#i have work in 7 hours

[cha-mij]

Apparently I'm a dragonfly.

Darting wings of manganese

Fly solo ‘mongst the swarm

Other colours pair, or blend

And twirl, and dance, conform.

 

To outmoded convention

Of What “always has been”

Ignoring the wings that

Circle freely, unseen.

 

Others purples have entered

The kaleidoscope dance

In harmonic singularity

Meeting only by chance

While the bonded wings dance

Their coupling operation

Their solitary companions

Fear no infatuation

 

Instead they dance together

A gamble of kinship

Purple dragonflies happy

No desire for courtship.

[sugar-free-byproducts]

you'll never guess what game i finally just beat & am being so so normal about

[majoringinsarcasm]

So uh. I watched Madoka Magica for the first time ever tonight. And finished it. And I’m like 35 minutes into Rebellion. If you’re wondering how I’m doing

[mybatimblog]

(this is a fantastic and well-worded post and i will forever appreciate this blog and i wanted to comment on this)

i always thought BATDR was good at showing what the world had been up to while "we" (being Henry, our POV character for BatIM) have been stuck in a cell. Creativity runs wild when the cycle isn't running normally and weird things take place and come up with no real narrative explanation and no connection to the overarching theme, such as the cult of Amok

(this isnt even mentioning the reveal of the city-- how the ink world is so much more than Henry's loop, how the lost ones are so much more than figures who stand around and cry)

Of course, with Audrey, we now have a new POV to see all of this. I feel like a good (if vague and oddly worded) theme for BatDR would be "the discovery of the old and new and trying to make peace between them"

this covers all of the backstory audrey learns about her past, what we learn about wilsons past and his attempt to move into the future with his "better" designs, the future of the ink machine as gent is "going to do something" or is up to something coming in the future etc etc

Alice's situation also kind of fits in, like the "new" alice (allison) had apparently always wanted to make peace with "old" alice (susie)

also all of the characters from the past game are kept separate for the majority of game play and its like we need to leave behind the past to fix the present-- although Henry and the rest do help at the end

sammy's whole situation does not fit into this theme, but then again, sammy was barely in BatDR.

theres also a smaller theme of disconnected fathers (this including Audrey, Wilson, and Bendy) but thats a whole different thing and it's like 3 in the morning so im going to go to bed and hope theres no typos <3

My BatDR Take That Used To Be Hot But I Left It Out On The Windowsill To Cool So You Should Be Able to Eat It Now Without Burning Your Tongue

its not actually that hot, is what im saying

Anyway my BatDR hot take is that BatDR's story is not fundamentally worse than BatIM with one exception; an exception that, for BatIM, covers a multitude of sins:

BatIM has a theme.

I can't presume the intentions of the creators, but if I had to write an essay on the themes in BatIM, it wouldn't be hard to pick one out: the cost of obsession, or even just, the ruin Joey brought on the studio. In the very first chapter, Henry asks "Joey, what were you doing?" and every single thing in the rest of the game revolves around that central question: what WAS Joey doing? Each audiolog is a snippet of the studio's path to this messed up state; each character you meet is someone ruined by Joey. The major antagonists echo Joey's flaws -- obsession with Bendy as more than a cartoon, obsession with perfection, obsession with fame and greatness and legacy -- but even without that, they're also each a picture of how the lives of people caught in the path of Joey's dream were ruined by it. Bertrum, for example, doesn't match the concept of rubberhose cartoons, but as yet another person screwed over by Joey, he fits the central question of the story, so he feels like he belongs here. Ultimately, in a narrative sense, the Ink Demon isn't the story's monster -- Joey is; the Ink Demon is just the consequence of his reckless ambition.

But what's the theme or central question of BatDR?

You can... try to pick out a theme. There's some promising options, because it feels like the story WANTED a theme, stating its emotional intentions more overtly -- "there's always a choice" to leave the darkness and chose hope; family and the struggle of living in a heavy legacy's shadow; or even just good old mewtwo-brand The Circumstance's Of One's Birth Are Irrelevant, It Is What You Do With The Gift Of Life That Determines Who You Are.

