#Susie the pararomantic

[batimmotw]

Bendy and the Monster of the Week - In the House of Mirrors, Session 1

FINALLY I am pleased to announce the first ever session of batmotw is now available for your viewing(and commenting) pleasure! Comments on the document are open, so feel free to react to specific parts if you'd like to! Batmotw Arc 1 - In the House of Mirrors, Session 1

Information about who's playing who can be found in the document, but you can also find them here, in order of appearance: Our keeper, the one who writes the story and the NPCs is Neil (@sbpstudios) Susie was played by Kat (@angelofthepage) Sammy is played by Queenie (@queenofcats17)

Joey is played by Combat (me) (@wally-franks-stan)

And Herby is played by Mango (@miscmangos-wonderland)

[wally-franks-stan]

Some motw drawings… the first one is from the latest session, Joey got to be scary and it was so fun and tasty. And then from the session before last, Susie and Joey had an emotional moment that culminated in a love confession and a kiss 🥰

Susie designed and played by @angelofthepage

[queenofcats17]

Fun MOTW update!

The party just witnessed our first human death! No one is having a good time!

[angelofthepage]

Susie: The Pararomantic, and The Messenger in Flames

Bendy and the Monster of the Week @batimmotw

It's 1936, and things are looking up for Susie Campbell. She's been with Joey Drew Studios as the voice of Alice Angel for a decent amount of time, and she's found a few friendships that make her heart sing. From thrift shopping with Joey to her casual coffee breaks with Sammy, she's very happy, life is good, save for the recent death of her Aunt Seraphine. Her aunt left her a gorgeous necklace in her will, and Susie's worn it to work every day since her passing. She's still trying hard to keep her spirits up, knowing that if she can bring some joy to someone else, it can bring them out of their darkest depths.

When a cartoon clone of Henry (known as Herby) appears from another dimension, Susie is tasked with helping her friends to get the real deal back. Unaware that magic existed until this very moment, she's afraid, but she's determined to set things right! Little does she know, a mysterious force has its eyes on her, and while it may seem helpful, she has no idea what it is or what it wants. Will their party be able to rescue Henry in time, or is he forever trapped in the mirror realm? Find out in the exciting adventures of Bendy and the Monster of the Week!

Context: Susie's Aunt Seraphine was secretly a priestess for a goddess known as Mercury, the Messenger in Flames. The necklace Susie inherited was vital to Seraphine's connection with Mercury, and now that she has it, the goddess has been sizing Susie up to be her next priestess. She's quietly been helping her throughout their adventure. With her dominion over language (among other things), Mercury can help Susie communicate with others, and Susie's large heart and desire to understand help immensely with that power. From understanding a wolf made of mirror shards to talking an inky cultist out of killing them, Susie's done well in defending her friends without a physical brawl (not that she couldn't, this woman could absolutely slug someone if necessary). She doesn't know Mercury's name, but as a wise shop keep once told her, "just because you don't know magic, doesn't mean magic doesn't know you". When these two do finally meet, Susie's a bit surprised to see her angel's face staring back at her, but can you blame Mercury? When you see the love this woman has for her character, it's not without reason that you'd think that's a more approachable face to wear.

Credit to @sbpstudios for Mercury’s design!

[batimmotw]

In the House of Mirrors, Session 2

As before, comments are turned on in the document!

The game is run by @sbpstudios, Herby is played by @miscmangos-wonderland, Sammy is played by @queenofcats17, Joey is played by @wally-franks-stan, and Susie was played by @angelofthepage!

Enjoy :]

[wally-franks-stan]

Joey was obnoxious in the latest motw session and it was so fun for me

Susie designed and played by @angelofthepage

Sammy designed and played by @queenofcats17

Joey designed and played by me :]

[angelofthepage]

