeper now that it's time for him to take over from Wilson? 👀👀

“We're in the final days here. I can tell. People are packing things into boxes. Tools are going missing. You can smell the panic in the air around the studio. But us Gent boys, we're just watching from the shadows. We lock the doors, and keep our research going. Mister Gray already gave us a little wink. All is well. When one ship sinks, another one leaves the dock. I just need to keep my Ink Machine safe in the chaos. It's the key to so many discoveries.” ~ Thomas Connor, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Business as Usual” memo (emphasis added)

“It's a funny thing. How so much can fall apart so fast. We never really had control at the studio. Either you were in someone's pocket, or you were putting someone else into yours. I just wanted what was promised to me. I just wanted to be beautiful! Surely you can understand that. Henry… Why are you here? We're all dying to find out. Do you just enjoy the terror of the drop into hell? Because if that's the case… Hang on tight. I've got a surprise…” ~ Twisted Alice, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 4

Wilson's BATDS audio log was 100% about him wanting to pass on his secrets before his dad could silence him completely and forever in death as he did to so many others, just like how Joey managed to leave clues about the reality of the whole situation behind despite everything.

“It's important to seize an opportunity, before it slides through your wrenched fingers. The past so often dies without passing on its bountiful secrets. But oh… Mister Joey Drew. The secrets you've left behind. How very interesting, such… knowledge, such… opportunity. The time draws near… For a dark revival to come at last!” ~ Wilson Arch, Boris and the Dark Survival (emphasis added)

…Welp, now that that's out of the way, on with the show!

I believe that this one, released back in July (close to when you would've expected the Bendy Twitter to release a third teaser image), is supposed to have been written by Wilson:

*Dapper Bendy bounce-dances in what looks to be part of BATIM Chapter 1 as it looked when the Memory of Joey brought Audrey there* “Under foot, have you looked, where the light don't shine no more? Here's a hook, what it took, to break their spirits and yours” *Dapper Bendy rests against a pipe in what looks to be the sewers in BATDR but with the contraband display case from outside the Pit in the Cyclebreaker prison* “Didja make, give or take, a bigger difference away? Didja break, didja quake, when you saw what's really at play?”

This sounds like the singer's asking us if we've read the Bendy books and looked for clues in the other games – all of which the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr. is distracting us from with his erasure of Allison's existence, writing Mr. Gray/Grey into the story, etc. – and directing us to read The Mug and the Maiden for the explanations of events that we need. They then seem to be giving us confirmation that Wilson, Joey, and eventually Allison were trying to make things better from the inside and asking them if they broke when A: Buddy's death at the end of DCTL made Joey realize how Nathan Sr. was going to keep on using him to hurt people despite his best efforts, B: Allison experienced whatever it was that woke her up from Nathan Sr.'s trance in-between DCTL and TLO, and C: Wilson was punished at the end of TLO for learning too much and being a good boy, all while also D: acknowledging Audrey's ghostly origins and generational trauma??

*Dapper Bendy bounce-dances in what looks to be another part of BATIM Chapter 1 as it looked when the Memory of Joey brought Audrey there* “When it started, this commotion, this great disaster, what a brilliant revelation, what he's really after”

This sounds like Wilson realizing why his dad was doing what he was doing to Bill, Constance, and Brant by the time TLO ended!! “For it was the death of Mr. Darble Mouse that started all the trouble.”

*Dapper Bendy sits on a table in what looks to be the Little Devil Lounge, behind him is a buffet sign with graffiti that reads “Fetty was here,” which could be “Betty” with part of the “B” smudged off??* “It's a daily shift of churning, burning down the candle, it's more than we can handle”

Did you just confirm that Wilson's mom indeed drugged him as part of Nathan Sr.'s plot to punish him for warning people about his machinations and turn him into a Murder Puppet with your environment design, and then that everything was more than Joey, Allison, and finally Wilson could handle with your lyrics?? Which, y'know, now I think about it, honestly gives whole new meaning to TLO's epilogue…

“Swirling blackness wrapped so tightly, at first like a hug and then it squeezes, it crushes, it smothers . . . A quiet buzz, then louder, like a thousand voices talking at once. Screaming at once. Outside and inside. Our thoughts are not our own thoughts. Whose thoughts are these? How many of us are there? How many more will join us? We are all screaming. We are all waiting. We are all… lost. The light appears in sudden bursts. Too bright, it pierces at you, tears you apart even as you reach for it. What is there to reach for? Why hurt yourself? Just sink back. Sink back in with your friends. . . . We sink back and back and back. We understand now. We see how all this time we were wrong. We understand the joke now. Knock knock. Who's there? We can't fix the machine. We never could. Knock knock. Who's there? Who is there? Out there? Out here? We're all here. We understand now. It's the punchline to the joke: You can't fix what isn't broken.” ~ The Ink Machine('s Hivemind), Bendy: The Lost Ones, pg. 290-291 (emphasis added)

I think that this was the hivemind poetically describing what happened to Joey, Allison, and Wilson at the end of TLO, and to who knows how many more puppets and other victims Nathan Sr. collected over the previous and following decades: This man, who seems perfectly friendly on the surface, turns out to be an abuser once you're caught in his vice-like grip. His victims seek freedom, salvation, genuine love, even try to provide it to each other, but are punished for doing so, often alongside those who they tried to reach out to (e.g., Bill and his dad, Henry, etc). Eventually, they're trained to see potential help/etc. as something painful that they shouldn't even bother with, and learn to think that they should just allow themselves to sink back into obedience, because at least that hurts a little less. They understand, now, that they can't fix the Ink Machine, because just like every other thing they, themselves, intended to be good, Nathan Sr. intended it to only hurt them more. And he thoroughly enjoys watching them struggle, only to finally give in to him… Terrible. Dreadful. I'm sad, again. *Sniffs* Back to the music.

*Dapper Bendy is falling, possible reference to both the “falling down the rabbit hole” message Constance received from Wilson and Audrey's falling down the elevator shaft to where she meets the Memory of Joey and is set back on the path of meeting Wilson in his ink mansion* “So come on a ride! Further down below! And learn the prophesy of the hypocrisy that runs this broken show!”

“Come find me, Audrey. Come find me and I'll show you your purpose. I'll show you… the truth. And now… we die,” and learn the prophesy of Nathan Sr.'s puppeteering hypocrisy through Wilson/Wilton's twisted riddles??

“There's nowhere to hide! There's nowhere to go! You brought the hallway to a standstill, now the desolation grows”

This sounds like it's referencing Nathan Sr.'s not allowing anyone to escape and reality/memory alteration??

*Audrey wielding a pipe appears. Behind her, in the top right corner, “Jose[scribble],” presumably Joey's legal name “Joseph” scribbled out, is written in black ink; underneath that, written in the golden invisible ink, is the word “Life” with a halo, a dotted line like on a cartoon pirate treasure map that leads to an anarchy symbol that could also be being used as a certain family's last initial (Arch), and the letter “D,” presumably beginning “Death,” with devil horns. On the far left, in the same golden ink, is drawn a key* “Well it took, just a look, to see it wasn't the same, wrote the book, then he took, all the fortune and all the fame” *Audrey's now somewhere kinda nondescript other than signs pointing to the Art Department and a “Devil Cafe,” possibly a work-in-progress placeholder for the Little Devil Lounge* “Broke a tie, let it die, the love that made him a king, tell me now, can you find, the end to pull on this string?”

“Open your eyes and look around you! None of this ‘makes sense,’” yeah, I think I know exactly where the end of this (shall we say “puppet?”) string is: right there in Nathan Sr.'s hand!! This looks and sounds like confirmation that the version of Joey's story that everyone knows, the one that makes no sense because nothing matches up, was written by the Great Puppet Master, the Second of the Three Kings of JDS, Nathan Sr., as Wilson explained in that rant I just quoted!!! While also confirming that Nathan Sr. has forced Joey back into the Decoy Villain role postmortem as Bendy?!

*Audrey's now somewhere littered with toon carcasses like what Henry and Boris encounter all over Twisted Alice's territory in BATIM and BATDS* “Something in you brought you back here into your history, it's no mystery why your feelings seem so contradictory”

This sounds like it's acknowledging both Joey's seeming emotional/motivational contradictions under Nathan Sr.'s influence and Audrey's emotional conflicts being caused by the pieces of the First and Third Kings of JDS's souls that make up her own???