I think, even WITH the clumsy execution of Joey's "arc" and Audrey's lack of real choices, any of those could work about as well as BatIM. But unlike BatIM, the majority of the game doesn't tie in. Joey's tour can be considered relevant -- a picture of the family legacy and the "darkness" that Audrey doesn't yet know she's inheriting -- but like, the audiologs and hints and environment of BatDR are mostly teasing the question of What Is Gent Up To, and the takeover of Gent is detached from Audrey's choices, her family, her legacy, and Gent never really becomes a relevant threat to those things in this game. The Cult of Amok and the Ghost Train have nothing to do with any of these ideas. It might've been neat if Audrey had ever considered, "Did my father really drive all these people insane?", a hint of actually having to wonder about the darkness in her past. Even Wilson only barely brushes against these concepts; he doesn't like Joey and he also is trying to escape his family's heavy legacy, but it doesn't really reflect on his actions and we don't find that last part out until he's about to be dead.

There's also the question Wilson poses of "real" people versus ink creations, and what counts as valid "life." It would be an interesting theme with a lot to build off of in this setting, it ties into Wilson more as Wilson seems to represent the opinion that Inky Things Aren't Really Alive, which could've tied to Audrey (as an ink-person who has yet to accept that part of herself) and maybe given Wilson a reason to think it's fine to sacrifice her, it could've even tied to Gent (who don't even seem to value human life) -- but after Wilson asks the question, it doesn't tie into the direction things go. He smooshes a little Bendy, we see hints of his disregard for Betty, and then everyone continues with their plan to destroy the Ink Demon without any further moral quandaries about inky life.

The thing is, when you compare an element like, say, audiologs, there's a lot of differences you can point to -- but I don't actually think Lacie Benton's audiolog is notably better, taken on its own, than Grace Conway's or Kitty Thompson's, and yet tons of people were intrigued enough to flesh out Lacie. None of them are big plot points or compelling characters on their own; Lacie and Grace both give us a little note on what it's like working in the Studio, and Kitty shares a little bit on how Gent's expansion is affecting people. But when Lacie talks about Bertrum trying to make a creepy animatronic, that ties back into Joey's ill-fated schemes that are the point of the whole story. The question we're asking through the whole game is "what happened here?" so the fandom is interested in who Lacie is and what her life was like and extrapolates a whole person out of a couple sentences. But that's not the question in BatDR -- what has Wilson done to the Cycle and the Demon? Why? Who is Audrey really, and why is she here? Telling us new things about the Studio's fate seems strangely irrelevant to those questions, just an attempt to create a Mystery To Speculate On like the previous game did... but what question you're asking and how it fits into your story's main theme, like, matters. I absolutely believe that one clock animator guy would've been in EVERYONE'S crew if he'd been introduced in BatIM, but the context makes a difference; fleshing him out feels less relevant here.

The explanations of how and why Wilson did everything he did are baffling and handwavey, but in and of itself that's not a worse problem than anything else in the franchise -- I STILL don't understand why the Ink Machine needs pipes in the walls or even how it works, there's no good reason for Sammy to believe the Ink Demon will "set him free," most of Alice's motives don't make sense, etc etc etc. But the thing is that in BatDR, the wibbly bit is the closest thing to a central question we have! Wilson, what were you doing? The theme doesn't really explore or connect to that question, so the explanations that are finally tossed our way feel lacking in a way that BatIM's handwaved elements don't. There's a lot about Joey's motivation in BatIM that we can't know, but the heart of it resonates -- Joey wanted something, he was willing to exploit people to get it, and he became obsessed and prioritised that dream at any cost. We'll weather a thousand logistical inconsistencies if it's got heart.

But all of that said.... to be honest, I don't think Lacie overtly fits that theme anyway. Even, like, Sammy is iffy -- we don't really know what happened to him, only that he didn't used to be made of ink and worship Bendy, and now he does. We assume Joey's nonsense had something to do with what happened to him (though the books later assert his influence was indirect at best), because when there's a pattern, we can fill in the blank. So many fan creators found a place for Lacie, Grant, and Shawn in the cycle as butcher clones or lost ones, so many people imagined that Wally must be the Boris we meet, because that would've fit the pattern, the idea that the point of what we're seeing is the downfall of the studio. It's not actually that BatIM did a great job tying everything together -- it's that BatIM gave us a compelling idea and that was all it took to make everything else SEEM like it could find a place to fit. This is what I mean when I say BatIM's theme covers a multitude of sins. There's a LOT of characters in BatIM that don't make sense. There's a lot of inconsistencies and things that just sort of happen without any real reason. Characters don't really have "arcs" so much as different states they happen to be in at different times. But because there's a central question and the story doesn't wander away from it, our pattern-loving human brains will slot in all the pieces and do all the work to make the story feel at least somewhat coherent.

