#the violinist dctl

[reanimationstation]

more batim book characters! this time some of my favorite side characters, some important ones, and some that literally could not have a smaller role with still being in the book.

the first picture is my personal favorite strange side character from DCTL, the infamous Violinist. i support women's wrongs. the second is the Art Department whom i love <3

the third pic is mostly TLO side characters! Plus Miss Rodriguez from the other two books, and Toby from DCTL. as you can see i am normal about Miss R and Scott

[angelcat123]

So....

As some of you might have known I have made a rant post about how the violinist from dreams come to life is underrated as hell and how it sucks that she's just been forgotten by the entire fandom.

I read Bendy: Fade to Black, and there is one little part in the entire book that stands out the most...

Spoilers for Fade to Black.

Unless you have read the book, I recommend you do not read this.

For context: Rose and Dot talk in the cafe and Dot explains her motivation, and her backstory with the studio.

Dot:

Rose:

"'I wanted to know everything. I wanted to see inside every locked room. I wanted to know why the strange things that were happening at the studio were happening. Why that woman died.'

'Woman?'

'A musician. She was found dead. Covered in ink.'

(page 199)

Guys.

Dot was talking about the violinist in that scene.

The woman who died, that was a musician, covered in ink, was the violinist.

Now, I know this isn't a big deal, considering that she was only mentioned once, but it's better than freaking nothing!

It shows that Adrienne Kress hasn't forgotten her, and the violinist has inadvertently given motivation to Dot to learn about the secrets of the studio!

Albeit not as much as Buddy, I'm sure..

but still!

Woooo! The violinist is not forgotten!

[rainbowspinch]

Girls night

[angelcat123]

Congratulations! You made me think of a random detail in bendy and the ink machine and now you're making me cry!

Take the dang reblog because my heart is going to break!

The Ink Demonth Day 6 : Instrument

Ever Wonder Why Jack Had That Violin In His Office?

[inkdemonapologist]

OK, I was reading through past posts about the escape au. What's all this about Sammy being a murder suspect? I understand him being ex-prophet, but that was ink people... right?? Right???!!!

NOPE. This is based on book canon; in DCTL Sammy is responsible for murdering Norman Polk and at LEAST two animators in preparation for his attempted demon-appeasing ritual. Sammy disappeared for some time just before he went full murder-cultist, and was actually reported missing, so THE POLICE SHOWED UP AT JDS to investigate...

I think BatDR has pretty effectively jossed this, but I also had a headcanon at the time I created Escape AU that Sammy had been responsible for Jack’s murder, as well. They were so close, why would Sammy NOT want to make Jack a part of the salvation he’d found?

I haven’t read Fade To Black as of yet (I'm hoping to read it pretty soon so do not send me FtB info please lmao), so no idea if this gets addressed there, but like 4 or 5 people disappearing mysteriously immediately after police were tipped off about a missing person seems REAL HARD to make fly under the radar, and once you’re investigating you might run into other missing people (Jack, the violinist) who were connected to JDS, too. But somehow JDS didn’t get shut down for any crime reasons, it just went bankrupt. So… I think the easiest possible way out would be if the disappearances ended up pinned on Sammy. Lots of people saw him acting explosively volatile before he stopped coming into work, he already had A Reputation for being Very Strange even before the ink, and it sure would not be hard to imply the tragedy of a Mad Genius who must’ve just Lost His Mind And Finally Snapped for reasons definitely completely unrelated to workplace conditions. Even if Joey didn’t lean the narrative in this direction himself, SURELY it would be a suspicion, at least in retrospect? The police ask questions, nobody is particularly kind to Sammy’s character and likely paint a picture of someone who is absolutely the kind of guy who would murder a bunch of people. He stops coming into work, makes a huge mess of his department, and then 4 people disappear. Joey shuffles the ink machine to New Jersey for a lil bit for ““““““repairs”””” and the police are able to investigate JDS to search for bodies they will never find. It’s a cold case, but like… Sammy would be your biggest suspect, right? Because it’s not Joey! He’s eccentric in DCTL but he’s not MURDER eccentric! And the music director was SO clearly troubled. You’d just kind of assume that Sammy probably did it and if we had ever found him, we might know more about why and how he did it.

