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Every time I think about this, I realize just a bit more how implicitly queer it is. Even if none of the characters are openly queer, it still carries those themes.

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Sammy's Death Scene: A Snapshot

Henry doesn't understand what's going on. This is Sammy, he has to believe it, so why is he going on about some Lord? Is his Lord whatever attacked Henry before?

Whatever Sammy is talking about doesn't matter, though. He has to get himself free or he's dead. He twists his arms in the ropes, feeling the way they slide across his skin. They don't feel like they're in very good shape.

So he begins to pull his arms apart. His wrists burn as the rope cuts into them, but he has to get free.

Suddenly, he hears that strange set of words over the speakers that he swears weren't there when he worked here.

"Sheep, sheep, sheep, it's time for sleep. Rest your head, it's time for bed. In the morning, you may wake; or in the morning, you'll be dead."

Henry doesn't understand what happened to his friend. He doesn't understand what happened to the Studio.

This was supposed to be him and Joey's passion project. Their perfect creation.

What has Joey done?

Sammy is talking about something. Begging his Lord to arise and claim Henry.

Henry doesn't understand what's going on.

Anyways, he has his hands free, just in time to hear Sammy yell out, beg the Demon to stay back, because Sammy is his prophet. Sammy is the only one who truly understands.

There's a scream, and a wet thud.

"You were supposed to care about me." Sammy wheezes out accusingly.

Then, there is nothing. Henry grabs his axe and runs to the door.

"Sammy? Sammy, can you hear me? Answer me if you're still alive in there!"

There is silence, as Henry hears a sound he knows well. The sound of the strange creatures emerging from the Ink.

Looks like he's got a fight ahead of him.

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Bertrum Nathaniel Piedmont: Character Introduction

Bertrum didn't care about his childhood. He was an odd child, always more interested in designing things than his regular education.

He didn't have many friends, often seeing himself as above them all because of his architectural design ability. The only ones who really spent time with him obviously didn't like him very much, and he didn't care.

He was going to be famous.

He didn't much care for the machines at first, but they grew on him as he began studying design and engineering. He continued to work at it, and eventually became a famous park designer.

It made him happy. He finally belonged. And... people liked him. People loved him.

And then he was hired to create a park named Bendyland. He was excited, of course he was. He had always possessed a soft spot for those cartoons, and... He was ecstatic.

But Joey was a problem. Joey was worse than him. He found himself getting into arguments with the man more often than not. Joey called him Bertie, and disrespected him, and from what he understood, he treated everyone like this.

It wasn't all bad, of course. With Lacie on his team, things were rarely all bad. And Lacie was there. Sure, she got creeped out by some things, sure they both knew there was something going on under the surface.

But things began to get odd. One day, a kid from the Art Department disappeared, and suddenly a young woman named Dot was harassing him, trying to figure out what had happened to him.

He felt bad for not knowing, of course he did. This was a kid. He couldn't help but wonder what his parents would've done had he disappeared.

But they had disowned him long ago for his love of Lacie, so it didn't really matter.

He only understood what happened to him later, when he was stuck in place. A strange wolf would write him notes, give him something to hope for.

It was all he had left, but he was still there, and he would get his revenge.

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Henry Stein's Design!

For everyone's information, the art here was made by the lovely @arianimates, who I am very happy to have as my artist on this project.

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Grant James Cohen: Character Introduction

If someone were to ask Grant what he wanted in his life, he would be hard-pressed to say for certain. On one hand, he wanted what everyone wanted. He wanted people to care about him, he wanted people to love him.

But... he never knew if he wanted people to love him the way Susie did, or Joey did. He just... he wanted close friends, and he wanted to matter.

It always seemed like he had nothing before his job at Joey Drew Studios. He certainly didn't have friends, and he certainly didn't have family.

A lonely boy, raised on the bottom of the barrel in the 20s, he had nothing, except his smarts. And people didn't much like it when he could do basic math in his head faster than they could. People didn't really like the way he was the one who was always good with numbers.

He thought people would enjoy having a smart kid in their class, but once he reached complex math, stuff that he couldn't put into a basic problem, like one for balancing finances, he was lost.

Oh well, he thought. He was good at finances, at least, and that could get him far.

And it did. Grant found plenty of job offers in his accounting skills. He found himself enjoying all the places he worked.

Until he began working at Joey Drew Studios.