The things that happened in BatDR aren't a whole lot less coherent than BatIM imo, they just don't tie into a bigger theme or any of the questions the story's asking, making "how do they fit into all this" feel irrelevant, making it easier to forget entire sections and harder to get invested in audiolog characters. I think a lot of the other criticisms people have for BatDR's story are very valid, but I also suspect that if BatDR had a more successful theme/central question, then a lot of its flaws would be easier to overlook -- just like BatIM.

[hinamie]

domain expansion

[mythtakens]

9-1-1 + overhead shots

[linoyes]

[suntails]

reality

[autumna-potentia]

Lil angst warning, be careful this Christmas

Blake had just finished gathering the dried herbs off their porch in time before the rain came down. They were all bundled up in an old crate, sitting by the oak door now, left there while Blake stood crouched in front of the stove, his wool shawl left draped over one of the table chairs, watching the time before the muffins he made would be finished on an older alarm clock.

The fire of the stove made the whole cabin pleasantly warm, the scent of muffin filled the kitchen, and the sound of the ticking clock mixed with the pitter-patter of the rain that fell on the window facing the clearing in the forest. Everything else seemed so quiet

And then the alarm clock rang, and Blake woke up in a jump. It took them a few seconds to come to, looking around the room in an attempt to figure out what they had been doing while their phone's alarm went off. They were back in their apartment, sitting at their table with a plastic tablecloth, feet cold from the tile floor, fridge buzzing in front of them, heater warm next to them and their oven still going on with whoever's attempt at making muffins.

And, for a moment, it hit them. For a moment, they could feel their eyes water as they looked in at the pure white walls of their lifeless kitchen. And when that moment passed, they ran their fingers over their eyes and looked at them. They were still dry. They still didn't cry

So they got up, stopped the alarm and the oven, and began to look through their notes to figure out who had been fronting beforehand while the siren of an abulance passed outside their home

[blueskittlesart]

spreads from FEUD, a hand-painted wordless book i did for my book illustration class :)

[alicornze7]

Silly guys goin' on silly adventures:]

@rorydrawsandwrites's puppeteer au but the only difference is that jax gives consent

My contribution to this wonderful au has been long overdue:')

Rambling in tags ehe (cw: ribbun:p)

Well maybe it's not the only difference

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

rough day...

[deoidesign]

"I'm the dog they put with cheetahs to keep them from going crazy in captivity" x "I'm the cheetah that is threatening to go crazy" 4 ever

(I make a webcomic about them)

[skyward-floored]

Whumptober Day 7: Only for emergencies, magic with a cost

Legend again! Legend angst lovers rejoice! And also Time because I love him and Legend as a duo and I’ve barely hurt him so far this year.

Warnings: violence, blood, magic exhaustion.

Ao3 link

——————————————————————————

They always took a lot out of him. Legend’s medallions.

He never said it outright, but Time could tell after the rare occasions that he used them he was always a little more worn out, a little faster to sit down, hands shaking around his sword. The pure magic they used drained him nearly dry, and you didn’t have to be able to sense magic to see the obvious drain on Legend’s energy.

It was a lot like when Hyrule went too far with his own magic. Exhaustion, dizziness, a green potion or two, and a need for a good night’s sleep all obvious markers. Time was glad that Legend rarely resorted to using the medallions, but when he did he trusted the veteran to know his limits.

He shouldn’t have. So far Legend had used all three of them in this fight.

Time slammed his blade into a moblin, and watched in concern as Legend stumbled against a wall, using it for leverage as he stabbed a bokoblin. His face was as pale as the skin of the beasts they were fighting, and Time could see his legs shaking from here.

