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prompt 2: Tea

yes: I’m going to try and get the first 7 prompts done today, maybe first 8 prompts if I slip into tomorrow

I plan to do each of them like this: Photo, + voiceline

I feel like it adds to it

I still wonder what that tweet was all about. The one that TheMeatly asked us to choose ominously saying it could obliterate a character in batdr. I wonder who it was. I sure hope it wasn’t Sammy.

Okay but-

Problems with erasing Bendy Book canon:

With the FNAF books, we were told they were canon-divergent fairly early on. For Bendy, this was never specified, leading many to believe this was all just straight-up canon information that they were running with for theorycrafting. For a long time.

Why the hell would you de-canonize the ENTIRE origin story of Boris? He's a central character to Bendy and the Ink Machine.

You're going to throw out THE ENTIRE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF YOUR MAIN VILLAIN? THAT'S.......NOT A GOOD IDEA!

(And before it's pointed out, no, we don't "need" Illusion of Living for "gay evidence." The point here is y'all released an autobiography for one of your two main characters and you're saying it's not canon. That's ludicrous.)

Things that were explained/brought up in the novels that apparently "aren't canon anymore": how Sammy got infected, Thomas's conflicting feelings about the machine he created, the origin of Boris the wolf, several instances of Joey's gaslighting and manipulative behavior and his slow descent into madness after Henry's departure, a look into Gent technology and the Gent experiments that took place after they switched over to "research", Abby Lambert (who SHOULD be in the mainline games all things considered), Joey Drew's ENTIRE AUTOBIOGRAPHY including his PHILOSOPHIES AND REAL ASS LIFE, ANDDD the themes of classism, racism, and sexism that were VERY present at that time in history. Among other things.

You're taking out several new characters for no reason. I'm not saying they all need to return, but it makes zero sense to introduce a bunch of new guys and then immediately abandon them...only to introduce a bunch of OTHER new guys.

I've seen a few comments in response to Mike that go along the lines of "oh thank goodness now I don't need to read the books to understand the lore!" No disrespect, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the books do. They enhance your understanding of all the background plot. You don't need to read the books to understand the games. But that shouldn't mean erasing the existing information's canonicity because not everyone wants to read it.

Bendy isn't FNAF. Bendy has a much more streamlined plot. Not everything fits perfectly of course, but to take out such a large chunk of what we THOUGHT was the plot (or plot-adjacent) is headscratching to me. You claim to care about the plot, characters and worldbuilding and then you decide that some of the BEST written interpretations of these characters and their world just aren't "legitimate" now? .......All of a sudden?

I want to punch something

I think it's really convenient that Mike is making sure everyone knows that Norman is white, but when the question of LGBTQ or minority characters comes up, suddenly it's a much more complex question. (I get he was asked, but you're telling me there's no possible way to leave it ambiguous?)

You leave everyone else's appearances and physical descriptors ambiguous, but this twitter interaction leads me to believe you have SOME idea of what you want your characters to look like so...which is it?

Funny thing about erasing the canonicity of the books is that you also erase any canonical descriptors for the other characters. Wally being incredibly old? Gone. Allison being platinum blonde and a Ginger Rogers look-alike? Gone. Sammy looking like a preying mantis? Gone as well. This gives you the perfect opportunity to get in there and start dropping more details about the characters that you claim to be passionate about. Answer that age old question- is Sammy Lawrence brunette or blonde?

What REALLY really puts a lit match in my gas tank, though, is something Mike pointed out himself. He says that the photo of Norman is in Joey's apartment, which is true.

But you know what else can be found in Joey Drew's apartment? Something that was retconned later on haphazardly?

"Local Artist Pushed Himself too Hard, Found Dead At Desk."

"Years later we find out he wasn't dead at his desk!"

"It was always in the apartment" is not the gotcha you think it is.

I saw your video about Norman and it was very interesting, you made many good points and I agree, but I did have a question that I'm wondering if I could get your thoughts on:

What makes canonicity important? I'm not sure if this is just a me thing, but I never considered the canon as a problem because I could just change whatever problem or thing I feel could be different/is missing myself in an au. Not a discredit to your point in the video, I'd just like to understand better if that's alright.

Short answer: It really just depends on the person how much canon matters. To me it does, but I encourage others to make AU's and ignore it altogether if they want lol.

Long answer: I feel like it's generally important to know what details there are in a story before retelling it. That way you have a base line "vanilla" version that also gives the general audience a chance to connect with each other. AU's can still be built off of that by dedicated fans, and the ones that are invested in the "canon" story can still have their fun as well. Of course, some creators are more strict than others. In the case of Bendy and the Ink Machine, Mike and Meatly seem to have an idea of what is canon versus what isn't, and they bring it up in conversations on Twitter/with fans, so I feel it's at least fair to judge how they run their story when their model is "We have a canon plot we are sticking to! (Please believe us!)"

The one time I think the ENTIRE Bendy fandom resisted canon was when Wally was confirmed to be old as hell. Literally nobody believed it lol. Now that the books "aren't canon" I guess the universal Young Wally lives another day.

Hell, even I still run with the idea that Shawn and Wally are together, and I could make a strong case for why they should/could be together, but it's not canon or based on any evidence.

I legit found this on accident but here's my take;

I do agree with Meatly in the sense that, yes, if you are introducing a bunch of new characters you have to develop them, and you can't do that while giving attention to your already existing cast.

The problem is...the new guys aren't developed. At all. How are you meant to develop a character over the course of one audio log in some cases? Bendy and the Ink Machine had the advantage of being released chapter by chapter, hence why we had time to speculate and draw gay fanart of the characters between releases. The fandom was able to form a connection to these characters in this way, and most had recurring audio logs, with the exception to this rule mainly being Lacie.

Compare this with the laundry list of characters in BATDR with singular audio logs; Lance, Angus, Archie, Hank, Bill, Grace, Kay, Dale, Jane, and Phil. (Correct me if I'm wrong, there are a lot.)

Single note characters include; Eugene, Hudson, and Telly. (Again, correct me if I'm wrong.)

I don't think I'm hurting many feelings by saying that nobody knows who the new human cast is, and that they are the most unnecessary part of BATDR story-wise. This is the exact inverse of BATIM, where we got invested because of the human cast amidst the cartoons.

Sure, Wally's presence was still in BATDR, and Grace even mentioned Norman by name. But the majority of veteran Bendy fans were hoping to see more of the old cast that we were already in love with. The new human characters rolled off incoming Bendy fans like hot sand, which kind of proves that they aren't needed unless they're fleshed out properly in future installments.

this is an inside thought meatly

Nevermind I'm gonna let him figure it out.

Great job everyone let's hit the showers

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.

You left us.You left us behind.

Even more Bendy cause why not.

I guess this what happens if Mickey meets Tim Burton.

Man, really hope the paychecks were worth in this joint.

All things come to an end, so time to see what the ink demon is hiding from us.