*Slow zoom on a door with a Gent pipe lock* “It was love that built this testament to artistry, warped by hate and trickery!”

Confirmation that the Ink Dimension was indeed created for Joey's regret and corrupted for Nathan Sr.'s revenge?!

*Chorus repeats with Audrey in an elevator until after the prophesy line* “Why have you arrived? Is there something you know?”

Confirmation of Nathan Sr.'s mafia-style disappearing of potential info leaks?? Perhaps even of the Insane Reader Ending being Audrey getting disappeared for knowing too much???

“Will hope or desolation be the seeds that you will sow?”

I think y'all will see why this line is fascinating in the analysis/theory conclusion… 👀

*Shot of Sammy, Boris, and a boatload of Lost Ones huddled around a flaming barrel like we see the Butcher Gang huddle around in BATIM Chapter 4* “Hello again, my dearest friend, *shot of the chasm in BATIM* don't look so down, it's not the end, let's play the same old little game, *shot of Joey's office door in BATIM* to back out now would be a shame, now step in time, follow the lines, I've saved your seat right next to mine, *Dapper Bendy and Audrey stare at a wall of what looks like graffiti mixed with notes on employee and cash numbers as well as pieces of paper* like an oiled machine, rhythm and key, we'll make you fit in our harmony, your eyes can lie, you're doing fine, it's just a chill run down your spine”

*Unintelligible noises* 👀👀👀 There?? Are?? So?? Many?? Layers?? To this?? This sounds like it could just be Wilson singing to Audrey, but also like it transitions from Joey and Henry singing to each other to Nathan Sr. singing to everyone, then the original Three Kings all singing to their kids, back to Nathan Sr. (with an implication that we should be searching the whole series for clues and a hint at most of the Children of the Machine never having actually lived in the real world as Nathan Sr. wants us to think they did), back to all Three Kings, Wilson singing to everyone, and back to Nathan Sr. again!!

“Don't be afraid, you're not alone, *Audrey and Dapper Bendy turn around to see Freaky Teeth Bendy with one eye X'd out* he's always watching”

“Shh, don't fret. We're going home,” Wilson and Bendy/Real Joey are always watching in similar hivemind-y ways?!

*Shot of Freaky Teeth running through inky darkness* “There's teeth in the night, a life as dark as coal, and in the prophesy, he's just the mockery of your own heart and soul”

This sounds like confirmation that A: the Cheshire cat reference in TLO was indeed one of Wilson's riddles, telling us that the smiling face that everyone's so afraid of isn't the real danger, it's the unseen claws who won't allow anyone to escape nor to look at anything but the smiling face, and B: the literal and figurative Memory of Joey as well as Henry being a copy created to be tortured are blatant lies meant to keep the First and Third Kings of JDS at odds even beyond the grave as well as torment and mock the both of them?!?!

“There's fear in your eyes, so where now can you go? Can you own what you have made here, or will terror take control?” *Chorus repeats over shots of the Ink Machine being raised on chains like it was in BATIM, then of Archgate Studios, and a couple of empty hallways*

More that I think y'all will find extra fascinating in the concluding section… 👀👀 Also, If you're somehow still questioning the books' canonicity, at this point, I dunno what to tell you. Before we move on to the next song, I wanna bring up… I'd noticed, way back when it was first posted, that if you turned off the audio and just focused on what the final BATDR teaser audio log is actually saying before we hear Wilson's voice for the first time, there seemed to actually be a coherent thought being communicated…

“So what can you expect in the coming months? You never know! He's always watching me… I saw Mister Drew the other day, meeting with that Connor fellow, holding some papers. I think they saw me looking though. Just too many secrets being cooked up in the kitchen! If I didn't know better, I'd say there was magic there. Well calculated understanding between creation… -big things are coming!- …and creator. Massive things! That smile… You just learn to go with it. He's always watching me… You just watch! I've got a good feeling something great is going to happen.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated April 14th, [YEAR REDACTED]

At first, I thought that this plus the fact that they'd released seven audio logs but only six shorts at the time of the seventh meant Bendy was alive as a cartoon, he'd been watching events from inside the drawings and was splicing audio logs together to express that he thought Joey realized he was alive and he was excited about the idea of having a real body… But who do we know, now, communicates like this? Through hints dropped all over the place via the thoughts, mouths and pens of many different people? Wilson and Joey, communicating with us through the hivemind, right? With this new perspective… it actually sounds like this is two people talking…

“So what can you expect in the coming months? You never know! He's always watching me… I saw Mister Drew the other day, meeting with that Connor fellow, holding some papers. I think they saw me looking though. Just too many secrets being cooked up in the kitchen! If I didn't know better, I'd say there was magic there. Well calculated understanding between creation… -big things are coming!- …and creator. Massive things! That smile… You just learn to go with it. He's always watching me… You just watch! I've got a good feeling something great is going to happen.” ~ Unknown, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated April 14th, [YEAR REDACTED]

Joey and Wilson, talking about the events of TIOL, DCTL, and TLO… Joey saying he's excited about creating his paradise for the lost, even if he's nervous about being caught by Nathan Sr… and Wilson saying he's excited about what he knows so far that the Ink Machine can do – watch people and get messages out more discreetly through the hivemind, not even having to be physically near anyone and risk getting caught to do either thing – and that he can tell Joey has good intentions, but he knows better than to get his hopes up for this whole thing to go well because his dad is involved in the situation, with his smile that masks the monster underneath with its Santa Claus Vibes and you just have to learn to play along with or else, because he's got spies everywhere… I love how they can make that same statement of “he's always watching” go from creepy in all instances to kind of comforting when it's referring to Wilson and Bendy/Real Joey and positively gut-wrenching when it's referring to Nathan Sr., once you dig deeper… *Shudders again* Anyways. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

This next one, by one of the very same artists who previously released songs containing canon info, had its preview dropped the same day as the BATDR trailer:

*Obvious Joey shadow puppet appears* “Pictures in my head contained all, *Bendy cutout puppets appear* to make standing out art, *cutout puppets are replaced by an Ink Machine puppet* we need to take big steps not small, *Ink Machine puppet is replaced by a mannequin puppet* draw animate your part, *mannequin puppet disappears* trying to impress *Lost One puppets appear* in this mess, *Joey puppet looks around to find himself alone* you were trying your best, it wasn't close to the success, *obvious Bendy smile materializes behind the Joey puppet* you'll stay in this nest” *Bendy smile consumes the Joey puppet*

First of all, I'm frightened by the fact that he's telling us this story with literal puppets, considering how many times the only way I personally could think to accurately describe the relationship between Nathan Sr. and his victims was with “puppet-and-puppet-master” imagery (by the way, I saw someone point out that Betty's mask looks an awful lot like the marionette faces in Showdown Bandit did… Sounds like another layer to Wilson's intentional symbolism for his mom's involvement in his dad's machinations, if you ask me. Remember how the marionettes had such a big thing about how they shouldn't look up at whoever or whatever was controlling them that many of them literally plucked out their own eyes to avoid it? Sounds an awful lot like the symbolism I proposed for Wilson's posters). Second of all, this sounds like Joey was the one who was singing for exactly one line, then somebody took the microphone away from him to sing to/with/about him rather than letting him sing about himself. The mannequin puppet seems to imply that, while we may think Joey's the one pulling the strings, it's not actually any of his employees who's being spoken to in that “draw animate your part” line. And everything from “trying to impress in this mess” onward seems like it's confirming that Joey was trying his best to create a paradise to rescue his fellow victims-of-Nathan-Sr. in without tripping the man in question's alarms, but he failed at both that and obeying Nathan Sr.'s orders to satisfaction in general and was both A: isolated and villainized in the real world, and B: finally merged with the soulless Bendy body in the Ink Dimension when his human one died, all partly to punish him??

(Speaking of mannequins, anyone notice these ones sitting right across from each other in Twisted Alice's part of Wilson's mansion that seem to imply that both Susie and Joey were just puppets in the whole “creating Twisted Alice” situation?! The Joey one even has distracting eyebrows drawn on, further correlating him to Bernard the Ugly Lizard Man Who Wears a Blue Cloak in The Mug and the Maiden!!)

