#kindlybeast

[salpho]

We need to talk about what happened with Mike D.

For those who don't know, Mike D, co-creator of Bendy, has stated that Thomas Connor is a white man. He's done this before with Norman Polk, too. Because of this, drama has arose which led him to make his account private, and shortly after, deleted.

This thread on Twitter gives details of what happened, screenshots provided for those who can't view it below-

I must state as a disclaimer that no matter what he's like, past or present, we should not seriously be wishing death on him. The person who said they wished death on him has since retracted their statement, as said and shown in the thread above.

The two characters, Thomas and Norman, were nearly universally agreed upon to be black men, and have been implied and coded to be black through their voices, their interactions with other characters (especially in the books) and likely many more things I've missed, only to then be revealed to be canonically white.

Mike D has also stated (correct me if wrong) that he believes minorities are forced, unless the character's identity helps the story. Think of Buddy from Dreams Come To Life being Jewish, and how his religion effected his story.

This is erasure. The fact they decanonised the books that show these important interactions, the fact they led us on, being told your identity or race must serve a purpose in fiction, is all erasure. If you are part of a minority and see a character like you have that part of them stripped away or forgotten, it sends the message that people like you must be censored and eradicated, especially knowing how many minorities were treated historically. Being told minorities are forced unless given a greater purpose in storytelling reinforces the idea that being part of any minority is abnormal and thus, wrong.

TheMeatly has recently addressed that the cutouts used in all games post-BATIM had (accidentally) stolen fanart and plans to use a new texture in future games. This is proof that he has improved as Bendy merchandise has used fanarts without permission years ago.

In contrast, I have yet to see Mike D improving on any of his past actions. I really do hope he does, but right now, things do not seem hopeful. He must understand the messages he's spreading, intentional or not, and improve.

EDIT - There are actually some signs regarding his improvement in other areas. When the KindlyBeast team was laid off, he did make an apology post for them, and his "We make stupid games for stupid kids" quote doesn't seem to apply seeing the M ratings newer games are getting. Courtesy to the other Bendy wiki staff to giving me these points.

However, I do think there's still an issue with how he views minorities. Here's to hoping for the best.

[charlidrawz]

Got bored and decided to attempt a sketch of Bendy =^uwu^=

∋━━o(｀∀´oメ）～→

Art - @charlidrawz

Bendy - Joey Drew Studios (KindlyBeast | theMeatly, Mike Mood)

[adobe-outdesign]

william-ba

Oh my God Mike Mood has turned into a literal Disney villain. What is this? Is this even real? I heard it’s hidden within the code, and since Mike’s the code guy it makes sense, but, like, what’s the point. I’ll see if more people end up finding this but this is genuinely so goofy.

Yikes.jpg

[venolfy]

„Ink is calling us, my dear...”

I really like Wilson! Even when he was broken into little pieces. Kinda funny when you think about that xD (I really laughed after that scene. I'm bastard)

[idkplzhalp]

Hi I'm making a list of Showdown Bandit things that seemed to be reused in BatDR since Kindlybeast kinda killed off Showdown Bandit but they haven't seemed to forget about it.

First in Showdown Bandit there's a character named Betty and in BatDR there's a Betty, so I wonder if they're related somehow? Like if SB Betty was repurpossd into BatDR Betty. Maybe that's why her name was revealed first??

(Notes are SB Betty lore we got. Betty's only visual appearance was her body being trapped behind the bookcase if you find it ☹️)

Betty in BatDR is also the first Puppet-esque character we've seen from Bendy since Showdown Bandit's cancelation. ALSO kind of a stretch but Betty's talk about "most can't speak or are completely mad" parallels Showdown Bandit in which their whole thing is about the eyes and how you'll go crazy if you look up so some puppets just straight up removed their eyes from insanity.

I'm sure there are better examples than this but the posters also have a similar style

We have a character writing down door codes so they don't forget

I'll add more similarities as I find them lol that's all I got for now

-

Update: in Bendy Fade to Black, there's a young girl named Penny! There is a character called Penny Hemsworth in Showdown Bandit.

[estercity]

I think everyone should have their like Cringy qoute unqoute comfort indie horror that got way too popular. Showdown Bandit and Hello Neighbour sorry for what they did to you guys

[archer-kacey]

TW: Death Wishing

This shit is not okay, and this person should have known better. That being said, Mike was also a huge manchild in this situation and handled it abysmally.

I have voiced my issues with the Bendy devs in the past. Let me first clarify that my issues lie with the way they handled Bendy as a franchise, not with their personal lives. I've only ever meant to criticize their actions concerning Bendy, Showdown and Kindlybeast, as there hasn't been any movement on the public front concerning conversation with fans about several things that have happened, making it hard to believe that the mistakes they made won't be repeated or won't grow like a hydra.

However, it isn't acceptable to hop on Twitter or any public platform and wish death on someone. I don't know how old this individual is, but unless they're 3 years old they should be able to grasp the concept of not publicly wishing death on another person.

But of course, to add another layer to this, Mike handled this poorly and reactionarily, and I'm starting to get fed up with his behavior as a developer with a large online presence.

