#Susie is my favourite to explore and develop

[inkdemonapologist]

Who's your favorite female character in BATIM? Also, what do you think about Audrey as a character (aside from the weird stuff about Joey and "you don't have to be like this" that you mentioned in that one post)? You draw her really well.

Aw, thank you! And MAN that’s a tough question……

Dot and Abby and Susie are my personal stack of favs. Dot’s probably the one where I like her personality as-written the most, since Abby I find difficult to summarise beyond “she’s gender” and loving her friendship with her besties in TIOL (and also getting my heart destroyed after seeing her and Joey interact in DCTL). Abby seems like a delight to interact with and I enjoy that she’s a little bit rude at heart but in a “omg its true but u shouldn’t say it lmao” sort of way, and I get the sense that she and Joey kind of enabled each other when they were younger. I’d love to hear more of her art opinions. I would say I’d get in a fight with her about Monet, but I don’t think she’d even give me the honour of an argument.

We as a fandom have spent a lot of time yelling about how Buddy is clearly autistic and I don’t think we spend NEAR enough time talking about how Dot is clearly autistic as well. I really like the contrast between the two of them through that lens; Buddy has never understood an unstated implication in his life and he’s not about to start now, but badly wants to interact the way he’s expected to, whereas Dot is incredibly intuitive, perceptive, and understands subtext but has no time for it frankly and would rather be direct than conventional. A day after meeting Buddy she’s explaining how conversations work and coaching Buddy on how to ask questions even when he’s being guided away from asking questions, which is definitely a normal way to converse. I love her so much.

Meanwhile Susie is so complicated by virtue of having almost no presence in the books – just the games, where her timeline is one of the most up in the air, her writing is hit or miss, and so so much of her personality is in the gaps between audiologs that, like most in-game BatIMs, means no two fandom Susies are the same. I find her really compelling, though, exploring the character to find that sweet spot between someone who is clearly very charming and cheerful and sweet and sympathetic, but also cruel enough to become Malice, entitled and demanding enough to not take “no” for an answer and to simply decide that Alice should get to be hers forever. I’ve said before that I like to imagine that’s what Sammy saw in her, someone who could somehow be simultaneously thoughtful and optimistic and ruthlessly ambitious. I think she’s neat, but also I love her best when she’s not just sweet and not just horrible.

Anyway, Audrey’s a fun character with a lot of pretty believable emotional responses; when scenes are taken individually, I like her. Grain of salt that I haven’t watched the whole game, I’ve just seen some big moments and cutscenes, SO I COULD BE WAY OFF HERE -- but from what I've seen, while it’s tempting to say she has more personality than her predecessor, I’d be hard-pressed to pin down exactly what that personality is.

I don’t think it was intentional, but Henry’s weary compartmentalisation soaked into every comment he made, even when the things he was saying were deliriously strange (“[survives a deadly supernatural ordeal] huh, looks like I need 3 gears here”). We all made headcanons about how he’s either tired from the loops or selectively mute or just trying not to think about the horrors, and it felt like it worked. But Audrey is tough to really pin down a motivating force for, as if she’s defined by static descriptors like “determined” and “kind” rather than any particular desire like “wants to help” or “wants to stay out of trouble” that might spur her to make decisions based on those desires. Her most consistent character trait is giving others the benefit of the doubt (and constantly getting burned for it) and her most reinforced motivation is that she just wants to not be in the confusing dangerous weird ink place, which, like, same! I WOULDNT WANT TO BE THERE EITHER

She sounds bitter when Joey compares her to a father she never knew, which is an expected and reasonable response on its own that feels right in the moment – but when we look at her timeline (or the Archive’s revelation that she repressed her memories of her father AFTER Joey’s death), it’s actually a sort of difficult reaction to make sense of. I feel like a lot of her reactions are like this, especially near the end; they’re not that weird in the moment, but it’s hard to get a sense of why she’s doing these things or what’s led her to the conclusions she comes to. She defends Wilson to Allison, but like… what led her to believe that he’s legit? We can fill in those blanks with headcanons, of course, but we don’t have strong clues. Is it her having sympathy for him now that she “knows” he’s trying to save his father, or does she think it’s her best shot to get out of here, or does she really believe Wilson is going to fix everything despite everything else she’s seen? Do her chat with Henry and the revelation that Baby Bendy and the Ink Demon are one and the same just not affect her decision-making at all here? Or is killing Baby Bendy just a sacrifice she’s immediately willing to make once she realises that? What ARE Audrey’s feelings on her father and at what point does she remember him? Audrey giving Allison her name is a nice subtle indication that she’s started to accept that Joey’s story might be true, which I genuinely like, but it’s weird that we see her doing that right before insisting that she’s gonna go off and hear Wilson out – we get this indication that she’s started believing Joey, but apparently not enough to decide to try to fix the cycle, not enough to put together that the “wicked creatures who never came from my pen” might be the Keepers that she knows answer directly to Wilson. She’s determined to help Wilson so that she can get out of there, and only after that extremely fails does she decide to try to fix the broken cycle. (Honestly, it would’ve been kinda neat if she HAD in fact been selfishly helping Wilson as a “well, sucks for you guys, but I gotta get home,” and then Joey’s insistence that we always have a chance to make a better choice would actually mean something and inform her decision to take the Reel as more than just “well I guess this is the option that I have left.”)