Sepiatone: I gave you all that I had, frames are showing new way, the apathy that's so sad, you lead my name away Grayscale: Calling it phantasmagoria*, when you're seeing more than them, means not knowing what's euphoria**, now I can live it through again

*A sequence of real or imaginary images like those seen in a dream.

**A feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.

Holy… guacamole… He just crammed so much information into the space of only two freaking verses!!

The first one sounds like it has two meanings, using the “frames are showing new way” line to transition from A: confirmation that Sammy Lawrence became a personification of part of Joey's psyche (his desire to be protected/saved by and feelings of betrayal/abandonment at the hands of Henry and Nathan Sr.) when he was infected by the ink and that Nathan Sr. caused Henry leaving but manipulated the narrative so that the only options anyone was allowed to believe were “it was Joey's fault” (when, in reality, he genuinely tried to make things work) and “it was Henry's fault” (when, in reality, he also genuinely tried), to B: confirmation that Henry's being gaslit into believing he was never human and, as a result, using Joey's Illusion of Living coping mechanism to try and forget his human life and become apathetic so that his imprisonment in the Ink Dimension will hurt less and that The Mug and the Maiden, King Widow, and Lord Amok pretty overtly point towards the Memory of Joey being Joey's name and image stolen by Nathan Sr. (the context implied by the previous two lines being: “in order to rewrite history”).

The second sounds like confirmation of A: the symbolism behind Wilson's blacked-out eyes and lack of damage until you see him colored in in his posters being that, if we allow Nathan Sr. to gaslight us into ignoring the evidence of his crimes, then we're blind to the truth (and adding that, consequently, we'll either not realize that the default ending isn't the happiest possible one [as most of the YouTubers I've watched play the game seem to think it is] or find the story – especially the ending – utterly nonsensical and/or unfulfilling [as even I did, at first. I'll explain why I was wrong in the analysis/theory conclusion]), and B: specifically because we didn't know the truth, the time loop cycle is continuing (she showed Bendy the End Reel, remember? And they literally showed her walking through the same door in Joey's apartment to get back into her own studio as Henry did to get back into Ink Dimension JDS. Audrey reset the time loop cycle, she didn't break it. Probably the only reason it was daylight is because her and Wilson's loop is larger than Henry and Joey's was). Hot dang, y'all good at cramming several layers of meaning into lyrics.

Now, I'd like everyone to notice that there seem to be two Joeys singing the chorus!! One speaks in sepia text and seems friendlier until you pay attention to what he's actually saying, the other speaks in gray text using a deep, growly, stereotypical villain voice and seems to enjoy this role until you pay attention to what he's actually saying…!! 👀

Sepia Joey: Hey, can you hear me now? Gray Joey: Even if you don't like it you'll die in ink Sepia Joey: You'll breathe when I allow Gray Joey: You will die so make it easier, just sink Sepia Joey: I left for you my legacy Gray Joey: All consumed by fear, inky atmosphere Sepia Joey: Take my hand, that's the destiny, let's spin the last gear, we are back my dear

Sepia Joey is actually scarily controlling (honestly, that “you'll breathe when I allow” reeks of Nathan Sr.'s mafia-style disappearing of anyone who becomes a liability or he grows bored of, just like the first paragraph of the “Next in Line” memo did) and the fact that he says that taking his hand (as Audrey refused to do when the Memory of Joey was telling her the obvious lies about Allison and Henry and half-truth about her origins, only to decide that taking Bendy's hand when he came to save her was wrong and she needs to reset the time loop partly to resurrect the Memory of Joey), spinning the last gear (sounds awfully similar to playing the End Reel), and returning with him+ (to the beginning of the time loop?) is our destiny (a synonym for “fate”), all sounds like further confirmation that the Memory of Joey is either a puppet controlled by or straight-up Nathan Sr. and the End Reel and its endless “cartoon cycle of torment” was his creation and plan. Meanwhile, Gray Joey actually sounds… downright despairing… and, I probably don't need to reiterate, at this point, but uh…

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

…confirmation that Bendy is Real Joey alert (it makes a whole heckuva lotta difference, Nathan Sr. Shut the heck up)!! Also— did anyone notice that the visual effects for transitioning out of Bendy Is Chasing You Grayscale is freakishly similar to the visual effects for transitioning in and out of Henry's visions in BATIM?

Further evidence that Audrey is Henry and Bendy/Real Joey's daughter alert!!! Possibly also further implying that we need to be looking at more than just what the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr. wants us to, and that Henry, Bendy/Real Joey, and Audrey are three of the five most powerful beings in the Ink Dimension— even without the Seeing Tool, they all seem able to see things that other ink creatures seem unable to…!

*Obvious Joey shadow puppet reappears* “Disappearance in the big silence, *Lost One puppets reappear, who the Joey puppet looks around at like he's panicking* world turning upside-down, *Lost One puppets disappear, leaving the Joey puppet alone again* everyone needed a new guidance *new Lost One puppets who seem to be kneeling in worship of the Joey puppet appear, only to disappear again, replaced by an obvious Henry shadow puppet, who the Joey puppet turns away from* one had but he has drowned.”

This looks and sounds like confirmation that Joey went into hiding to escape Nathan Sr. after JDS shut down and indeed contacted Henry for help fixing his mistakes but Nathan Sr. had Henry murdered and made it look like Joey either lured him to his death or created a sentient clone to torture in his place, both of which options make Joey look irredeemably evil?! And that, when Sammy's cult were worshiping the soulless Bendy back in BATIM, they were worshiping Joey's future image?!?! Y'know… it occurs to me, what if Joey wasn't the one who removed Henry from the ending of Tombstone Picnic?? 👀👀

Bendy (Joey) runs away from a skeleton (Nathan Sr.'s machinations?) and stops to catch his breath, Henry's shadow looms, Bendy looks up at him and smiles, only for the film to suddenly, inexplicably be cut short… Could this have been a clue that Nathan Sr. had Henry murdered when Joey called him for help all along??

Forgive me, I'm about to go on a bunny trail, cause I just remembered, as well, that I thought it was weird that the thumbnails for all of the shorts are sepiatoned, but the animation is black-and-white… A hint that these are the versions that Nathan Sr. has altered, we're only getting a peek at Joey's truth? *Stares at my notes on Joey having to jump through hoops to get Nathan Sr.'s permission to publish TIOL and then Nathan Sr. further editing it postmortem via his excessive, creepy notes* (While I'm on the topic: I wonder if Audrey colorizing Tombstone Picnic at the beginning of BATDR could be a hint at the further story detail we get through The Mug and the Maiden, Audrey herself, etc… Wilson does import color into the Ink Dimension, after all…) My bestie pointed out once, as well, that it's weird that Bendy's literally known for his iconic grin, but… all of the shorts (excepting Tombstone picnic) seem to end with him scared, frustrated, or sad… *Stares at my notes on Bill, Constance and Brant being personifications of Joey's fear, anger, and shame* and also how it's weird that Boris is supposed to be his best pal, but he's actually really mean to him… *Stares at my notes on Nathan Sr. isolating and villainizing Joey, turning all of his friends against him* and also how it's weird that none of them (excepting Tasty Trio Troubles) really… have any music to speak of… aside from the beginning ditty… when BATIM made such a big deal about it (like, an “every single one was fully orchestrated” kind of “big deal”)… Now I've read TIOL, where Joey literally titled a chapter “Without Music, Life Would Be a Mistake…” and, in the BATDR teasers, there's those audio logs from Sammy and Jack…

“Every time I turn around there’s more work to do. Four cartoons almost complete and all of them need a tune by tomorrow. Typical Joey planning. I’m working so much I’m starting to see Bendy in my sleep. That smile... He’s always watching me. Few more months of this, I wouldn’t be surprised if that grinning demon drove me completely insane. That smile… something’s just wrong with that smile. Can’t put my finger on it. Shake it off, Sammy. Best get back to your songs. Someone has to keep the little devil happy…” ~ Sammy Lawrence, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated June 16th, 1935 (emphasis added)

(Could this be a hint that Sammy figured out that Joey, a terrible planner, was not the one in charge?? And the reason behind his unsettling smiles that get read as malicious but are actually dissociative???)