So I think if Sammy Lawrence in Escape AU turned up in the public eye again, that would immediately be the question: Did you kill all those people? And the answer isn’t quite “no,” ("I did, but I was under the influence of magical demonic ink") and Sammy is, unfortunately, incapable of answering this question in a way that doesn’t make him sound very suspicious.

[reel-fear]

New DCTL Graphic Novel Pages Look Bad

Whose surprised? New ones got released just today, they're bad too! Look at them under the cut while I ramble a bit

Dot's skinny and generic looking, that's a shame but at this point I'm not surprised but dear god is someone allergic to establishing shots here? It's so hard to keep track of where the characters are, I feel like they just keep teleporting around and I have no idea where anything is in relation to each other?

Also yikes that pig nose Buddy gets in what I assume is an attempt at him looking up? But none of his other facial features inticate that sort of camera angle.

Violinist seems to have just, teleported in, alongside an ink demon that looks stupid [the pose is weird n wonky the proportions look awful] and is the wrong design! So time to become a lot more annoying about how bad BATDR's ink demon design is,,, great-

I like how lively and wispy the ink looks though, very much feels alive in a way I like. Violinist is creepy even though I have no idea what's going on [where she came from, what those poses are? What is even happening here tbh] Everything else though,,, the piss yellow colors used with only pure white highlights + pure black shadows, the fact it's not even sketchy or remotely close to Batim's actual art style [despite how confusing it is they chose to stick closer to batim's when they already retconned the ink demon design from that, why not go the full way and let the pallete be more diverse like BATDR's at that point?]

It's bad, dear god... Can we all agree to just pirate the shit out of this instead of finachially rewarding Mike n Meatly for overworking and underpaying this poor artist? They don't deserve to have this shit stain on their portfolio when all they probably needed was more time to work on it to make it better and read the book to actually Understand the characters, etc.

To put bluntly my expectations have reached the floor, sadly Mike and Meatly are very good with shovels so I ended up upset anyways.

[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!

[sammylovesbendy]

any1 have the snippet in dctl about the goth violinist that i based adelaide on

[iamblueraspberry]

My design for the violinist from BATIM Dreams Come To Life!

Reblogs > Likes, though both are appreciated!

[borkha]

Did this at 3 am, don't-

[inkabelledesigns]

Day 6: Instrument. 

A short one this time around, but sweet none the less. Today the Poet reminisces about the violinist, one of the earliest victims of the Ink Demon. I wonder, what do they know of her?

Sound Effects: 

https://freesound.org/people/AldebaranCW/sounds/132029/ 

https://freesound.org/people/YourFriendJesse/sounds/471007/

Poem:

The Violinist 

By: Kat Alyst 

Have you met the violinist?

Her skill is simply divine. 

With a zing and a zang

And a playful twang

Her notes come out to shine.

A prodigy on her instrument,

Mr. Lawrence held no doubt.

So why is it that no one heard her

When she gave her final shout?

Well, I shouldn’t say no one. 

I hear there was one soul that bore witness to that event. 

But who knows where he ran off to?

What a pal he must’ve been. 

At any rate, 

I can’t demonstrate

Just how wonderful she was.

Her eyes so soulful,

Her technique rehearsed,

Her heart bleeding with music.

Sammy knew he had a masterpiece

When he had her there to coach.

Even if he can’t remember it,

From his side she can’t be poached.

Even drowning in the ink, she plays on. 

Stays on,

Continues on with her brilliant melodies.

She puppeteers the strings 

With what few digits she has left.

A shame she’s been forgotten,

For so few recall their names,

But The Violinist, I think,

Is a nice title for her fame. 

[inkylegacy]

tried my hand at designing that creepy violinist lady from dctl, going off of a quickly scribbled silhouette

[angelcat123]

Here's a thing I noticed:

Note: This has spoilers for the bendy novel, dreams come to life.

Come back here if you finished the book, or you just don't care about spoilers.

So, in dreams come to life, there was this character known as the violinist. She is a very small mysterious character, and she only has two scenes. (Edit: three scenes. The third being in the middle of her introduction and death where she is just waiting outside the music department) One where she is introduced, and the other where she dies, and no one ever talks about her death. Basically how she died was by having her neck snapped 180 by the Ink Demon, and once again, no one talks about it.

