#but i'm trying to create a cohesive story out of existing material

[666writingcafe]

An Emergency

MC

The sound of water running greets Mammon and I when we return to Serenity Manor, which wouldn't be so unusual if it weren't for the living room ceiling beginning to show signs of leakage.

"What room's above this one?" I ask. Mammon stares at the ceiling, appearing contemplative.

"Asmo's bathroom." As soon as he answers me, he begins running towards the stairs, and I struggle a bit to keep up with him. I catch up to him as he's loudly banging on Asmo's door.

"Yo, Asmo! What's goin' on in there?" he yells. "There's a buncha water leakin' into the room below your bath!"

Silence.

"Alright, you had your chance! We're goin' in!" Mammon nearly throws the door open, spilling water out into the hallway.

Not that Asmo would know. He's completely passed out, his body slumped over the edge of the tub.

"Asmo!" Any anger Mammon may have felt before is now replaced with total, unbridled fear. "MC, turn off that water!"

Once done, I kneel next to Asmo and touch his shoulder. I may not be able to fix the bathroom or the leak, but I can at least help him feel better.

"May the vestiges of pain that linger within the demon before me be eliminated," I murmur. "I am the one they call MC; hear my command." White light emanates from the hand touching his shoulder, and within moments Asmo is conscious again.

"What happened?" he whispers to me.

"That's what I'd like to know!" Mammon exclaims before I can answer, walking over to the two of us. "Seriously, Asmo, what were you thinking, walkin' around in this state?! You're lucky me and MC came when we did, or you coulda died in here!"

I don't think I've ever seen Mammon like this, genuinely terrified over someone else's safety. I knew that he cared about his brothers, don't get me wrong, but I had no idea it went this deep.

"I...I don't know." Meanwhile, Asmo sounds like a lost, disoriented child. "I remember waking up incredibly sore and thinking that a bath might help me feel better, but as I was getting in the tub, I felt really dizzy all of a sudden, and..." He takes a deep breath, trying hard not to cry.

"It's okay, Asmo," Mammon tells him. "I'm not mad at ya. Just worried, that's all." He pauses. "Do you want me to get Lucifer?" Asmo shakes his head.

"He's still asleep. I don't want to disturb him." Mammon gently pats his shoulder before turning his attention back to me.