“Okay, the smell is kinda starting to get to me now. Ever since they started putting in more pipes, it’s really begun to flow a lot more down here. The good news is that it’s helped me to work on things a lot faster. Definitely been some of my best lyrics lately. Sammy and I even won an award for one of our songs last month… I was told. Of course it had Mister Drew’s name on the award, but it’s the thought that counts. Speaking of which, I saw Mister Drew the other day… was meeting with that Connor fellow, holding some papers. Why they’d want to meet down here is beyond me. Something stinks.” ~ Jack Fain, Bendy and the Dark Revival teaser audio log dated November 18th, 1943 (emphasis added)

(This already suggests that Jack learned something he shouldn't, but could it be that we were completely wrong about the circumstances and information? Could he and Sammy have put what they each learned together…?)

…And then, in the actual game, there's that memo from Telly Wester we find on a desk right after climbing a ladder that's had rungs removed for some unknown reason next to the first two “Wilson Knows” posters we see, and a memo from Sammy shortly after which is under the third poster… and Jack has mysteriously changed his tune about the sewers…

“Geez! You'd think I was drowning kittens the way these people are lookin' at me! I've never seen such disappointment in a person's eyes. But this is the way of things, if management can't pay their bills, then the bank takes the goodies back. Still, it does break me a bit knowing how much I loved them old cartoons this place used to make. Oh well! Times change. Life moves on.” ~ Telly Wester, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Hard Times” memo (emphasis added)

“Joey, Jack and I have been wondering if you could meet with us considering the current situation? We have been with you for many years and we feel we have contributed to the success of Bendy in the past. Our interest is purely in keeping this company strong. We just want to help however we can. Let's talk.” ~ Sammy Lawrence, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Let's Talk” memo (emphasis added)

(When I first read this, I thought “ouch, poor Joey. Someone finally offered help and they made a big deal about how it's only for the company's sake? That must've stung…”)

“You gotta follow your inspirations when you're a musician. Stick to what you know works. But when they built the new studio buildings, they all but filled in my office down in the old sewers. Turns out, I've gotten so accustomed to working in those disgusting conditions, that now if my office doesn't stink, the lyrics I write do. So when Gent started digging their massive utility shaft between their place and ours, I knew it would be just the right spot for me to move in. Now, I've got a song in my heart, and a creative stench up my nose.” ~ Jack Fain, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Sewer Songs” memo (emphasis added)

What… what “goodies” was Telly talking about? What would cause people to look at him like that? Why this suspicious placement of items in a room that Wilson obviously had set up to welcome Audrey home…? I just remembered reading an old comment of mine… but I'd noticed that Tom, in his first BATIM audio log, talks about the ink pipes like he wasn't the one who put them in like his BATDR teaser one implies he was by placing him in the studio in 1943, just six days before Jack's audio log…

“It's dark and it's cold and it's stuck in behind every single wall now. In some places, I swear this godforsaken ink is clear up to my knees! Whoever thought that these crummy pipes could hold up under this kind of strain either knows something about pressure I don't, or he's some kind of idiot. But the real worst part about all this… are them noises the system makes. Like a dying dog on its last legs. Make no mistake, this place… this… machine… heck, this whole darn thing… it just isn't natural. You can bet, I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mister Joey Drew.” ~ Thomas Connor, Bendy and the Ink Machine, ch. 1 (emphasis added)

I'd originally thought this meant BATDR was taking place in an alternate timeline/universe, not the same one as BATIM, but is this actually another case of Wilson and a child of the Machine trying to explain how past events have been edited and hint at what really happened? Is… is this saying that A: Jack figuring things out happened long before Tom arrived, perhaps it wasn't even Tom who he saw Joey meeting with at all (it would actually make his confusion at seeing them meet in the sewers make more sense if perhaps it was not just his boss, but also a fricking steel tycoon… All Nathan Sr. would need to do here to incriminate Tom instead of himself is edit the dates and a name), and B: Nathan Sr. orchestrated the events of DCTL to look like either Tom's incompetence or Joey's poor planning was the reason the pipe burst and infected Sammy, but, in actuality, Nathan Sr. sabotaged the pipes like he sabotaged the things he did in TLO, in order to disappear Sammy – start and supply his ink addiction – for trying to help Joey (both obviously also providing further evidence that Nathan Sr. editing Mr. Gray/Grey and all those other extra Gent employees into history)?? And… did Jack just sink into obedience because he didn't wanna get disappeared, too (in which case, the tune change is similar to Tom's between DCTL and TLO), or did Joey tell him he should go into hiding to protect him (in which case, the tune change is him leaning on Joey's Illusion of Living coping mechanism to make the fact he needs to stay in the sewers more bearable)???

“[Sammy] stared at me longer this time. Then he started to laugh this laugh that was all breath and no sound. Almost like wheezing. ‘Art Department. Okay. Okay, gofer for the Art Department, answer me this: Why are you guys storing ink in my sheet music closet? And why is JOEY running a pipe through my closet that's apparently filled with ink?’ A pipe? With ink? That definitely didn't sound normal, but then again, I had no idea what was normal for an animation studio. ‘I don't know.’” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 48 (emphasis added)

(The comments on seeming “innocuous strangeness” and theme of brushing questions aside return… Also, whose voice do we know by its distinctive wheezing? 👀👀 Wilson literally just commandeered Sammy's mouth, didn't he?!)

“I want to tell about Sammy. About when he disappeared. I want to get to that part of the story. But the thing is, we only notice someone is gone when time has passed… . . . Three days after that, when enough time had passed, but not so much that people really noticed it, Toby from accounting mentioned that Sammy hadn't come in for his paycheck. Again, us workers only knew anything about this because Mister Drew himself was storming around the building, angrily muttering about it. Interrogating folks he met as he went. I didn't feel like the rage matched the situation, but then I figured maybe he had something more on his mind than just a missing music director. . . . But then things took a turn. I remember coming to work and the police were outside and the studio was shut down. I remember being told by Richie that someone had broken in and messed the place up. That they were looking into a possible burglary. I remember Mister Drew rushing from his car and shouting in the detective's face something about sabotage. How seeing him shout like that was worse than seeing Mr. Schwartz lose his temper. Than seeing even Sammy lose his temper. It was jarring and a little scary. Especially compared to how he usually seemed.” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 193-194, 194-195, and 196 (emphasis added)

(Wilson seems to be highlighting an important part of Buddy's story for him, again…! 👀👀👀)

Was Joey so seemingly excessively upset by Sammy's disappearance because he was worried that Nathan Sr. might've taken another friend who was genuinely trying to help him away from him, changing the narrative around the situation, just like he did with the Henry leaving situation?! Was he not shouting about the “burglary” being sabotage, at all, but exploding because he now had confirmation that the whole weird situation was his “good friend” Nathan Sr.'s handiwork (honestly… why would he assume sabotage straight out of his car and what would this “burglary” even actually be sabotaging? How does this make sense as a response to the situation outside of the context I'm proposing? It… doesn't… Making him explode like this in front of many people even fits Nathan Sr.'s Classic Abuser Villainizing Their Victim M.O.)?! Could the lack of music in the shorts have been a hint at both how Nathan Sr. edits the Ink Dimension to be joyless and torture Joey in particular and how he punishes anyone who reaches out to/for help all along?!?! And… could Nathan Sr. have straight-up orchestrated Buddy's death, as well, besides forcing Joey to make up a story about how it was his own plan the whole time, because he realized Joey liked him?! Was the incident where Joey tricked Buddy into paying for a fancy dinner to make Nathan Sr. think he only saw him as a pawn when he started suspecting he'd done something to Sammy, but it didn't work?! Why was Buddy sat where he was (at… Henry's desk… which was being kept somewhere nobody wanted to sit, like Joey didn't want anyone going near it…) and Bendy locked up somewhere that this kid who people knew tended to stay late after work (just like Henry…) would hear him (recognizing, because he was under the pipes all the time, that this was a new and unnatural noise), let him out, and be blamed for unleashing the Ink Demon?