Trapped in a cave system by a portal spewing endless monsters, they were both exhausted. Magic whispered to Time from inside of his bag, but he ignored it for now, separating a stalfos’s head from its shoulders.

Not yet.

Only if things got really bad.

Time continued to work his way towards Legend, cutting past monsters with both normal blood and black. The majority weren’t infected, but enough of them were that it made the fight a lot harder. A clatter rang through the cave, and Time saw Legend’s sword go flying, torn from his hand by a swing from a poe’s lantern.

Legend stumbled, barely throwing his shield up in time to dodge a slice that would have taken his head off, and Time fought his way towards him even faster. He grit his teeth as he spun through a small cloud of keese, stabbed through a poe of some kind, and then ran forward just in time to block a slice that Legend wouldn’t have been able to dodge.

“Thanks,” Legend gasped, and Time nodded, quickly scanning the veteran before going back to the fray.

Legend was paler than ever, and his hands shook as he grabbed another weapon from his pouch. Time’s eye itched, but he ignored it as he viciously defended the veteran, refusing to think about it. Not unless there’s no other choice.

A roar shook the cave, and Time and Legend both faltered as two lynels ran into view, nostrils flaring. They weren’t Wild’s version of the beasts thankfully, but lynels were tough no matter the breed.

Legend’s eyebrows narrowed, and Time cursed under his breath at the look in his eyes.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said sternly, stabbing two blins at once.

Legend stumbled back against the wall again, and didn’t look at him as he began patting at his tunic.

“No, gotta... use it again,” Legend panted, hands fumbling as he tried to grab the cord around his neck. “Gotta...”

“Legend you can’t,” Time said sternly, throwing up his shield to block a swing. “There’s no way you have enough magic left to use that.” I’d rather use the mask—

“Too many,” Legend shot back, finally pulling the medallion from under his tunic. “Keep coming, gotta clear... clear p-path. Those lynels...”

Time had to look away to slash at some monster he didn’t recognize. “Legend we’ll figure out another way, do not—”

A wolfos lunged for Time’s face and he cried out as it threw him to the ground, fangs snapping at his nose. It bit down on his arm and he yelled, kicking up at it until he knocked it off. Time snatched his sword and stabbed it, breathing hard as the beast fell dead.

Magic prickled in the air, and Time whirled around. His eye caught on the medallion clenched in Legend’s hand, his teeth gritted and eyes screwed closed.

“Legend!”

Lightning crashed into the cave, monsters shrieking as electricity coursed through them. Most of them fell dead to the ground, but Time’s attention wasn’t focused on them.

He was too busy catching Legend as he collapsed.

The veteran crashed into his arms, completely limp, and Time scrambled to pick him up while the monsters that were still standing were stunned.

Blood trickled from Legend’s nose, his arms shaking where he still clutched at his necklace. Time had no idea if he was conscious or not, but he didn’t have time to check right now.

“Legend you fool,” he muttered worriedly, holding Legend tight to his chest, then bolted, leaping past stunned monsters. Legend’s actions had given them a window, and he wasn’t going to waste it.

The strongest monsters were already shaking off the hit, howling in anger as they realized their prey was escaping. One of the lynels had gone down, but the other was already getting to its feet, eyes blazing as they zeroed in on Time.

It bolted, and Time pushed himself to run even faster, stretching past his exhaustion, ignoring the stinging lines on his cheek begging him to give in. He was nearly past the portal, he just had to get outside the cave and find the others, come back with backup—

A different sort of roar came from behind him, and Time whirled, grabbing his shield and deflecting the fireball that burst out of the lynel’s mouth.

He didn’t stick around to see what it hit, but another roar rang through the cave as he bolted away. Legend was still motionless in his arms, and Time held him tight as he leapt sideways from a blade, twisting around another one.

Nearly all the monsters that had survived were chasing him now, and Time dodged and sliced, stabbed and lurched out of the way, all while Legend lay halfway slung over his shoulder.

Then something slammed into him, Time lost his grip, and before he knew what was happening he was on the ground, Legend gone from his arms.

“Vet!” he shouted the moment he realized, and scrambled to his feet, frantically casting his gaze around. And felt his heart stop as he saw Legend.