"Get Asmo back in bed," he instructs. "I'll take care of the rest."

~~~

Once I've made sure Asmo's sound asleep, I quietly leave his bedroom. There's not much more I can do in there at the moment, and Mammon might need some help cleaning up.

However, as soon as I turn the corner, I bump into someone.

"Hello, MC."

Solomon?

I didn't hear him come in, and I'm sure someone would have caught him earlier. If not Mammon, then one of the other brothers at the very least.

Except...

His energy's different. Living with Solomon has exposed me to his various moods, and this isn't one of them.

"Who are you?" Not-Solomon smiles.

"Very good," he replies, not answering my question. "You're further along than I was led to believe."

"Answer my question."

"In due time. Just know that I mean you no harm."

"What do you want?" He steps closer to me, and I step back.

"Fair enough," Not-Solomon sighs. "You don't know whether I'm telling the truth or not." He pauses. "The future of one of your closest companions is uncertain. He's standing at a crossroads, so to speak. He can choose to remain as he is or change into something different. He needs your help to decide."

He's being serious.

I should turn away and find Mammon.

But I can't.

"Who?"

"I cannot say outright. That would negatively affect his future. I can, however, help guide you."

"How?"

"By allowing you to observe the past. History often repeats itself, and it's our job to find those patterns and learn from them, use them to inform our future decisions."

He could be luring me into a trap. If I do as he says, I might end up dead.

Not-Solomon extends his hand out to me.

I'm willing to take the risk.

[byghostface]

The way I engage with fandom is by posting art mostly and being happy that ppl like/enjoy my creations, and hoping ppl would stay around. And that should be it because I'm not cut out for talking, one person can only do this much.

I do jump to conclusions too fast for many things out of frustration/anger, and feel sorry for things I have said and the things I do wrong without realizing it. I made the post bc it makes sense to me and the topic has troubled me for a while.

The problem is DC's continuity is messy and the long history of stories for characters is carried out by different writers, and the canon is more flexible in comics. So the dc fandom I see sometimes is pretty much as intense and confusing on canon and fanon, thus creates a divide between people who leaning towards source material and people who mostly rely on fan(second hand) contents (Not inherently bad, but I feel like comic fandom is more intensely having disagreements on character's age and canon contents than other fandoms I had been in before).

I know the fact that multi-shipping, and crack-shipping are not intentionally harmful things, and ppl are free to do it with their own headcanons and adding nuances and so on. Like I personally multi ship batcat and brutalia, I'm not that interest in crack ships unless is bringing by people who loves both characters and have the passion to create it (all excluding pro shipping/pro shipper btw💀).

Being in dc fandom for too long and seeing some recurrent things/behaviors/made-up, misleading stuff from people who are not fans/regular people who had done some sort of research to begin with, and me not being able to put it into words about all the unbearable stuff going around is driving me crazy and started to talk nonsense in my head.

I try to avoid ship war but on Twitter is hard not to see some stuff/cross platforms reposts going on on the timeline. Tumblr ppl use block more so ppl don't like the stuff they see just block, for me I post art and only check flatline tag from time to time (I do block ppl now). Not help my case that I learned how to use Twitter to interact with ppl first more than Tumblr (I'm not a reblog-heavy person).

At first, I tried to only post art because that's just what I usually do with my Tumblr account when being in other fandoms. But I only do fanart still feels not enough to bring ppl in fandom to care for Nika or discuss her in long-term good faith, at least on Tumblr I don't see much before 2024 (I get ppl would change fandom and don't keep the commitment that long).

I admit I don't feel like the best at talking/chitchat, it's easier for me to plan my next drawing instead of wracking my brain choosing the right words to say in English. But then I have the useless feeling that I only do petty art and have no thoughts or emotions in my brain because I don't talk much. And sometimes feeling worse cuz all I draw and talk about is Nika (she consumes my brain and time and it's still worth it to me).

Bat family and Damian fandom exist and already have fans talking about them long before Nika had any fans or fandom for her. Twitter (my mutuals) has been slowly building it, and then here's me on Tumblr barely holding it together, or presenting my thoughts for her cohesively in text forms after 2022. Yet I still have the constant feeling that I'm not doing enough outside of drawing.

And if I don't, hardly have someone who would put up with a small fandom (three to ten ppl max) with the lack of official content (two years in between hiatus for her to come back), and bear the dunked-on from the already existing big fandom (plus ships war)constantly.

So this is me when I started to draw Flatline(Nika) since 2021 ↓

I'm happy now Nika has more fans than used to be. Maybe I won't be as anxious and worried that ppl would misread Nika or take fanon off the rail too much.

Just found out that one person who wants to talk about shipping Nika with Maps has drawn baby Damian in a cage💀