“It was because of the pipes. I know that now. My little corner of the Art Department that no one wanted to sit in… . . . So the pipes making the odd noise as I sat and worked in my corner that night really didn't even make me blink. Didn't make me look up. Until they did. . . . I stood up instinctively. This wasn't the furnace feeling frustrated. This was something else. What it was, though, I had no idea. Well, the thing I did know was that it was none of my business. So I sat back down and focused on my paper. That's when the moaning started.” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 139-140 (emphasis added)

Nathan Sr. took Joey's goodies away… drowned his kittens in ink because he kept disobeying/failing to obey to satisfaction… I get the feeling that, when Joey confronted him about Sammy being disappeared, Nathan Sr. said something like: “don't give me that look. This is just what happens when you don't behave, you know that. I felt a little bad doing it, I did enjoy his music… Oh well! Life goes on…” and it seems like he made sure the soulless Bendy took Buddy out extra poetically, because he could see Henry in him just as much as Joey could… so, he knew that death would hurt his “good friend” the most…

“[Mister Drew] grabbed me under my chin and held my head still. I tried to shake him off, but his grip was like a vise. He brought up his other hand and held me tighter. He came even closer and looked at me hard in the eyes. His scent was powerful. I'd never really noticed that before. But now for some reason I could smell him clearly. It wasn't just cigar smoke and pomade. I could smell his hors d'oeuvres from the party. I could smell whiskey and champagne. I could smell the city air and the heat of the day. His sweat. His madness. . . . Just because something is unbelievable doesn't make it not true. Remember that, Dot. Oh, please, above all things, remember that. . . . ‘The soul. But how do I get a soul? Sammy lured those people down here… I thought I could use them, but the ink had infected them for days. There was no soul left in there. I needed someone real. Someone good. I never thought I'd be so lucky as to have you, Buddy. But this was meant to be. This was the plan all along. That's why you were sent to me. When I came here, when I saw you—in the clutches of that beast—I understood your purpose.’ No. That's not my purpose. I felt anger rise in me, and I pushed his hand off my shoulder finally. I stayed where I was, white-hot rage now energizing me, making me almost afraid to stand up. Of what I might do. ‘I saved your soul, Buddy. And you saved me. You’re going to save Bendy.’ I didn't do that. My purpose was saving Dot and the others. That was my purpose. He couldn't and wouldn't take that away from me. My purpose now and always would be to protect the world from this beast. This machine.” ~ Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, Dreams Come to Life, pg. 287, 293, 294, and 295 (emphasis added)

Was Joey literally trying to tell Buddy that Nathan Sr. had plotted his demise because he knew he cared about him?! And was that comment about unbelievability a message from Wilson about the whole Nathan Sr.-and-his-puppets situation?!?! Which makes me think of… Okay, these next couple thoughts may be more of a headcanon than a legitimate theory, but I've had this weird, nagging feeling ever since I first read DCTL that I'd just totally discredited when I first heard Nathan Sr.'s voice, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't have… cause this line in The Mug and The Maiden, “two characters have died already, surely a third wouldn't hurt anything? Are you perhaps just reading this story because you want to see who will get the axe next? You're a little warped, do you know that?” is most definitely speaking of/to Nathan Sr… Any of y'all remember that scene in the elevator as Buddy was arriving at Joey's party? I wonder if my initial, gut reaction that the man with the southern accent who tried to get Buddy to join him in making fun of Joey (honestly, it seemed like laughing at the poor man was the one-and-only reason he was even there) and his wife who seemed done with his B.S. – both of whom mysteriously vanish after being introduced in a similar manner to Allison, like they might be important later – were actually Nathan Sr. and Tessa, except they were in disguise so that Joey wouldn't realize Nathan Sr. had come to watch his dominoes fall… until it was too late. Susie and Sammy already died (or “died”), surely another of his toys dying (or “dying”) tonight wouldn't hurt anything… but oh, goody-goody gumdrops, whichever will get the axe next? 👀 I also had this weird feeling when I first read TLO, before Andrew told Constance his name, that he was was going to be Nathan Jr… and I still felt like he might somehow be involved with Nathan Sr. – maybe a spy or something – until he just sort of got unceremoniously kicked from the story and nothing really came of him except adding more fuel to the raging inferno that was Constance's anger… I wonder if Nathan Sr. enlisted his neglected Favorite Son™ as Constance's Keeper? 👀👀 Back to things I'm more sure about, hm… that scene I just quoted sounds an awful lot like a certain scene at the end of BATDR…

Wilson: …All of the factors must be perfect. *Machine chamber rotates from the one containing the painting of Shipahoy Dudley to an empty one* The right design, the right science, and… *saw blades pop out of the chamber walls* the right soul. Audrey: What? Wilson: At last your purpose is revealed, Audrey. This is why you're here! With your soul inside him, my creation will live forever. Audrey: Stay away from me! You're insane! Wilson: Come now, Audrey! Part of you knew this was your path. Leave yourself behind… and ascend! Audrey: I thought you said we needed to save your father! I thought you had a plan to send me home! To make everything right! Wilson: I lied… My father is beyond hope. Perhaps you know him: Nathan Arch, owner of ArchGate! Industrial genius. Business tycoon. For years I've lived in his reaching shadow. He always had time for the grand creatives of the world, the “doers” as he called them! He knew only the best! The biggest thinkers! How could his lowly son ever hope to compete with that? But now, thanks to you, I can. Audrey: *Clenches fist* *tries to use her banishing powers on him* Wilson: *Catches her hand before she can* No need to struggle. My signal prevents you from using those devilish powers of yours… and more importantly, *catches her other hand before she can hit him with the Gent pipe* keeps the Ink Demon from getting in. It's time to die, Audrey… *starts dragging her towards the machine* and live again… as a god! Audrey: *Hits him with her pipe, continues struggling, and gets her right hand free* No! Not this time! ERRGH! *Hits him much harder, frees herself from his grip and pushes him into the saw blades*

More evidence that both Joey and Wilson's evil plans were actually Nathan Sr.'s all along?? He's done this before, to Susie, Sammy, Buddy, Henry, Allison, Grant, and who knows how many others through Joey (and, I mean, y'know, he's probably why Joey tried to sacrifice himself at all… I wonder if the reason his soul failed to merge with Bendy, the reason it was purportedly Joey's fault Bendy was soulless, was because he came to his senses at the last second and fought back like Audrey did), now he's trying to do it to both Audrey through Wilson and to Wilson through Audrey… This series is so filled to the brim with narrative parallels, it's astounding… And my. Gosh. I. Hate. Nathan Sr. More. And. More. The more I think about it all… Anyways, honestly, the whole Sammy and Jack situation would explain:

Joey's comments on Sammy and Jack seeming to secretly hate each other in TIOL: maybe he added that in so that, if one of his friends was caught by Nathan Sr., then maybe the other wouldn't be (clearly it didn't work, unfortunately)?!

Joey describing Jack as an attention-hogging showman when all of his audio logs show he was very introverted, didn't much care about getting credit, etc: maybe he wanted to create this image of him so that Nathan Sr. wouldn't notice him if and when he went into hiding?!

Why Joey put a pump switch in Sammy's office: maybe he realized Nathan Sr. was catching on and wanted to make him think he didn't care about him while also getting Sammy to start hiding like Jack?!

Why Sammy made the comment he did to the (sepia!!) newspaper in the Employee Handbook that most people interpreted as meaning he was always a villain and on Joey's side in a bad way when he, himself, clearly didn't like being ordered around and under a tight schedule: maybe he, himself, was also trying to throw Nathan Sr. off the scent of rebellion (also, this means we have even more evidence of Nathan Sr. A: letting rumors spread to punish Joey, and B: creating Decoy Villains through manipulation/etc. all the freaking time)?!

Now that we're all chewing on that food for thought, back to the music. 😝

Sepiatone: You were all my gold that has been never sold, giving life for art is going to be told, with a new name but an old soul, playing the old remastered roll, backing to tracks forgotten, all is fresh not rotten Grayscale: But there was just one creation, couldn't ever imagine, it brought my needed retaliation, for the artistic salvation *Two-Joey chorus repeats* Grayscale: Never-ending cycle started the suffering revival, the offspring has survived, angels and demons darkly revived, the vision brought a very costly decision, *obvious Joey silhouette appears* how great it is to feel the artistic *Joey silhouette flickers out of existence* catharsis, thaaa— Sepiatone: —aaat feels like I'm living, Sepia Joey: losing what I've been dreaming is what I'm fearing, but the true god of conceptions know, when from the spotlight he should go Grayscale: Anyone know? I'm! Still! Here!