As you'll notice, Mike quote retweeted this individual onto his main account. This led a rabid section of his fanbase to go after this user, causing them to private their account and leave "imsorry" in their bio. While I do agree that some of this fallout is just natural consequences, Mike is a public figure who has had YEARS of experience and practice navigating these types of issues. While death wishing/death threats are NEVER ACCEPTABLE, Mike should also know that blocking this individual could have also solved the problem instantly. Instead, he aired this out publicly and knew damn well that a rabid portion of his fanbase was going to try and fight his battles for him, and subsequently opted out of Twitter (as indicated in his response.) Let's also not forget that Mike has a history of volatile internet presences that generally end in him deleting (for example, his old Twitter, or even just the old Reddit AMA where comments were deleted and unnecessary drama cropped up.)

Two things can be true at once- this random Twitter user should NEVER have made that post, and Mike should've handled the situation better seeing as he has YEARS of experience under his belt. Mike and Meatly keep repeating the same damn chronically online bullshit, and frankly I don't know why people keep giving them a pass in that regard. It's frustrating.

I don't expect Mike or TheMeatly to ever like me or consider my existence. Even so, I'm hopeful they conduct their personal lives in a much better manner and have good relationships with those around them.

I try to keep my finger on the pulse of the social side of Bendy, but I'm starting to get worn down at the lack of change for the better and the increase in dramatic outbursts.

[spinaroos-47]

Batdr is fine. When you take only the game itself into account but yeah its pretty much impossible to remove it from all the context of what went down with the studio. Buuuut Im not well versed on that and i want to talk about some stuff about the game in itself.

Batim used to be a spin some years ago, from before i even created this blog. So i kinda wanted to check it out, just out of curiosity

Gotta admit, i had a better time watching it than i thought id have. Though i literally just finished watching a playthrough a few hours ago so my opinions might change in the future, probably will be my only post of this game here

Out of the gate i have to say, i didn't really like the talking animations. Like, the gestures dont feel like gestures you do when you're talking with someone. Theyre too floaty and simmetrical. A good example of the floaty thing is in the intro where Audrey is tapping her fingers on the desk. Doesnt look super right.

The style took me a while to get used to. I was more fond of the style in the first game but it grew on me. They really expanded on the style, made it more detailed and really worked with the sepia and black in a way to give everything a lot of depth while still keeping it cartoony. Dont know how to feel about the addition of new colors.

The story was pretty interesting! I do like how they messed with the concept of the loop without outright conflicting with the canon Batim estabilished. It makes sense, its very interesting! I liked the flow of the story, but i did get a little ehhhh when it began showing that Audrey was trusting Wilson to do the right thing. Because like, the man fucking drowned you and trapped you in an inky hellscape. Even when you dont know his plans, why would you trust him? Yes, he's a familiar face but still doesnt make sense.

Joey making Audrey is something i really liked for some reason, its very interesting. Maybe because of the toh brainrot fjdndnf. Though it does contradict his line at the end of Batim where he says that Henry got a loving family and he only got a crooked empire. There was a lot of small things from the first game that they seemed to forget or just contradict, which is odd because there also was a lot that was consistent.

One thing that didn't sit well with me was how more at the end it seemed to go in a direction of showing how Joey changed for the better, but never really adressed all the workplace abuse and overall shittyness he brought onto his employees. Though what else could we expect from the kindlybeast?

For a while i was thinking they would pull the "oh the loop is better than the world Wilson has made" and while Wilson's whole dictatorship thing was very bad, i don't think the loop was good either. So i like that it was framed more as something that really couldnt be changed without being paused and put into stasis like Wilson did. Neither is good but one keeps the balance of that world, and Audrey is doing her best to make it more bearable.

Also Audrey basically managed to get Joey's wish from the first game, to bring the cartoon characters to life in a good way. But the credit scene with Gent taking the ink machine intrigues me. Because wouldn't she need it? She found another way to do that?

It suffered the same thing as Batim where some stuff was just brought up and not expanded as it kinda led you to believe. Actually it felt even more here, Batim felt more tightly packed in the story department. The father thing with Wilson felt kinda out of nowhere/underdeveloped. Like, if you dont pay much attention to it, it doesnt hurt much but it sure is weird.

Im not a really well versed guy on gameplay stuff, and i watched a playthrough instead of playing the game myself, but the problems in the first game seemed to be improved in this one. Definitely didn't get all solved some of them, but improved for sure, especially the combate.

When Audrey got the flow hability i realized they were sticking close to a formula like dishonored, with that and the way they did all the collectibles (the batteries, slugs, etc), which i think it might have been a good choice since dishonored is considered a pretty good game.