The pay was horrific, the finances made no sense, and something was wrong with his boss. He wasn't allowed to say they should declare bankruptcy, even though they should have long ago.

The people that worked under him had clearly been doing this for a long time more, and didn't understand Grant's desire to balance the finances. After all, it didn't seem like they could be balanced. He said they had a budget, Joey went over it working on some crazy machine.

Grant began to look into things. He didn't need to do much, just look at bank statements and read them. But... he found he was finding less joy in doing things, and he found his life felt... empty.

It was only later, once he was curled up in a strange cage, his body changed into something twisted, that Joey admitted he had been poisoning his water with strange ink.

But by then, what did it matter? All he wanted was to go home.

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Shawn Richard Flynn: Character Introduction

Born in Ireland, Shawn's early life was a very peaceful thing. However, when WWI began, his parents chose to move them all to America, where they hoped they would be out of the crossfire of the war.

During that period, Shawn took up painting, learning how to use gentle brushstrokes to bring a scene to life. Sadly, there wasn't much work for a painter, as he later learned, so he turned to painting toys.

It was then that he was hired as the head of the Heavenly Toys department at Joey Drew Studios. He didn't know what to do. For a while, he had been freelance, but... This was a real job, with real rules, with a boss who looked over his shoulder and yelled at him for imperfections.

Shawn found himself turning to drink in order to escape the stresses of his job, and the studio continued to get stranger. One day, Joey installed a strange machine, filling everything with pipes full of ink.

The next, he requested that every department make an "offering" of sorts. Shawn, being in charge, was forced to give up one of his good Bendy dolls.

That was the beginning of the end. Eventually, members of his department began to vanish. Joey insisted that they just quit, but Shawn knew better. His employees would never just... quit. Not without telling him.

So Shawn began to investigate. Spurred on by the disappearance of Norman Polk, he began to look into the theater that Joey Drew had bought. What he found... He never wanted to go back there again. He had his answers, but they made no sense. Things just got worse when Joey called him up to his office. He said he knew how Shawn had been sneaking around.

Shawn remembered no more.

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Norman Caleb Polk: Character Introduction

Norman was born in California in 1909, only a few years before World War I began. He didn't understand what was going on, of course. But his parents often told him he was living through history.

His parents were like that. Children of the Industrial Revolution, they thought that living through history was a good thing. Knowing what he learned, Norman was inclined to disagree.

Norman grew up an odd child. He preferred to observe others instead of interacting with them, and he preferred to stick to the shadows. His parents worried, saying that this little social interaction marked something bad, but he didn't care. He felt more comfortable being ignored, being forgotten.

When he was hired by Joey Drew Studios, he found himself forgotten unless specifically needed to run the projectors. That suited him just fine. He could wander around, he could be ignored.

This did get him in trouble when he was caught wandering the theater that had been taken in as a part of the studio, staring at the strange machine. He didn't remember what came next.

When he awoke, he found himself changed and in pain. He wandered the theater, almost perfectly keeping everyone out of it. Except Joey. For some reason, he liked Joey, even though Joey was the one who caused his pain.

One day, he found himself somewhere strange. He still had a job, however. He would patrol the area, keeping everyone from entering. He would keep everyone out, and keep his territory safe.

After all, he was made to guard.

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Jackson Howard "Jack" Fain: Character Introduction

Jack was born in a small town in upstate New York. His childhood was generally unremarkable, until he began studying music. He pushed himself until he was as good as he could get at writing lyrics.

Then, he found a job at Joey Drew Studios, and became the lyricist to Sammy's composing skill. Sammy had been there for a while, but Jack was the one who gave the songs that little extra charm with fun words and stories.

Things changed after the pipes burst. Sammy started acting odd, and Jack knew something was wrong. It was only after he walked into the composition office after-hours and got himself tied up that he realized how far things had gone.

It was... nice. Not having to worry so much. Not having to think about how he was overworked, how no one actually gave him credit.

All he had to do was be left alone. He preferred being alone, and as the Ink began to overtake him, began to change the way he thought, he found himself happier. After all, it gave him everything he ever wanted.

He was no longer unremarkable. He was no longer alone.

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Susan Maria "Susie" Campbell: Character Introduction

Susie was always an odd child. Convinced she could become someone else if she just tried to be, she obsessed over acting. It was that which convinced her to go to an acting school over in Ohio.