And you expect me to be chill on that information?

(Obviously I'm talking about Nika, cause I'm a Flatline fan. No scratch that, GET A JOB!! STAY AWAY FROM THEM!!!)

Even if you ship Nika with Maps my expectations of your fanon are lower than hell (because you only start talking about them solely for dry shipping, not considering the characters' current state and situations in canon aka you don't care)

Good fanon/projections: 🔺Think for the characters, expanding their interests from the given canon information (I'm talking about working around it because you care for the characters, and you would recognize if there is any awful writing from the racist writer and putting it to rest). 🔺Add your own interests to the characters bc you feel deeply related to them and love them. 🔺Building up their relationship with their family, friends and lovers with care. 🔺Making interesting AU for them to build more for the characters, centralize their relationship with other characters, and have fun stringing the canon information to the AU situation and adding more nuances.

Bad fanon/projections: 🔻Racist stereotypes repackaged as a joke or a gag. 🔻Putting them in weird situations for the sake of angst and intentionally/unintentionally putting a harmful light on other characters (when in canon they would not doing all that sh!t). 🔻Proshipping (incest, pedophile)

Not really apply to crossover fanon (the type that involves other characters from another fandom) on the canon part, cause it usually ignores canon in multiple degrees on the get-go, and the reason why I'm not that interested/invested in it

[mwolf0epsilon]

First off, before everyone comes after my butt with their "No Fun Allowed" and "Cringe" signs, this is in no way something to be taken as gospel or insightful. It's not a prophetic enforcement of canon. It's literally a theory done for fun, and to try to piece the Bendy Crack up Comics into the general and messy lore of the BatIM franchise. 

Most of you get this and don't need a big wordy warning about fanon interpretation, but a lot of peculiar people tend to show up in my ask box hoping to start a fuss over my headcanons and AU ideas, so I thought to be nice and leave a polite and diplomatic "Kindly Fuck Off" sign at the door for them.

With that said, there will be mild spoilers, carry on of your own volition, down below under the cut that will definitely show up because Tumblr mobile is a functional app that's never given me trouble!!!

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[[MORE]]

The Bendy Franchise has an established issue with cohesion in its lore. We all know what I'm talking about, we all have reservations about canonical character discrepancies (game vs novel vs guidebook) and we all have been racking our brains with a few holes in the timeline, as well as how BatDR (which is neither prequel nor sequel) will fit into this, since it's connected to BatDS and that's an established prequel to BatIM.

Granted I myself am missing a lot of pieces, having to scrounge around for info since I can't really get any of the reading material myself and rely heavily on @british-hero (who owns the novel plus got her copy of the comics yesterday), a very incomplete wikie, and analysis and theories from SuperHorrorBro's Bendy videos.

Heck, I also rely on a lot of gameplay footage, because BatIM has a bit of subtle storytelling through visual design of its levels, and hints of how certain characters work through a few game mechanics.

Through this mishmash of collecting puzzle pieces for the greater picture I even have a few notes on my phone to piece together certain events in established dates, something which comes very in handy for this theory since it talks about two particular characters, the Projectionist and Brute Boris (and I guess Twisted Alice to some extent but it's more of a note on some interesting thoughts I have of her).

Without further ado, here's what this theory is all about: Why did Norman become the Projectionist, and why did Twisted Alice turn Buddy Boris into Brute Boris?

If you think about it, there's only two creatures in the studio that really seem out of place in the world of BatIM, and that's Prophet Sammy and the Projectionist. Neither are inherently similar to any of the cartoon characters, nor are they considered to be Lost Ones. They're certainly not Searchers, but while we know Sammy is unique because his method of transformation was different, we never got an explanation for Norman's. It could be that it's a process similar to BatDR's new enemy type that's larger and seems to have bits and bobs stuck to it, but then those big guys seem like the equivalent to Swollen Searchers for the Lost Ones. The Projectionist doesn't really fit the puzzle.

Or at least he didn't.

With the introduction of the Crack up Comics collection, we get three new characters that were definitely designed in the same manner that the Butcher Gang was. Beginning with a corrupt monster forms and then giving way to perfect and pristine rubberhose toon forms.

I'm talking about Miss Twisted, the Brute, and Cameraman.

The villainous trio from the Souper Boris comic strip.

To us it's obvious the artists created them in parallel to Twisted Alice, Brute Boris and the Projectionist, but to the actual canon this actually has a bit of an impact on the Projectionist's existence.

Why, you ask? Because those characters were introduced between 1936 and 1940.

Bendy Crack up Comics table of contents, showcasing the publishing dates of the strips.