A lot of bendy fans I see online talk about how the ink demon is just a "really sad cinnamon roll who needs to be protected at all costs," or "A grumpy boy who needs therapy." No one sees the way he really is; (or just my interpretation, idk at this point) A sadistic, narcissistic bastard who will kill everyone who gets in his way, and the violinist, specifically with her death, proves that very well.

I specifically think that in her death, by having her neck snapped, the ink demon was trying to shut her up and not give away his position. "'he's here' rasped a familiar voice. The head twisted suddenly and then its body collapsed in a sickening thud against the wood." (Page 203)

Right after this Buddy and Dot looked up, noticing she fell from the ceiling, but after this the violinist's body isn't there anymore, neither is the Ink Demon.

Most people I've seen talk a lot about Buddy's death in the book, mainly because it's the death of the main character, but nobody really talks about her, nor acknowledges her existence, and I feel so sad about it.

There needs to be more content for the violinist. Maybe fade to black will do that.

[halfusek]

A lil gift I made for Alicia Michelle for a secret santa event ✨

This is her version of the Violinist from DCTL~

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Bendy Writers AMA - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

We got a confirmation that the Illusion of Living was written in 1942 and all of the text, with the exception of the footnotes, was written by Joey.

This date is very interesting, for two reasons:

This means that the book was written during the time when Joey first got the idea for the ink machine. The work on the machine began in 1943, and the work on Bendyland started in 1940. The idea of the ink machine occurred to Joey at some point between 1940-1943, most likely after seeing Bertrum’s designs for the Bendyland mascot costumes. The book could potentially explain to us where Joey got the evil magic ink from, as DCTL implies that it’s an invention that he stole from someone.

The second reason why this date is interesting is because Joey specifically mentions Jerry Lewis in the book. And if the book was written in 1942, that means Joey knew who Jerry Lewis was 3 years before the man’s first notable performance. This could, of course, be just an error that will be fixed when the book is fully released. But it could also support the theory that the time loop in the studio goes further back in time than we thought, and Joey has memories of the previous loops.

We also have some very interesting description of Joey’s character: while he lacks empathy, he genuinely believes that everything he does is for the good of humankind. This could imply that Joey’s final monologue to Henry was genuine: he really did think that Henry would succeed at freeing the trapped ink creatures. Boy, was he wrong about that!

(on a sidenote, Adrienne confirmed that she enjoys fanworks and that Joey Drew is her favourite character, which makes it likely that she could be a fan of Abomination. Aren’t we all? ;)

We have an explanation for why the studio in the game looks different than the studio in the DCTL novel

Turns out that my theory was correct, and the studio's layout has changed drastically after Joey bought the theater. This isn’t merely a cartoon world with cartoon physics - Joey really did build all those underground areas!

This would also support the theory that the “GENT fellow” from Shawn’s audio log in BATDS was indeed Wally, rather than Thomas, as Shawn was working at another location before the end of DCTL. It would seem that Wally was hired as Thomas’ replacement after the man was fired. That might explain why some of the ink machine designs have his name on it.

There is another Bendy book planned for the future, but it will likely not be “Sent From Above”

No other details are know at this time.

The Bad:

BATDR has been delayed

The banner on the official JDS website has been changed to remove “coming soon in 2020″ to just “coming soon”, which indicates the game will come out in 2021 at the earliest.

Dot is not coming back

Turns out she was created so the novel would have a strong female character. It’s unlikely that she will appear in the game. This is really sad, as Adrienne did a great job making her feel like a relatable and interesting character.

Some fans are bringing up stuff from my theories as if it was canon

This is embarrassing ;/

The Woolly Triplets don’t have canon names and the Violinist doesn’t have a canon backstory

Disappointing, but at least it’s a confirmation that the violinist isn’t Susie.

The Ugly:

A significant number of questions politely inquired about the possibility of LGBT characters in the Bendy universe. Every single question at the AMA was answered, with the exception of these.

There is no way to explain it away as a coincidence, it’s a deliberate choice, though the writers were likely under pressure from the higher-ups to give no acknowledgement for these questions. It’s absolutely appalling to see this in this day and age, when it’s due time for LGBT content to not be treated as some kind of controversial taboo that should never be so much as mentioned. You’d expect at least a token thumbs up for LGBT headcanons at the very least, yet not even this bare minimum has been provided. Shame!