MOTW Susie: Family and Name Chatter

Gosh, what can we say about Susie for MOTW? There’s so much, but where to start? We know what she looks like and a few of her story beats, you have her value chart, but what else can I tell you?  Well, I can tell you her name isn’t actually Susie. Or at least, that’s not what’s on her birth certificate or paycheck (meaning Joey and Grant are privy to this, but not everyone else is). Susie’s given name is Milla. See, I’m a huge sucker for Milla’s tapes in BATDS, and I feel like they have potential to give us a really great backstory for Susie, so I’m implementing that here. So for starters, her father is a butcher, and part of her upbringing was spent helping him in the butcher’s shop. She’s pretty handy with a knife and knows how to cut meat rather expertly, it’s honestly a little scary (this is also why I went with a multitool that has a knife in her inventory). She also enjoyed going camping with him as a kid, could probably survive decently enough in the woods if she tried. She has a strong bond and closeness with her mother too, values her opinion probably a bit more than she should. She’s the middle child out of five kids, with two older sisters and two younger brothers. Her sisters left the family in the dust when her mother was sick, leaving her to take care of the household and delay pursuing her dreams. She’s still a little bitter about it, but once things settled down and her brothers were old enough to not need her help, she took and chance and struck out on her own as a voice actress. She’s still in regular contact with her family, but uh, she hasn’t brought up the supernatural stuff yet. Especially considering she’s unraveling some of her aunt’s secrets, she’s not ready to open that can of worms yet. 

So why did she start going by Susie, I hear you asking. Well, her family immigrated here from overseas. I haven’t fully decided on nationalities yet, but I know there’s a mix of Italian and Polish in there (she and Joey both speak a little Italian and it’s kind of cute). She didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb, people treated her like she didn’t belong, and no amount of being born on American soil could change that. For a while she went by Mac, which comes from her initials (Milla Annunciata Campbell), but she later decided on Susie because it means lily, one of her favorite flowers. Funny thing, Milla has a few name meanings, some of which are gracious, dear, and miracle. I don’t know if this has any bearing on her story, but I get the sense there may have been some complications when she was born that led to this being her name. 

Speaking of birth, I decided that her birthday is on May 9th. After all, in BATIM she debuts in Chapter 2 alongside Sammy, but she’s more heavily featured in Chapter 3, so it feels like the best time to have her birthday is in-between the two. I went with May 9th because that was the announcement date for Chapter 3′s development (and coincidentally right around the time I got into BATIM during college finals). This makes her a Taurus, and I don’t know what to do with this information. XD 

[wally-franks-stan]

This man is so stupid I love him so much. party animal

[angelofthepage]

So I've been seeing a lot of this Bendy MOTW stuff going around. What's the deal with that? Also, why'd you pick Susie? Just curious.

Hey there! Great question anon, let me see if I can clear this up. So MOTW is the abbreviation for Monster of the Week, a tabletop game system (think like Dungeons and Dragons but less complicated, with dice rolling and character sheets and all that), and some friends and I play in a campaign that’s Bendy themed. I love our group so much, they’re amazing folks. <3 We’ve actually got a blog for our game if you want to read up on more of what we do at @batimmotw My buds do a lot of great art and have some phenomenal ideas.

Well, I went with Susie for a couple of reasons. First, I’m kind of the type to hang back and wait until everyone else picks, since I want to be strategic and fill in any gaps where we’re lacking in a strength. The rest of our party is heavily based in magic and picks up some of the fan favorites. I knew I wanted to play as a girl, so it was kind of down to Susie or Abby, and I determined I was not confident enough to play Abby at this point in my life. Also, I just really like her. Being a voice actress myself (albeit a hobbyist) and a lover of all things Alice Angel, it felt appropriate. I also knew I didn’t want to be the healer. EVERY TIME I play a tabletop game, I’m the healer, and I die, because the enemy always goes for the healer first, or I had to throw myself into danger to cover someone else’s mistakes. Susie has thankfully been more built to accommodate that. She’s charming and a nurturer sure, but she’s also pretty tough (as the only party member with a relatively decent physical stat). Girl will not hesitate to carry you over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and put you to bed. I love my stronk chubby cherub girl so much. <3

[angelofthepage]

"Keep it together. Don't get fragmented."

Was having some feels about Susie and mirrors yesterday, wanted to draw a bunch of cracked glass shards. Her arms are both scarred from them as a result of the first arc, dunno what they look like exactly, but I know she's getting cool magic scars at some point.