For anyone who doesn't know (either from not paying attention to the Joey Drew Studios channel audio logs, or from not owning the books) the Ink Machine wasn't conceptualized or installed until 1942/1943. Putting that into perspective, the only other thing that happened in Joey Drew Studios in 1940, was the conceptualization of Bendyland (which is likely the origin of the idea for the Ink Machine itself).

This means that Cameraman existed well before the Projectionist ever came to be, and that made me think about another thing: The Ink's apparent sentience.

I'll be frank, the Ink is very hard nut to crack. I consider it a form of alchemized entity, others consider it pure black magic, and I'm pretty sure Joey Drew himself had no idea what he was dealing with when he began using it. The fact of the matter is that the Ink is alive and that it has its own agenda. One that coincides with Joey's, out of mutual interest.

In the novels it seems to want to be free, but it can't exactly do that as a formless liquid, so it tries to body-snatch people (ex: Sammy and Buddy's grandpa).

When Joey tries to use it to give life to Bendy through nothing more than using the Ink and a template (likely a character model sheet) the Ink tries to follow the model but immediately becomes a distorted humanoid version of it (which honestly rings so many fucking alarm bells on its own). Things… Escalate there on out, with Joey trying to perfect the method and only managing to succeed through Daniel Lewek (and many other nameless Boris Clones), Allison Pendle and Thomas Connor.

An important thing to take from this, however, is that by trying to perfect this method Joey not only taught the Ink to reshape things into viable referenced material, but that he had to have lost control of just how many souls were being pumped through the Ink Machine for him to monitor and keep up.

Sammy started killing people when he completely turned, and it didn't seem to take long for him to cut down people in likely both the music and art departments. At this point he had no self-restraint and was completely wrapped around inky fingers and Joey's lies. 

Norman is one such potential victim, and Dot and Buddy even passed by his ink-wrapped body while fleeing.

Now, the thing about trying to follow a specific guide and not having the actual means to make it exactly the same thing, is an easy enough notion to get (as shows like "Nailed It", and years of trying to perfect visual style mimicry, have taught me).

The Ink likely had the template it needed (maybe a printed copy of Souper Boris that got thrown around in the chaos), the insight of what Norman's role in the studio was, the amount of mass it needed to consume and transform his dead body, but not exactly the right sort of… Centerpiece for it...

Cameraman using his lens to light up his path.

But what's a projector besides a bigger fancier camera? Both blink, both take film, same thing right? The ink doesn't see the difference and just stitches together this humanoid bootleg cameraman with the pieces it finds that are similar enough.

Mechanical blinky head? Check.

Strange round disc near the belly? There's a speaker. That's round! Check.

Film? There we go, a nice big round reel full of film in it, let's put it near the head, that's how it works right? Check.

Lastly, no Joey to actually direct this artistic recreation of a one-off character. The Ink did it all by itself while he was off getting his hand broken by a rightfully upset Buddy Boris.

If you look at it objectively it makes sense that being the projectionist tasked with not only recording and maintaining the projectors themselves, that the entity in the Ink would pick Cameraman as a template for Norman's transformed self.

It also makes sense that the Projectionist is so off-putting in the studio. He's almost perfect, but not quite because there just weren't the right materials. He's stuck in between Twisted Alice and the Butcher Gang clones as another failed recreation.

Moving on to the next question on why Twisted Alice turn Buddy Boris into Brute Boris, when she hadn't done the same to any of the other Boris Clones.

It's hard to say really, but I think it all comes down to who Twisted Alice really is. It's very likely that, as Susie Campbell, she would have knowledge of the comic strips. A few were most likely made into cartoon shorts even (which isn't an unusual assumption to make), and maybe Susie voiced a few background characters for said shorts.

Susie may have lost her role as Alice, but before Joey came to her with his proposition for the "special project" it's very likely that she remained in the studio, forced to do the voices of characters that weren't noteworthy or that she felt completely disconnected from (talking chairs and singing hens really don't become beloved fan-favourites) . Maybe if the Souper Boris story was made into a short, she might have voiced Miss Twisted (which honestly would be personally insulting considering she once had the role of the main heroine).

Point is, Susie knows her lore, and that translates to Twisted Alice's repertoire of insightful knowledge on the abominations lurking around the studio.

She never did turn other Boris clones into brutish lackeys because at the time she didn't need to. But it doesn't mean she hadn't considered it. Henry's disruptive behaviour is just what she needed to put that plan into motion.