Anyway, DESPITE THIS CRITICAL PARAGRAPH this is all fine for a player character who basically just needs to go from task to task; I think she’s likeable and I enjoy her interactions. But it does feel like a lot of times she’s just doing the next thing she’s been handed, to me, and it’s harder to make that a part of her personality than it was for Henry. It’d be neat to see a little more of Joey in Joey Drew’s daughter.

[squidproquoclarice]

Hey Squid 👋🏻 Regarding your Sunrise AMA, what is one of your favourite moments from the story, or favourite thing about Sunrise in general? Was their a line or paragraph that stands out to you as one were you were like yes, this is good and just flowed easiest? Did you have any things that you knew straight away that you needed or wanted to write about? Also I was wondering what inspired you to have them join the Circus? And what do you think their kids jobs would be when they grow up? (I probably have a dozen more but I will just leave it at that for now 😊 ty!)

Heya!  Let’s see.  Since we’ve got multiple questions, I think I’ll leave the favorite moment(s) question for someone else to ask.   Favorite thing about Sunrise: I started it a few days after finishing the game.  From the savefiles and my chapter 1 posting date, it was only four days.  Obviously Arthur touched something emotional within me, like he did for a lot of people, and seeing Sadie so cold, alone, and fatalistic in the Epilogue hurt too.  I wanted to see if I tried to write what could have happened after that fight on the ridge where it might lead.   So I guess my favorite thing about Sunrise is that it debunked the assumption that Arthur had to die for the story to work or matter.  I wrote a journey for him and for Sadie that a lot of people connected to and told me that meant a lot to them to see them thrive and heal.  Characters don’t need a tragic ending to be deeply meaningful.  Characters don’t have to die for redemption.  It’s not somehow more artistically pure or daring to kill someone off.  I didn’t break RDR1 by writing Sunrise, and I made the plot beats of the RDR2 Epilogue work.  So Arthur’s death also frankly wasn’t necessary for plot integrity towards the events of 1907 and 1911. A line or paragraph that I really enjoyed writing: I’ll go with one early on, from chapter 6, “Death Is A Woman”, that actually gave the chapter its title. He managed a low, dark chuckle at that, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. His lungs gave a bit of a grouchy hitch at it. “Newsmen are a different breed of confidence men and liars, that’s all. Anyway, I’m sure Death’s got to be a woman, Sister, cause it seems even she won’t have me.” That one made me feel like I really finally nailed Arthur and his character and state of mind in the weeks right after he’s had his entire life and identity knocked out from under him.  But of course he has to couch it in a self-deprecating quip.  Also kind of a funny line in retrospect because I hadn’t planned anything with Death/The Strange Man cropping up in the story at this point, but apparently Arthur’s wrong and Death is not a woman in RDRverse.  ;)   Things I immediately needed or wanted to write about: Giving Sadie a voice and POV to show what was going on in her head.  Beyond that, giving both of them the respect of acknowledging their PTSD, but doing my best to let show what trauma recovery really looks like, and showing that it’s possible.  I didn’t want to either shrug it off as inconvenient to a happy ending, or else treat them like permanently broken things.  I wanted it to be a journey.  When it came to Arthur’s TB, I also wanted to write something realistic and accurate to the period in terms of his recovery rather than just sort of handwaving it.  Historical medicine’s an interest of mine, so this was a good chance to explore some of that.  Joining the circus: This is one of the rarer instances where the tail sort of wagged the dog and I had to make something fit to an immovable future plan.  I had them in 1904 having claimed a homestead up in Canada that needed to be settled and improved within three years.  And I knew for 1907 Team Griffith needed to be in the five-state area of the RDR2 map in order to be involved in the Epilogue.  I could have had them go back to Chuparosa and continue eking out a living, and debated pushing them back on the bounty hunter path to put them being sometimes in those American states that would let them cross paths with the Marstons somehow. Didn’t really like it.  Given how averse they were to bounty hunting together with two very young children at home, how Sadie absolutely wasn’t going to be the little wife sitting at home and letting Arthur go alone into danger as an alternative, and how much they both liked the idea that they no longer needed to live that sort of life, it felt like I needed something else.  And it needed to be something that they could walk away with no offense taken from in three years.  In retrospect, I could have had them hire on at MacFarlane’s full time rather than seasonal and developed that bond even more, but I ended up coming up with a circus that folds in 1907 as a good alternative.  Given they’re ace riders and crack shots and pretty fair actors, that Arthur was very used to a nomadic lifestyle, that circus folk are great actors and can deal some mild well-meaning trickery as part of the delight, that they were fairly egalitarian for the time, and that traveling circus folk sort of existed as a quasi-disreputable and tightly knit “outsider” group, it felt like a neat chance to mirror the gang, but in a positive way.  So with the circus, I got to write Sadie and Arthur getting to live the best version of that kind of life, and sort of coming to peace with more of the past by it.  Proving the things they missed about the gang weren’t the robberies or Dutch’s antisocial philosophy, but the people they loved and the freewheeling lifestyle.  Also proving that while they enjoy that life, they do both really want to have something more settled and put down solid roots.  Sadie misses that, and Arthur yearns for it as something he’s never had. Also noting I hadn’t planned at all on Arkady Rudenko when I wrote Sadie and Arthur performing as the “Cossack Karolovs”, and I only realized that connection after I’d written the final chapter.  Guess my unconscious brain knew more than I thought even back then, though I’d only earmarked a few months before that final chapter trying to possibly work in the interesting fact of Ukrainians being a very prevalent immigrant group to the Canadian prairie provinces at the time.  But yeah, as an actual Cossack kid, Archie’s probably going to laugh his ass off. Kid’s jobs: So I actually have a short scrapped bit that I didn’t include as an extra document at the end of chapter 88, though I debated it.  I like the piece, but I wanted to leave it with Sadie and Arthur’s journal entries and the circle of things being sort of complete. It’s a preface to a book called “Red Dead Redemption” written by Jack--who’s become a writer of a fairly famous radio play turned TV serial--in the ‘60′s once all the OGs are finally gone and he feels safe to tell that story.  It mentions that the illustrations were done by his wife, Bea.  So yeah, Bea got Arthur’s artistic talent, and by submitting her work as “B.M. Griffith”, she managed to get some illustration jobs that would have been denied to her as “Beatrice”.   Mattie (Matt as he grows older), becomes a doctor.  He’s already got the caring heart and desire to heal and help people.  He’ll likely end up helping Felipe out as a teenager and learning some of the ropes there before going to college. Susie ended up becoming a teacher.  There were definitely still strictures at the time against married women working as teachers, so if/when she got married (and I think if so, she did it later in life) she’d have been expected to retire and effectively become a housewife.  But she’d still keep teaching as a tutor.  Andy, with his energy and love of horses and the outdoors, actually shows a passion for farming and ranching.  So he’s the one who ends up running the day-to-day of Paradise Run as the next generation.     Feel free to keep up with the AMA with those further questions!  Might be better to send them in individually, though, as this one got pretty long.  ;)