Susie learned quickly that she wasn't the best at physical acting, yet her voice had impressive range of character. She soon learned how to take advantage of that, starting her first job at Joey Drew Studios and playing anything that came her way.

Then, she was given the role of Alice Angel, and a brilliant role it was. She finally got to feel like someone else! She felt... free, that's what she felt. She wasn't Susan, daughter of a butcher, she was Alice, the angel of the cartoon world.

Then, the imposter arrived. Allison Pendle, she called herself. And two days later, she was no longer Alice Angel. She was bitter, of course she was, but what could she do?

She returned to playing random characters in the background, but could not find the passion she felt for Alice's voice.

And then, Joey Drew offered her an opportunity. Be Alice Angel, truly be her, and never have to worry about Allison Pendle taking her role again.

But when he did the ritual, she came out wrong, her body shattered, and he locked her away. After all, she had to be perfect, not whatever she actually was.

Her bitterness grew as she realized she'd just been manipulated the whole time.

Perhaps, to win, she just needed to be that herself. After all, Alice doesn't much like liars.

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Welcome to the Rewrite!

Introductions

Hello, I'm Red or Percy. I use any pronouns, or you can just pick a set and stick with that. I'm a writer and a storyteller who's going into video game design. I'm the one doing all the writing for this project, so if there are any questions about that, I'll gladly respond

About the Rewrite

This is a project to rewrite both Bendy and the Ink Machine and the books and games associated with it. I make no profit from this project, it is simply a love letter to the game and storyline, as well as an acknowledgment of its flaws.

All of my art is done by @arianimates, though I will place their blog in each piece of art posted.

My Statement on the Company of Joey Drew Studios

I felt it may be good for me to add a statement on Joey Drew Studios, the real life version, so here I go.

I do not support any of the actions taken by Joey Drew Studios. Their abuse of creators and workers is too great to be ignored, and so I cannot ignore it. They are an example of a horrible workplace, and their treatment of fangame creators and fanartists is exploitative and cruel. I hope to never work at a place like that.

Tagging System

Major Tags

#character introductions [mobile]. For my character rewrites/introductions

#character designs [mobile]. For character designs and art. (THIS TAG IS CURRENTLY EMPTY)

#cartoons [mobile]. For the displaying of different cartoon characters and random thoughts about what cartoons the studio made. (THIS TAG IS CURRENTLY EMPTY)

#reds worldbuilding tag [mobile]. For any of my miscellaneous worldbuilding.

#character rewrite [mobile]. For any discussion of specific ways I am rewriting characters.

#writing [mobile]. For all of the actual writing of the story (THIS TAG IS CURRENTLY EMPTY)

Character Tags

Character tags will be updated as I add more character introductions. Some of the mentioned characters may have their introduction in queue.

#the liar (joey drew) [mobile]. For anything related to Joey Drew.

#the creator (henry stein) [mobile]. For anything related to Henry Stein.

#the prophet (sammy lawrence) [mobile]. For anything related to Sammy Lawrence.

#the wolf (buddy lewek or buddy boris) [mobile]. For anything related to either Buddy Lewek or Buddy Boris.

#the engineer (thomas connor or tom boris) [mobile]. For anything related to either Thomas Connor or Tom Boris.

#the janitor (wally franks) [mobile]. For anything related to Wally Franks.

#the angel (susie campbell) [mobile]. For anything related to Susie Campbell.

#the lyricist (jack fain) [mobile]. For anything related to Jack Fain.

#the projectionist (norman polk) [mobile]. For anything related to Norman Polk/The Projectionist.

#the accountant (grant cohen) [mobile]. For anything related to Grant Cohen.

#the toymaker (shawn flynn) [mobile]. For anything related to Shawn Flynn

#the designer (bertrum piedmont) [mobile]. For anything related to Bertrum Piedmont.

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Walter Richard "Wally" Franks: Character Introduction

Wally was never the most well-liked person when he was young. Born into a lower-middle-class family, he knew he would never be a fancy businessman or something. People called him lazy because he never seemed to be able to keep his focus, no matter how hard he tried.

So, when he made it through high school, he was ecstatic. It wasn't long until he moved on to the trade school, learning maintenance work.

He was around twenty-four when Joey approached him with an offer. Work with him, and he'll get paid much more than he did while working for the firm he currently worked for. Wally accepted, of course he did, and began working at Joey Drew Studios.