So, yeah, a fine game, though the enjoyment is tainted by the irl stuff that revolves around the game and the studio

[sammylawwrench]

nvm this is both a bendy and a meatly blog now i lost the ability to draw

i am not the biggest meatly fan, I'll sadly have to give that title to our beloved(slash sarc) michael mood due to the earliest interactions of them i can find being on meatlys comics

the last one is about beastkindly(a kindlybeast parody acc on twt, it has alot of basically offensive media but i was fixated on that for a while too so i will reference everything i know about it.)

also uh don't come at me for the fourth picture.....im not watching the WHOLE 4 hour video, i watched a few hours but ive been hyperfixated on meatly for a long time and i apologize but i can't just ruin my mood mid-hyperfixation. he may have done horrible things too but from what ive watched and heard nothing noteable comes to mind except defending mike basically which brings me to my point of why i MIGHT be hypeficated on their friendshi

[bendyandthetalesoftheinkmachine]

Hello there. this is snow. I'm now co-running this account with ash and as you saw in their post I'm also co-writing comics with them right now. we might not have any comics up for a bit seeing as were just in the beginning of writing the first batch of comics. they'll be mostly short comics for the time but perhaps that'll change once me and ash are at a comfortable spot with our skills to maybe go for some longer comics. at some point we will also be dubbing our own comics. I might personally look to see if I can get others to help voice in some of the dubs but I don't foresee any dubs coming out for awhile. don't worry this account wont be completely silent for long periods of time we'll try to give sneak peaks of wips from time to time. at least to keep everyone awake

I MUST MAKE THIS CLEAR. Bendy and the tales of the ink machine is not official in any way shape or form. were just making goofy lil stories of our ocs and of joey drew studios characters.

I'm only put this disclaimer cause I've heard joey drew studios/kindlybeasts has/had a tendency to take down fan projects. they said in the past fan art is fine but I'm just taking extra precautions

-Snow

So I’ve made the decision to change this blog, since I’m apparently not equipped to keep up with an ask blog. I’m not deleting it, but it’s gonna be very different from now on

A friend of mine and I have decided to start writing collaboratively and are writing together to make comics! And I figured that could be a better way to get some use out of this blog. We’re going to post art, comics, and probably some writing/musings based off our Bendy rp and with a heavy focus on our OCs and their interactions with canon characters. Most likely we’ll be mainly posting comics we make together.

So if you want to see what we’ve both come up with then stick around and have fun, I’ll be closing out the inbox and changing things up for a little bit.

-Ash

[salpho]

Has anyone else noticed how bad quality control from JDS has become ? Like. First the graphic novel, then the Jakks Pacific toys being a huge mixed bag, and I recently saw a subreddit post where some kid had their Bendy shirt torn apart from a light tug from their friend.

Is this not worrying ? They have "half a dozen" projects in the works according to Mike D. (his youtube post below)

I've seen a lot of fans bootlicking the graphic novel and merch despite all of this, specifically on posts saying their products are bad quality/overworked artists etc. Let's also not forget their past with using fanbuilt art in merch when the artists never saw a single penny of the profits.

This is relevant so I'll plug this, but I'm planning a collaborative DCTL graphic novel redraw as a protest against the low quality graphic novel, Mike D's behaviour and schoolastic's abuse of artists. See "#dctl redrawn" to see more and what you could do to help/take part.

[adobe-outdesign]

Hey, I know a joke! A spoof game about the state of indie mascot horror, coming from a man who released a buggy cobbled-together heartless version of a game that originally had more content and integrity (Showdown Bandit), fired ~50 employees during a pandemic without warning, released the first merch wave for BATDR in 2019 and left a very loyal and caring fanbase almost completely in the dark until the game's release in 2022, and never spoke a word publicly about any of this :)

[venolfy]

Warning!

Be aware that wide smile Audrey can obsess your soul or give you the worst nightmares!

I'm not responsible for your treatment! (And yeah, i'm literaly on my treatment)

--------

I tried to create perfect smile for Audrey.

It's what I know, models don't have a face bones and flexes not working in program which i use, so I tried to create an other alternative!

On second pic: Down teeth are there. It's just too dark to see them. Sorry.

[xaieia]

I'd argue a little bit of Kindlybeast's/Joey Drew Studio's (the Bendy dev people) behavior later on kinda falls into mascot horror-y behavior tho initially it wasn't that

no but seriously mascot horror doesn't mean "any reasonably popular horror game about or with an emphasis on a central character with an appealing design" especially just because kids might also like it. people in the notes of that post are just throwing literally any game under the bus of that identifier not realizing that most of them far predate the marketing concept a lot of developers are using now to draw in specifically young children with unsupervised online access by designing cute and appealing characters within insubstantial and casual horror-flavored games that are easy for let's players to make videos of that are also backed by a strong merch campaign right out of the gate to generate easy sales from kids who want a plush of this new flavor of the month character.

baldi's basics is not mascot horror. fnaf is not mascot horror. tattletale is not mascot horror. bendy and the ink machine is not mascot horror. none of those games were designed to capitalize on and take advantage of the wild imaginations and curiosities of a very young audience and no matter how you feel about those games their purpose for existing is not "we need to hold the attention of 5 year olds watching youtubers play the game on their crusty ipads because we think kids are an easily exploitable audience unworthy of anything better than a playable ad campaign"

[freddybully]

>SAMMY LAWRENCE, THAT'S MY NAME. MY FORMER BODY IS WHAT I'LL RECLAIM.

rbs appreciated :D

[sketch-purple]

Faceless bandit

Yeeeee