*Wheezes* Did you just further confirm all my theories on how the version of Joey's story that everyone knows was written by Nathan Sr. (while simultaneously nudging us towards the idea that the Memory of Joey is straight-up Nathan Sr. in disguise and reinforcing that the End Reel is his creation and the resets are part of his plan to torture everyone), there was only ever one studio it's just that reality and people's memories have been modified and re-modified beyond recognition, Joey intended for the Ink Dimension to be salvation for those who've suffered in life and the victims of Nathan Sr.'s machinations but Nathan Sr. hijacked his creation, twisting it from a heavenly paradise into the hellish prison he, himself, now relishes and doesn't want to lose control of and consequently it was a good thing for Bendy to crush the Memory of Joey?? And possibly also drop a hint about the explanation of the events of TLO provided by The Mug and The Maiden before definitely reinforcing that the real Joey (who mused about ascending to godhood in TIOL and, if he's really Bendy now, has been described as a “deity” by Wilson, and has definitely been described as a “Dreamer” throughout the whole series, therefore “the true god of conceptions”) has been pushed outta the spotlight by the Memory of Joey and using Bertrum's line to simultaneously confirm that Bertrum also became a personification of part of Joey's psyche (his desires for the respect of others and praise for his work, hatred for anyone who belittles him and desire to upstage them in retaliation) and that Real Joey's soul is indeed still here inside Bendy???

Sepia Joey: Hey, do you hear me now? Gray Joey: After all these years, vision's still in the minds Sepia Joey: You'll breathe when I allow Gray Joey: Even dried-out ink is still drawing new lines Sepia Joey: I left for you my legacy Gray Joey: All consumed by fear, inky atmosphere Sepia Joey: Take my hand, that's the destiny, let's spin the last gear, I'll miss you my dear

Did you just also confirm that even the long-dead are still modifying the Ink Dimension for various purposes, simultaneously confirming that many of the new audio logs/memos/side stories may indeed have been made up by the souls of the series' scapegoats/etc. in attempt to call our attention to the discrepancies and reveal the truths and that Nathan Sr. – as the person who seems to be doing most of the reality/memory modification – might indeed already be dead, which would mean his soul would indeed be the true “new evil” in the Ink Dimension?! I'm vibrating again, omigosh…

The rest of the lyrics were all lines from the artist's previous Bendy songs ending on a lineup of posters of each one, which I'm thinking is probably further confirmation of theMeatly's repeated statements that all established lore is still 100% canon, and then did you notice… that while all the other posters only include drawings of cartoon characters, the poster for Legacy is a drawing of Bendy and human Joey as he looks in Archgate's documentary banners, haircut and all, and we see the Joey shadow puppet's shadow looming over it before the shot fades to black??? 👀 He's practically screaming in our faces that the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr. is not supposed to be here and is the real villain!!

Whilst we're talking about there being two Joeys, one of whom is clearly heavily connected to Nathan Sr. for history rewriting purposes… Did anyone notice that, in his letter at the beginning of BATIM, Joey says that he “needs” to show Henry something… Then, in the monologue in his apartment at the end of BATIM, the subtitles (which are what I transcribed the quote from in my original analysis/theory, by the way. In case anyone was wondering. I have auditory processing issues, sue me) say he “needs” to show him something while the voice actor says he “wants” to show him… And then, when the Memory of Joey tells the version of Henry's story that's definitely, 100%, undeniably a blatant Nathan Sr. lie, at this point, he says both verbally and in the subtitles that he “wants” to show Audrey something… 👀👀 “Need” suggests there was a genuine need, and therefore that the “Joey called Henry for help” option would be correct, whereas “want” suggests he wanted to show off something he was proud of or something, and therefore that either the “Joey lured Henry in to murder him” or “Joey created Fake Henry to be tortured” options would be correct… Sounding like the subtitle mismatch was not a mistake, but actually a hint at the transition from Joey's Truth to Nathan Sr.'s Lie, to anyone else? Like maybe Henry remembered that his old friend was supposed to have said “need,” and he was confused as to why he was saying “want,” now?? 👀👀👀

This song was illustrated by someone kept anonymous in the video description, who I think we all know is the same person who did the visuals for that first highly suspicious song, despite him saying that Desolate Hallway would be his last project (if you couldn't already tell just by looking at the style, the crucial hint in the comments returns):

First things first, it's suspicious that this song is titled “Black and White,” considering Joey and Freaky Teeth Bendy's heavy ties to grayscale. I think this song is straight-up Bendy/Real Joey explaining his side of the story to us.

Grayscale: Ooh you're outta luck! Somebody's pulled the rug, and everything you've known has bid farewell, now demons run amok, this land from which you're stuck, the heavens pray this fresh hell treats you well, oh no… Sepiatone: *Whisper that shakes the screen like it frightened the singer* No

Frick, that was Joey despairing that his baby girl's been dragged back into the Ink Dimension and praying for her to be safe and Nathan Sr. interrupting him to say that she won't be, wasn't it?

Grayscale (w/ sepia drawing of Audrey): One moment drew with ink, the next I feel it coursing through my veins, I look around to see, reanimated dreams, that festered into frights that never drained Sepiatone (drawing of Audrey): This portal to the past, has morals I could pass, these monsters justify the wrong, in hopes to find their song, knowing it's already gone Grayscale (w/ sepia drawing of Audrey): Catch you in the credits, captivation to this black and white, just don't feel right, yeah, when the shadows grimace, all it takes is an *highlights with a golden glow* enlightened eye, *back to grayscale* to see that I don't belong

This could be Audrey singing about getting sacrificed to the ink machine… or it could also be… Joey describing the day his human body died and he woke up in his cartoon world that was warped from paradise into prison by Nathan Sr. and he was never able to fix… He's also describing how Nathan Sr.'s manipulation and abuse fudges up his victims' consciences, using empathy to make them believe they'll be relieving suffering, creating great art, and/or achieving greatness, so that they think they're in the right committing atrocities… and how he didn't want to continue the cycle of abuse/trauma with his daughter… He even seems to be pointing us to the drawing at the end of the credits – which I'll come back to at the end of this analysis – saying it's unfair that he's the only one who can see his truth in the grayscale, and asking us to look at his story through a new lens…

Grayscale (drawing of Dapper Bendy): Oh can't stop for breath, in a world that leaks with death, I stick out like a stain that won't wash out, creatives always said, work can't go to your head, but never said that they'd go for your throat

He's literally confirming that Nathan Sr. sees him as one of the “stains ready to be cleansed away” *cough liabilities in need of disappearing mafia-style cough* in Wilson's “none of this ‘makes sense’” rant, confirming that this rant was indeed a riddle trying to tell Audrey about Nathan Sr.?? And then seems to be quoting something Henry and others might've said to him when he/they noticed that the studio chapter of their lives seemed to be changing him, and then explaining what it felt like when Nathan Sr. started villainizing him, causing people who he thought cared to turn against him…?

Grayscale (camera pans over to show a drawing of Freaky Teeth Bendy in a mirror behind Dapper): A cartoon made to dance, had finally got a chance, to never be erased again, now I have been condemned, to the marks from my own pen, catch you in the credits, captivation to this black and white, just don't feel right, when the shadows grimace, all it takes is an *highlights with a golden glow* enlightened eye, *back to grayscale* to see that I don't belong

He's confirming that he thought he'd escaped Nathan Sr.'s clutches only to find himself trapped in them again by his own creation?? And then back to pointing us to the credits of BATDR, saying it's unfair that nobody else can see his truth, and asking us to look at his story through a new lens…

Sepiatone: Passion amassed all our pass time distractions, to fight for their rations and live a tortured life, but the reels just repeat, lost the chance to redeem, when corruption’s defeated, remembrance always dies, yet even when memories fade, your legacy carries your fate, the devil may reach for my heart, *highlights with a golden glow* but I don’t belong to the dark

This sounds like he's describing what Nathan Sr. did to all his victims now trapped in what should've been their salvation, again… Confirming again that the End Reel and the Memory of Joey are evil and it was good for the Memory of Joey to be crushed and bad for the loop to restart… And then we seem to have Nathan Sr. bragging about the fact he's turned Joey's baby girl against him, so he won't win even if he kills him??? But then what seems to be Audrey providing her much more positive side of the story, that she's trying not to lean on her dad's maladaptive coping mechanisms… I'm coming back to that, I'm coming back to that. I'll wait.