It was a quiet job. There was him, Henry, Sammy, Abigail, and Joey. When Joey got too out of hand, Henry was always there to calm him down.

Then Henry quit, and Wally found himself taking the brunt of people's annoyance. He was lazy, he didn't do anything perfectly, he always lost his keys...

Then Susie showed up, and his life seemed like it was changing. She was kind to him, she defended him.

But Susie loved Sammy, not him, not like he loved her.

It was soon after Susie lost her role as Alice Angel that things got weird. Joey hired a strange man named Thomas, who he could tell was angry about something.

And then, the machine went in. It was horrible. Every day there was another leaking pipe, and he wasn't okay with that. Soon enough, though, his resume would be sent in to enough businesses that one would accept him, then he would be outta there.

Things were better once he quit. He had a family, a wife, children, grandkids.

Then he got that damned letter, and what was he to do but respond?

The last thing he remembered was Joey's smile as darkness consumed his vision.

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Thomas Francis "Tom" Connor: Character Introduction

Thomas was born into a small family in New Orleans. They were reasonably okay for money, so he never had to truly work as a child. Despite that, he spent days at a time learning how to create simple machines, chosing to learn how they worked.

When he was old enough, his parents sent him to Ohio State to learn about engineering. There he encountered Frederick Patterson, who was everything he wanted to be. People liked Frederick Patterson, not like how they treated Thomas with scorn.

Thomas still graduated with a degree, and began applying to different engineering firms. The one that accepted him was known as the Gent company, a Black-run company.

He worked hard until he became branch manager of the Atlanta branch of the company, finally feeling as though he was treated with some respect.

Then, a man named Joseph Drew hired him to help build a strange machine. He didn't think much of the machine at first, focusing only on the way he felt scorned once again. He was a branch manager! Why was he being hired out like a common engineer?

Still, he couldn't do anything, staying silent as his rage simmered within him. He couldn't do anything or he would get killed. It was only later that he met Buddy, one of Joseph's new "projects". He warned the boy about the Machine and about the Demon, and yet he still couldn't save Buddy from his fate, from dying himself.

Thomas no longer knew how to protect himself and his dearest wife, Allison. After all, what do you do when the adversary you fear is one created yourself?

His guilt only grew worse when he met Bill, Cadence, and Brant. He couldn't save them, either, not even Bill, who had worked so hard alongside him to learn what he was determined to pursue.

After some time, the guilt truly consumed him, and he went to Joseph, begging for a way to make it stop.

He didn't realize it would damn his dearest Allison as well.

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Daniel Jacob "Buddy" Lewek: Character Introduction

Buddy was born in 1929 to Irena and Peter Lewek in a small town in Poland. When the Nazis invaded, they fled to the US, finding refuge in the Lower East Side. However, Irena's father was left behind, possibly never to be seen again.

Peter Lewek was drafted in 1940, promising he would come back. This left Irena alone to care for Buddy.

When Buddy turned fourteen, he began to help at a nearby sweatshop, making just a bit more money for the family. He became a gofer, running between different areas of the sweatshop to deliver pieces.

Soon after, news came that Buddy's father had died. There was nothing to do but keep going. Buddy took up a role as a delivery boy, making a few more cents a day.

One day, he delivered a suit to a Mister Joey Drew, changing the course of his life entirely.

Surely, this man had no dark secrets he was hiding, right?

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I Need An Artist

Hey, so I didn't really... think before starting this. I need to have proper character designs, yes, but I have fine motor issues and can't really draw. If any current Bendy artist is willing to help me with this, please let me know. I am already planning character appearances, so you don't have to come up with things from scratch.

If you're willing to do this, shoot me a dm at @hello-there-world and I'll try to figure out how an interview works.

Update: I have found an artist.

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Samuel David "Sammy" Lawrence: Character Introduction

Sammy was born on a ship sailing from Poland to Ellis Island in 1902. After the ship docked, and his family was processed, they moved to the Lower East Side, joining many other eastern-European Jews. There, they found a community and a home, albeit a crowded one.

When Sammy was 5, he began playing the piano brought over by his family, their only real possession from the life they had left. When he was 16, he began playing in movie theaters for silent movies.

It was there that he met Joey Drew. Unconcerned by his heritage, and understanding that Sammy would soon have no work outside of seedy speakeasies, he offered Sammy a job at a brand-new cartoon studio. There, Sammy would get to compose, not just play.