I have considered boycotting the AMA in light of this situation, but I’ve ultimately decided against this. Silence rarely leads to a change, but spreading awareness might.

[adobe-outdesign]

DCTL Liveblog: Chapters 1-3

Man, I miss the days when I could be excited for stuff like tie-in novels instead of just being terrified that they’re going to suck.

I can’t help but compare this to the FNAF novels, as they’re both tie-in books to indie horror games. I guess the big difference is that the FNAF novels aren’t canon, but AUs - it doesn’t matter how bad they are, it doesn’t affect the lore. Heck, even when we thought TSE was canon before it was confirmed it wasn’t, it was just sort of focusing on a side event rather than the bulk of the story. For perspective, that would be like if DCTL was just describing some events that happened in the studio with the ink creatures during the loops or whatever. This is literally the entire backstory to the games, so it’s hard not to feel nervous.

Aside from concerns about what it’s going to do to the plot, I’m also concerned about mood/tone - Bendy has it’s own unique flavor compared to other horror games. I don’t want this to turn into like, Venom or a slasher fic or something, I want it to feel like a BATIM novel. The mood and tone might also end up too dark for its own good considering it’s literally covering everyone going to Hell - the game at least has some moments of levity to ease the depressing parts a bit.

With that said, I did throughly enjoy the preview pages I read online and I’ve heard over and over again from other fans, so hopefully my fears are unfounded.

Side note: This liveblog might be shorter than the others, as I’ve already read most of the first 3 chapters from the preview and therefore won’t have much to say about them. I also am not reading as many chapters as I will over the weekend because I have sleepy bitch disease.

Spoilers under the cut:

One thing I’ll note before I even start reading is that the cover has a really interesting texture to it, and it even has a spot varnish that creates drips of ink coming down from the top. It would’ve cost more to do all of that than to just do a regular cover on standard stock, so I appreciate the production value.

Heck, even the inside is really well designed - there’s ink dripping from the top again and the into page is totally black. It’s a minor thing, but as a designer I really appreciate that they actually made this book fit the BATIM aesthetic instead of just slapping Whatever on it (looking at you FNAF novels).

Going off the FNAF novel comparisons, this book seems better written in the sense that it’s incredibly detailed and vivid - the writing is very rich. The FNAF novels weren’t bad in this regard, but they do pale in comparison.

I love how Joey uses the word “swell”. everything was swell in the 1930s

Buddy gives him the option of Bud or Buddy and Joey immediately goes fo Buddy. at JDS your name will have a -y sound to it and you will enjoy it

I also love how Joey’s like “well I just met you, but you observed some stuff about Bendy immediately so I’m hiring you on the spot even though I don’t know your skills and we’re in debt”. classic Joey

Side note: one of the reasons I think Dot might be our BATDR protag is that Buddy doesn’t know if she’s alive or not. We’ll see if this is addressed in the book or not, but it’s way too weird of a thing to bring up if it’s not followed up in some way.

(I know Meatly said we didn’t know her name, but the book wasn’t out at the time and he might’ve completely forgotten that we already knew if from the description.)

 Guessing Tom’s carrying the blueprints for the Ink Machine?

I really like how Buddy has an actual defined personality. In the FNAF books it’s like... characters had personality, but they were very average for the most part (save for William). Buddy is still relatable and isn’t overly coverful, but he’s interesting and enjoyable to read about.

I’m hoping his and Dot’s relationship will be wholesome enough to lighten the mood and keep the book from being too grimdark.

Before we get into the stuff with Sammy, there’s a good moment at the beginning here that handles the subject much better, wherein Buddy just notes that a woman being the boss of something is unusual. Aside from being interesting from a character perspective regarding Joey, it sort of acknowledges that the 1930s sucks for everyone who isn’t a straight white guy - but it still allows the studio to be disconnected from that, which works pretty well compared to what happens later.

love this violinist lady who’s just like “oh yeah here comes fucking sammy” while he just barges in covered in ink and blood. this is just tuesday for her

Thoughts so far: so far so good, don’t fuck it up