Grayscale (w/ sepia drawing of Audrey): Catch ya in the credits, captivation to this black and white, just don’t feel right, when the shadows grimace, all it takes is an *highlights with a golden glow* enlightened eye, *back to grayscale* to see that I don’t belong Sepiatone (drawing of the Bendy): (Oh no), to see that I don’t belong, (black and white, it don’t feel right), to see that I don’t belong

Let's do some more examination on the fully animated version, which seems to provide further insight:

The beginning seems to be confirming that it's Bendy singing for the majority of the song, though it tries to make it look like the “no” is coming from Bendy… highlighted by a switch to sepia, as if we're only seeing it that way because our perception has been altered. Then it seems suggested that it is Audrey who's singing the “one moment drew with ink, the next I feel it coursing through my veins,” except… “I look around to see, reanimated dreams” is accompanied by what looks like footage of BATIM Chapter 2… which is weird… and suggests that maybe we're seeing Henry and/or Joey's memories… *Stares at my notes on Audrey's parentage* Then, “that festered into frights that never drained” is accompanied by all four Butcher Gang members appearing around Audrey… *Stares at my notes on reality editing and children of the Machine* And then “this portal to the past” is accompanied by a shot of the “again & again, around & around” hidden message from BATIM, “has morals I could pass” a Bendy statue from BATIM, “these monsters justify the wrong” a Searcher wrenching a door open to attack, “in hopes to find their song” a Lost One throwing herself against a wall and looking sad, “knowing it's already gone” Dapper Bendy looking at the toy train in his lap all alone…

The first chorus, “catch ya in the credits” is accompanied by Audrey and Dapper Bendy doing a handshake like they're already best pals and teammates, “captivation to this black and white, just don't feel right” the pair walking together to the library in BATIM where Henry saw his first vision that wasn't triggered by passing out from a magic-induced headache or doing something you don't do in a normal playthrough (which suggests that this might've been a point where the script was changed), “when the shadows grimace, all it takes is an enlightened eye to see that I don't belong” Audrey looking at a copy of TIOL (I probably don't have to reiterate, but I'm gonna: the biggest source of info on Nathan Sr.'s abusiveness towards Joey), then Bendy narrowing his eyes and looking over at a projection of the hidden messages from Henry's cell in Allison and Tom's hideout, *stares at my notes on these being evidence that Henry and Allison's story retcons are blatant lies* followed by shots of Carley the fourth Butcher Gang member, several Lost Ones who seem to be sitting at school desks in front of the ink messages Grant scrawled all over the walls of his office in BATIM, *stares at my notes on how the children of the Machine seem to be tryna tell us that Mr. Gray/Grey is being written into the story as a decoy villain partially through highlighting how Nathan Sr. changed Grant's story to fit this pretend history* Porter (one of the most critical parts of arousing suspicion that he and Heidi aren't Audrey's siblings, the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr.'s just tryna make Real Joey look bad), an empty music studio, and Wilson with the invisible ink messages “who is the man behind the monster?” and “you bring death” behind him, which suggests that… maybe a large number of the secret messages we found in BATIM, even ones we thought were just jokes (as many assumed The Mug and the Maiden was), were… being used as riddles by him… Omigosh, guys, read these in the (general) order we encounter them with the idea that – no matter who actually wrote them – Wilson could be using these to talk to us/himself, tell stories, etc. in mind (there's actually way more that sound very, very him, but Tumblr's image limit, so I'm only putting highlights from the beginning and ending here):

This feels like a description of the events of DCTL (especially considering the fact that Wilson used the widow – a “she” – in The Mug and the Maiden to symbolize Nathan Sr. Secret messages relating to Twisted Alice could very well be being used to talk about him… I wonder if Twisted Alice's line “I see you there. A new fly in my endless web” in BATIM was a reference to Nathan Sr., as well? Seeing as Wilson used the King Widow and Lord Amok to tell us that the Memory of Joey is either Nathan Sr.'s puppet or Nathan Sr. himself)…

And then a description of Joey's guilt spiral and calling Henry for help only for his dearest friend to be murdered by Nathan Sr., then Allison trying to be there for him and also getting murdered by Nathan Sr., but Joey being blamed for both incidents just like every puppet always gets blamed for everything that Nathan Sr. orchestrates… Y'know, all that stuff with Sammy and now with Henry's secret messages would explain why it was specifically Henry's axe and seeing tool and a record in the contraband display case, wouldn't it—? Did the Keepers put them there under the Memory of Joey/Nathan Sr.'s orders, or was this another of Wilson's attempts to call our attention to what he was trying to say (“guys please I'm trying so hard but my effing dad keeps silencing me, I'm literally begging you to look into Sammy and Henry for the love of all things good”)…?? Mm! I'm vibrating, again. Anyways, “a cartoon made to dance, had finally got a chance, to never be erased again, now I have been condemned, to the marks from my own pen” is accompanied by a shot of Dapper Bendy gripping his head and looking at Audrey in distress as he melts, then reemerges from the puddle as Freaky Teeth Bendy, the hidden message depicting the soulless Bendy's monster horns and claws that should be around the Bendy clock in Boris's hideout in BATIM behind him…

“*Panting* When you animate, it's so much more than just motion. It's a way of life, an art, a passion. *Crazed giggle* Each tiny movement is an *growly* emotional trigger to the audience. Get it wrong, and you will lose them. You must live the characters to draw them. You must feel the motions in your mind. *Pitch raises to be like the giggle again* Act them out around your room. Today, I'm a clock, a dancing timekeeper. *Giggles again* Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. *Giggles* Watch my movements. *Growly* See my frames of animation! I have so many characters to animate yet. Thousands of frames to go. *Giggles again, but sounding on the verge of tears* But for now, I'm just a clock. *Giggle, sniffle* Tick tock. *Giggle, sniffle* Tick tock. *Sniffly gasp, leading into a crazed laugh that almost sounds like sobbing* Hahahhaha!” ~ Bill Danton, Bendy and the Dark Revival, “Dancing Clock” audio log

Oh, honey… Danton (sorry, sweetie, I gotta refer to you with your surname to avoid confusion) is a personification of the part of Bendy/Real Joey that's in agony playing the villain again postmortem, unable to free himself from Nathan Sr.'s sadistic script even now and, worse, made the key to the resets, isn't he…? Oof… Then, the second “all it takes is an enlightened eye to see that I don't belong” is accompanied by a shot of Wilson and Betty followed by shots of the Memory of Joey in red lighting, Henry in green lighting, Twisted Alice, a Keeper, and the Bendys in black-and-white before they're swallowed by sepia lighting.

“But the reels just repeat, lost the chance to redeem” is interestingly a cut from Bendy saving Audrey from bleeding out on the floor after killing Shipahoy Wilson for ripping her legs off to… the Memory of Joey (I checked, that’s definitely his watch and pinstriped suit) standing looking at Norman’s projector head that we use to reset the loop… *Stares at my notes on the Memory of Joey wanting the cycle to continue being a very bad sign* Ouch, the “when corruption’s defeated, remembrance always dies” line being accompanied by Henry and Audrey-in-Bendy’s-body nodding at each other before resetting the loop hurts so bad… Y’know… now that this brings it up… the parallels to the soulless Bendy saving Henry from the Projectionist only for him to go after the End Reel… which Bendy stole from the vault and hid in his Throne Room… Is this saying that Real Joey was trying to break the cycle through Bendy by making him steal the stupid reel (which might suggest that the reason Henry had a vision when Bendy saved him was because Norman wasn't supposed to be able to see him and Joey briefly connected to Bendy to rescue his friend, now that I think about it), the audio log that came with it was basically the Memory of Joey before Nathan Sr. died and was able to physically manifest in the Ink Dimension…

“It's simply awe-inspiring what one can accomplish with their own hands! A lump of clay can turn to meaning… if you strangle it with enough enthusiasm. Look what we've built! We created life itself, Henry! Not just on the silver screen, but in the hearts of those we've entertained with our fancy moving pictures! But… when the tickets stopped selling, when the next big thing came along, only the monsters remained. Shadows of the past. But you can save them, Henry! You can peel it all away! You see, there's only one thing Bendy has never known: He was there for his beginning, but he's never seen… The End.” ~ (The Memory of??) Joey Drew, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Chapter 5