Sammy was ecstatic. He immediately agreed, and quickly found himself swept away in dreams.

Those dreams were shattered when they released their first cartoon and he discovered his name was nowhere in the credits. Still, the pay was good, so he could still support whatever family he might someday have.

Things changed when Buddy was hired. Another Polish Jew, his family had also found a home in the Lower East Side. Sammy saw too much of himself in the boy. Those dreams Joey gave him would be quickly shattered too, and he tried to warn the boy.

Buddy didn't believe him, and told him he thought Sammy, at the least, would understand. After all... they were too similar in the first place. This began a conflict that would last several months.

But Sammy had his own problems. Specifically, he was tainted. He had lost his faith a long time ago, finding himself treated with scorn for his very being, but still. He prayed for the first time in years, begging God to release him from this strange curse.

After all, God was supposed to care about him, right?

The Ink, that which tainted him, gave him something new to believe in. All he had to do was be willing to do everything it told him to do. And its songs were so sweet, sweeter than any music he had made, so who was he to refuse?

Everything would be fine, he just had to listen.

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Joseph Michael "Joey" Drew: Character Introduction

Joey Drew was born to Harry and Gertrude Drew in the town of Paterson, New Jersey. Harry was a shoemaker, while Gertrude was a schoolteacher for young children. They were not well-off, though their shop and attached apartment was reasonably nice.

Joey quickly found himself ignored in favor of his parents' work. Instead of looking for attention, he retreated to the local library. There, he found solace in books. In those books, he found stories of brave war heroes and brilliant detectives, and wished he could become one of those. He wished that he could be so good at something like that, so that people would know his name everywhere.

When the US entered the war, he lied, saying he was sixteen (he was always tall for his age, people believed him) and went into basic military training. Sadly, his right leg was broken during a training course, and never healed right. Instead of going onto the field, he was sent into the Signal Corps.

He was bitter about this, though when he met Nathan Arch, his attitude began to change. After all, not only did he have a friend, only one year older than him, but he had an opportunity to discover things he hadn't thought of before.

After the war ended, he was adrift. He didn't know what to do. So when a friend he had met in the Signal Corps was murdered, he volunteered to help with the detective work. He wasn't very good at it, but he did honestly try.

After his meeting with his second real friend, a woman named Abigail Lambert, he was introduced to Henry Stein. Together, the three of them created their own cartoon studio, each of them feeling represented by one of the main three characters.

Then Henry quit, and not only did he quit, he went and moved to Los Angeles to work at Disney, one of the corporations competing with them. But... Henry didn't have to be known, did he? He just had to make it so everyone would forget about him.

Things began to change when he met Allison Pendle, though his ambition and greed held him back from ever being worthy of her love, at least in her eyes.

So he spiraled. And everything ended with one little letter, one request for Henry to come visit. After all, he had a plan in mind, and Henry was the perfect one to carry it out.

Nothing could go wrong in his world. Not for him, anyways.

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Henry Alexander Stein: Character Introduction

Henry was born to a well-off family in Columbus, Ohio. He wasn't exactly rich, but he was upper middle class. This allowed him to pursue art as a career, attending Oberlin for college and participating in their art program.

When he graduated, he became a newspaper cartoonist before meeting the man who would become his best friend, Joseph Drew, or Joey for short. They, alongside Abigail Lambert, worked together to create their dream--a cartoon studio of their very own, with their own personal characters.

They always joked that each of the main three represented some part of them. Joey, chaotic and disorganized, became Bendy, a chaotic demon with trickster tendencies. Henry, always fast to come up with a new idea, became Boris, a quiet creative who was often mistaken for a glutton. Abigail, the heart and emotions of the crew, a balancing force for both Joey's ambition and Henry's forgetful cruelty, became Alice, the balance between the two, who calms Bendy and reminds Boris to live.

However, Joey's ambition turned into greed, and he began to overwork Henry. Henry decided he couldn't keep working at the studio. And as the Great Depression began, he realized he had to go somewhere that wasn't fueled entirely by investments.

So he moved to Los Angeles to work with Disney on their own cartoons. He did this for years, until, in 1963, Joey sent him a letter. It had been years since he'd gotten a letter, and yet the wording was suspicious. All it said was to come visit, that there was something he wanted to show Henry.

Surely, though, Joey was still the person he remembered, right?