The veteran was lying motionless on the ground, the lynel’s hoof on his chest.

Time ran, ignoring his aching body, yelling as he sliced past endless monsters. They seemed to swarm to block him, and fear hit Time like a bolt of lightning as the lynel held out a blade, raising it above its head.

It was about to plunge it through Legend’s neck, Time was too far away, there were too many beasts, too fast too thick too many—

His pouch sang with urgency as Time’s eye burned and he didn’t even think as he pulled the mask out and slammed it onto his face.

His world narrowed, power rushed through his limbs. Someone screamed, a monster roared, a blade swung outward.

A spray of black.

Another scream.

Pain.

Then nothing.

(...)

Link floated.

He had a vague sense of moving, of muscles being used, his sword swinging in wide arcs. Muffled sounds reached him, but nothing distinct. Nothing clear penetrated the strange whiteness he was swaddled in, and so Link drifted, exhaustion keeping him under.

“...an...”

He stirred.

The whiteness pulled at him, cottony and safe, but Link pulled away a bit, listening.

“...ol...m...”

That sounded familiar.

The deep white pulled more insistently as he tried to listen more, sticking to his limbs, crooning and urging him to just sit back, let go, rest for a bit longer. But Link was waking up more by the second, and he began to struggle, pulling against the magic he could feel clinging to him now.

“...ime...”

Link had a vague awareness of his limbs now that he didn’t have before, one gripping something tight, his eyes staring at something. There was a greyish figure, too indistinct too make out, but the shape looked familiar.

The sight of it made something in Link’s chest pound, and he felt suddenly aware of the mask on his face, pressed tightly to his skin, meshing seamlessly with the markings on his cheek.

“Link...com...ack...”

Link raised a hand, the cottony magic turning sharp, wailing at him, begging him to stay down, stay safe, sink back into the protection he could offer, but Link fought past it.

“Almos...ere”

He raised his hand higher, ignoring the siren song of the magic coursing through him, vision still indistinct and washed out, then caught his fingers on his chin.

Then Time fell to the floor, the world snapping back in a wash of color, the clatter of a mask hitting the ground like thunder in his ears.

Time could only lie there for a moment, breathing harshly as his vision wavered. He felt exhausted and drained like he always did after giving in, and looked over at the mask, grimacing as pain streaked across the scar on his face.

Every time it was harder to let go.

“T...Time?”

Time turned his head the other direction, and saw Legend lying a few feet away, eyes half-lidded and full of worry. It was then Time realized that the cave was eerily quiet, and he slowly blinked, trying to get his vision to focus.

“They’re... gone?” Time croaked, and Legend nodded, dried blood coating his upper lip.

“All gone,” Legend breathed, his eyes sliding closed.

He coughed weakly, and Time dragged himself across the floor with shaking limbs, his eye burning. It took him a long time, but he finally managed to lean himself against the wall, and pull Legend’s head onto his lap, the veteran nearly limp as he moved him.

His vision was swimming enough that he couldn’t get a good look at Legend, but he was alive, and not suffering from any grievous wounds as far as he could tell.

It had been worth it.

Time closed his eyes, trembling with exhaustion as his breath wheezed. There was a sharp feeling in his ribs, his leg— he could smell blood, both monster and not, and he was sure he was coated in it. But he was alive. Legend was alive.

They’d made it.

“Hyp... hypocrite,” Legend whispered, and Time cracked an eye open, looking at him.

“Hm?”

“Hypocrite,” Legend repeated, giving him an exhausted glare. “You... chewing me out for... magic, then... using that m-mask.”

Time breathed out a laugh, and let his eye slide closed again, resting a hand on Legend’s head.

“You’re right,” he admitted, voice fading. “But... I don’t regret it.”

“Me neither,” Legend murmured.

Time ran a trembling hand through Legend’s hair, and the veteran didn’t resist, further relaxing into his lap with a sigh.

It wasn’t long after that that the both of them passed out, Time’s one hand in Legend’s hair, the other still holding tight to his sword.

[siphisket]

Get Spr(ule)onkd

[stresslitzia]

Here in a sanctum long abandoned, Unto the tinder falls a spark. I have a holy call to answer, to be an Angel of the Dark.

(Sparkle on, btw)