There was already a "Cameraman" walking about, one that could easily rip apart anything it came across, so acquiring the means to recreate the "Brute" would have been benefiting from her point of view. The Projectionist doesn't take orders and can't be reasoned with, so if she could make something just as strong that took her orders she could, theoretically, be safe from most terrors in the studio. If that didn't work, she would still likely send others to their death by simply sending them down to Level 14, or maybe lure the Projectionist to them herself (just because he doesn't take orders doesn't mean she can't use him to achieve her end goals).

Miss Twisted, the Brute and Cameraman in their evil swamp lair.

But why Buddy Boris specifically? Why couldn't she have used any of the bodies laying around? Freshness most likely. Rigor mortis is probably still a thing, even for living cartoons. Easier to work a fresh dead body than a bunch of stiff wolves.

That's at least why I think Brute Boris is a thing. Susie's knowledge of most Bendy cartoon/comic strip characters, taking inspiration from the Projectionist's presence, and honestly a very twisted sense of humor and irony. In her quest to become a Perfect Alice, the heroine of the show, she ended up becoming just as antagonistic (although more sadistic) as Miss Twisted, a Bendy comic strip villainess.

[frogsandfries]

🙄😒 Not again

Once again, I've realized I forgot a step.

Well, I guess not really forgot?

No. Let's face it, I forgot. I didn't even place speech bubbles 🤦‍♀️

Yeah, I got to like, frame twenty-five and stopped placing speech bubbles, let alone placing text or even planning for it. There's at least one frame I'm going to have to edit before turning into a pattern so that I have room for text. There is at least one frame I'll have to edit for compositional reasons.

So now I'm torn: Do I stop trying to update the pixel art, and immediately go back and add in speech bubbles and text? Or do I finish updating the completed frames to pixel art? Maybe I should do a little of both.

I also tried to begin to hold myself to my new agreement to make 1.5 new frames for every frame that I post/queue. So that means I owe myself three more frames from what I got this evening. Actually, I don't remember if I inked this page....

I should sit down with my linework first thing tomorrow. Then I'll be caught up on that. I won't finish my pixel art updates tomorrow, but I sure can start. And once I'm done with that, then I'll go back and add lettering before carrying on with creating new pixel art.

I wish I stood even a remote chance of finishing even three frames a week. I think I'll be lucky to do two and a half most weeks, no matter how much time I pour into it. If I could make eight a week, I could put out the first volume by June....... It'd be really cool to release two volumes of graphic novel pixel art a year. But I'm not going to drive myself punishingly to burnout for no compensation.

It'd be a dream come true if someone would pay me like, six month's wages to just sit down with the project, and maybe they want me to finish the script. So I finally sit down, maybe print out all my notes like I've always threatened, literally cut them up, put them back together and string them into a cohesive script. But that's really silly, because no one even knows the project exists, so why the heck not skip the boring parts that aren't any fun until there's no choice but to do them?

Like, eventually, I will run to the end of my storyboard and I will need to figure something out. I don't currently have the materials to create anymore of the books I made for storyboarding--even if I would now use those books for this format and part of the storytelling process. Eventually, I will run to the part of the story where the pretty, organized narrative ends and there's only a bumpy, rocky path ahead made of metaphorical sticky notes. Hmmmmmmm........ maybe I preempt this part by making them literally sticky notes....... A sticky note can only realistically hold a few sentences, a couple small paragraphs at most.

I feel a bit bad that I don't want to sit down with what material I have and organize it even a little. I feel bad that writing went from a pleasure to......... unpleasant. I feel bad that I'm trying to find as many shortcuts as I can to getting the narrative organized enough to tell a visual story from.

It's easy to feel like I don't need to lay more narrative track because I'll never run to the end of my narrative track. I've been half-assed trying for years and still haven't. At this point, I'm not going to do the journal; my interest just isn't there. So at this point, the only writing I need is for myself, enough material to work from to create a visual narrative.

I know over two hundred frames stand between me and the end of my storyboard, and even though it took me well over a year the first time, to reach a hundred, I intend to bring about the second hundred frames a little faster.

I think there are just too many steps right now. The best thing would be to go back to the very first step in the process. Even though it's boring and tedious and feels like a waste of time, when it's done and organized, it'll be done and organized and won't be looming over me anymore. And just like with the linework, I don't have to get it all done at once. I just have to get it done, and then it's done. I could literally do it the way Ivuoma does the first few episodes of Vega. Just tell the story. Kitty does this. Kitty sees this, Kitty smells this. Sticky notes. We're gonna buy a lotttttttta sticky notes.

There's too many things to do, there's too many layers all at different points. If I can finish layers so I can set them aside, there'll be less distraction and confusion, less going back and forth.