[inkdemonapologist]

tell me your favorite Sammy headcannon, and if you have any angsty ones, i would love to hear them :D

i mean my FAVOURITE Sammy headcanon isn't news to anyone following this blog! It's the headcanon that he was in a (emotionally unhealthy) intimate relationship with Joey Drew. It's one of the first ideas that really drew me in to explore these characters myself, and while currently it seems very plausible in canon, it's the headcanon I'm least likely to let go of if later developments joss it.

Other favourite headcanons include:

- "Sammy is one of those people who clicks pens constantly but if anyone else does it he gets really mad" was a headcanon I read on someone else's blog and I love how ridiculously specific and yet extremely correct this is

- "Sammy had a hand in the deaths of everyone he cared about" is my favourite Headcanon That's Likely To Be Jossed, if it isn’t already. When I was first getting into the franchise and hadn't started scouring the timeline yet, it just made sense that Joey had gotten Sammy to kick Susie off the part in order to make her emotionally fragile enough that he could swoop in and convince her to do the toon ritual, and I really liked the idea that Sammy had... kind of known about the scheme, but participated anyway because he was so tangled up with Joey that he wasn’t willing to challenge him. I was ALSO a big fan of Sammy being the one to sacrifice Jack, since I really liked the idea of Jack's fatal flaw kind of being that he watched a guy he loved and cared about get worse and worse but Never Spoke Up, that walls built up between them, and ink-addled Sammy’s desperate attempt to reconnect ended up being Murder. But with the pieces we have now..... it doesn't seem like any of this is likely to be Sammy's fault; timelines don't add up, wHICH IS A SHAME. Both of these are still true for Escape AU for now, though.

- Sammy's worship of Bendy was genuine, the ink didn't take control of him or abruptly change his personality -- the ink definitely played a role in what happened to his brain, but I never liked the idea that the ink just flipped a switch that made him "go crazy," like, he did lose his mind, but I much prefer the idea that on some level he really let himself believe it, deluded himself until he believed it, became terrified of the idea of doubting it, and on some level found himself caught up in a cult the same way anyone else does. "Leftover religious trauma/compulsions" is a big part of Escape Sammy's deal.

- Various musical headcanons: Sammy can read music just by looking at it, in the sense that he can look at a sheet of music and immediately understand what it sounds like without having to play it. Sammy also doesn't get songs stuck in his head because he can imagine any other song in such clarity that it's easy to dislodge a catchy tune (the songs the ink gave him were a strange exception).

okay THATS ALL THATS COMING TO MIND AT THE MOMENT so there’s..... SOME HEADCANONS