…created in order to push Henry to reset the loop while making Bendy look like the villain (and indirectly confessing to orchestrating the deaths of so many – Henry included – under his true identity [Nathan Sr.] and what he was planning on the Ink Dimension coverup for Henry's death being?? Please tell me everyone's seeing that line's similarity to Wilson's “None of This ‘Makes Sense’” riddle, the epilogue of TLO, the “Wilson Trying to Make Audrey Into Shipahoy Dudley” scene, and the “Joey's False Confession to Buddy” scene), just like how he did to Audrey coming in with his love-bombing her and making Bendy look like the bad guy for crushing him?? I— holy— woah… oh my…

Audrey: I'm scared. I don't know what's happening. The Memory of Joey: The past doesn't define you, nor the present! In the end, all those years ago, Joey Drew finally succeeded! He created… life. But Audrey, you're so much more than that. You were his family, his daughter. My daughter… and I love you so very much. The Ink Demon: Be quiet. The wretch is mine! The Memory of Joey: Remember who you are, Audrey. Remember! The Ink Demon: Your words are wasted! The failure of Joey Drew dies here! . . . The Ink Demon: *Crushes MoJ with their right hand* Audrey: Noooo! The Ink Demon: *Throws MoJ in the ink* The future is sealed. *Puts their right hand on the floor and does nothing else, as if he just wants to rest* Audrey: *Turns their head to look at the End Reel* The Ink Demon: What do you think you're doing? Audrey: *Picks the End Reel up with their left hand* I'm starting over. The Ink Demon: What? Audrey: This… is the end.

This scene was literally Real Joey fighting to claim his daughter as his effing daughter and break the time loop cycle while Nathan Sr. sneakily directed her attention and affection towards himself to save both his own skin and the accursed cycle!! 🤯 Nathan Sr. has fricking manipulated the script so much— this makes Danton's audio log twenty times more upsetting…!

The “your legacy carries your fate” line is interestingly accompanied by a shot of Audrey and Shipahoy Wilson, possibly alluding that they could fight against Nathan Sr.'s machinations together? And then Audrey says the “but I don't belong to the dark” line back in her office, and the door behind her opens to reveal Dapper Bendy in a grayscale version of it before we're pulled back into the sepia where we see a shot of the soulless Bendy from BATIM for the “catch ya in the credits” and Freaky Teeth looking around like something's wrong for the “captivation to this black-and-white just don't feel right” lines.

“When the shadows grimace” comes with a shot of Shipahoy Wilson, “all it takes is an enlightened eye to see that I don't belong” a shot of Tom pointing behind us where we turn to see Allison Angel and then Henry. Then, that final “to see that I don’t belong, (black and white, it don’t feel right), to see that I don’t belong” line is accompanied by shots of Audrey falling down the elevator shaft like a rabbit hole, Freaky Teeth touching her shoulder and head, and, finally, a shot of Audrey in front of the cork board from Joey's apartment with the items from it that correlated to the ones used to turn on the Ink Machine (including another copy of TIOL!!) floating around her…

Anyone notice that this drawing from the credits of Daddy and Daughter drawing together in their apartment is the only one that's in black-and-white? I dunno about y'all, but this all feels a little too on-the-nose to just be a coincidence…!! 👀

And, finally, everyone probably already knew about this one, but I think it's important to look at this official BATDR song through a new lens:

“Come what may, I'm watching over you, when darkness comes closing in, I'll turn that black sky to blue, I'll always guide you, protect you, I'll never forsake you, you know my heart is always true, so no matter the odds, what lies between us, I'll always be here for you, lost in the shadows, I'll be your light, shining your whole life through, so no matter the odds, what lies between us, I'll always be here for you

I'll always guide you, protect you, I'll never forsake you, you know my heart is always true, so no matter the odds, what lies between us, I'll always be here for you, lost in the shadows, I'll be your light, shining your whole life through, so no matter the odds, what lies between us, I'll always be here for you”

…Fudge nuggets, y'all got me crying, again. 🥲 This is supposed to be a song that our potential Cyclebreakers can sing to each other, including Allison and Tom as pictured in most of the video, Joey and his baby girl as that Bendy-and-Audrey drawing in the middle might be implying, and so on, isn't it? 😭💕 *Deep breath* Anyways…

In conclusion: I do think BATDR is the end of the original story.

I feel like future games will probably focus on what on Earth happens when the children of the Machine move on, what with Gent's return teased in the post-credits scene. But at any rate, while maybe the final story might not have been quite what they originally planned and has changed a few times while BATDR was in development limbo, I wholeheartedly believe that Nathan Sr. is still very much the true villain of the entire Bendy series so far. He's just sticking to what he's good at and staying the heck behind his beloved curtain, pulling everyone else's strings… And I know I said in my initial reaction that the default ending didn't feel like the true one due to all the things that didn't make sense, but now that I've put all my other thoughts into words and mulled things over more, I wanna leave you with this thought:

“We’re ALWAYS free to choose. To believe what we want to believe. But when you step back, when you really look at where you've been, and the things you've done, your past will come… to devour you. *Bendy's growl echoes in the backround, as if another memory*” ~ Audrey Drew, Bendy and the Dark Revival, intro (emphasis added)

“You must be really lost to be asking me for help.” ~ Henry Stein, Bendy and the Dark Revival, Chapter 4

Audrey: Dead end! Now what? Henry: Need some help? Audrey: Henry! You came! Henry: Some battles are worth fighting for… Even a million times. Come on! I found a projector up ahead! Run for it! The Ink Demon: This realm is mine… and the cycle will continue! Audrey: Well then, we'll just have to do better next time.

“My father once told me, that just because we’re born of darkness… doesn’t mean we belong to it. We’re always free to choose. And here, at the very beginning, there’s a choice to make. My father’s cartoon world was now mine. To rule, to watch over, and to protect. I can make the cycle more bearable for my friends inside. But as for me, I’m the first of my kind. Born of ink, but living in flesh. Joey’s world is escaping into ours. So, what’s next? Who can really say?” ~ Audrey Drew, Bendy and the Dark Revival, outro (emphasis added)

I… don't think the default ending is about all the other ink creatures literally escaping into the actual real world with Audrey— except for her fellow children of the Machine, who already exist in-between the two worlds, belonging to both and neither, thanks to their ghostly origins, and consequently can cross over just fine if they so desire. I think it's much more about her choosing to A: acknowledge and accept the Joseph Dempsey (aka Dapper Bendy) part of her dad's story – that while he made mistakes, he did in fact love her and was trying his best to make sure she'd have a better life than he did – remember the memories that she'd suppressed through her dad's Illusion of Living coping mechanism and allow herself to grieve for him and embrace what's left of him, B: possibly get the truth of what Nathan Sr. did to Joey, Wilson, and everyone else out into the world?? That's another copy of TIOL that she's holding!! And C: reject (or “banish away,” as Bendy/Real Joey said in his “The Beginning” and “Something Familiar” memos) what she, like her father, thought was her only option for survival – becoming a monster – after seeing the creature she became torture and eventually kill a being with the face and voice of her loved one (making her realize that this was just as bad a road for herself as it was for him), and to break the cycle of trauma/abuse by taking control of, especially, the real-world memory part of her father's creation (mayhaps it's actually another of those “many wires” mentioned in A Theory about Spaces? It's not quite the real world, but it's also not truly the Ink Dimension…) to make the fact that they're all still trapped in the loop more bearable. Even if they still have to relive many of the events we've seen, maybe she can eventually figure out how to do things like let Henry visit Memory Linda (yes, she gets the honor of dropping the “the” and “of” in the moniker), who may still exist within the Real-World Memory Space, and so on. Maybe she'll even be able to get through to Wilson, someday, and they can rule the Ink Dimension together?

It's not perfect, they're all gonna be affected by what happened to them forever, like trauma survivors in real life. But they're gonna manage. Those who are willing are gonna do what they can and make the most of what they have, do their best to heal and move on. Honestly, even if there isn't a secret Grayscale Ending (which I do still really hope there is— Wilson and Joey deserve better than they got in the default ending and I want so badly to make Nathan Sr. face more-permanent justice)… I think that's a pretty beautiful way to have handled it.

To Read the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Unexpected Part Four