[angelofthepage]

In general / in your interpretation of her, what would you see as Susie Campbell's greatest flaw? (feel free to pick an AU Susie if you'd rather!)

Oh golly, this is a good question! I've been pondering this as I've been organizing things, and the best answer I have for now is that Susie's greatest flaw is she cares too much about what people think of her, and that trait fuels her shift into being more manipulative. In some ways, I almost see her and Joey as two sides of the same coin. This is a long one, so we're hitting this with a read more.

Susie's always read to me as someone who is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but horribly insecure. She's filled with so much hope and enthusiasm for her work, she's eager to please, and she takes things to heart. When you're kind to her and talk well of her skills, she's over the moon and thankful for it, but when you have moments like Joey replacing her and whatever the heck happened with Sammy, where her world came crashing down, I get the sense her confidence took a huge hit. She acts all tough in her audio log before meeting with Joey about that "opportunity", but I get the sense she's really insecure about it deep down.

She's an actress in more than just her voice, she knows how to put on a face and act out the part incredibly well, but ultimately, she's trying to get the best result, be it validation, attention, good pay, what have you. And I'd argue that the biggest shift in her becoming Malice is that she goes from worrying about what people think of her to wanting to control what they think of her. She plays herself up as being powerful, intimidating, a force to be feared, she controls how you see her now.

And it's that particular notion that makes me think she's not so different from Joey Drew. With his Illusion of Living and need to have people think well of him, and control the narrative, they have a lot in common. Ultimately the need for control, when they felt those in control failed them, is both of these characters' undoing, and it'd be really interesting to see them come to that realization together. I forget where in BATIM it is, or if this is just something I read in a fic (if anyone has a clue where it's from, please correct me), but there's a quote somewhere about 'you're either put in someone's pocket or you're putting them in yours,' and that sums up the attitude pretty well to me. And honestly, I'd like to see her learn to trust people again, as well as be someone trustworthy, but that's something I'll have to write for myself. Heck, it IS something I'd like to write within a couple of fics actually.

Of course, that's just my general overview, I tend to write her a little bit differently when it comes to AUs. Namely, if we were to touch on MOTW Susie, she differs. She's paralyzed by some things but more proactive in others, but her greatest flaw in my mind is that she doesn't have a good balance of when to trust people and when to be confident in her own abilities. Particularly in our last couple of sessions, she's taken a step back and let the others do the talking, even though she's got more than enough charisma to charm her way into the answers, the whole 'being new to magic' thing has her afraid of everything, best let her friends who know more about this handle taking the lead. She's so stuck in her role as the nurturer that she's not sure how to handle taking the leap and doing something daring, she's afraid of making things worse. I just want to tell her 'girl, you gotta be more confident, you've got this! Go with your gut, don't second guess yourself!' Now granted, being gentle and cautious isn't a bad thing, but there's a time and place for it.

[angelofthepage]

I want to take a minute to show you the moment that I really got invested in Susie for Monster of the Week. Warning for broken glass, bleeding, injury, and arc one spoilers (wow Kat that is such a ringing endorsement for what inspires you the heck X'''D).

This scenario still hits me so hard, and while the way I've drawn her has changed since drawing this, it still makes me emotional. For the first arc, there was an incident with a wolf made out of mirror shards that attacked our team, and Herby, being the chap he is, did a lot of the work defending us from danger. Susie carried him to the infirmary to patch him up, and the whole time, to try and keep them both calm, she was rambling and babbling. Well, one of the things that came out of her mouth was this gem.

"If I could take the pain from you, I would."

'Cause y'know, she's pretty sympathetic, feels awful that the guy got hurt. Well someone -looks directly at secret goddess- was listening, and because my roll was -looks back at notes- an 8, it was a mixed success. I could help heal Herby, but it came with a glitch. Neil and I decided she'd take some harm, since getting hurt helping her friends is well within her character, but I didn't think it would be in the form of literally transferring his arm wounds to her. Now his inky blood has mixed with hers, which we STILL don't know the consequences of, but damn are there some consequences! Susie spent the rest of the adventure somewhat afraid to speak, knowing whatever this force was could listen in and twist her words again, but most of her victories were language based, so she's slowly getting the hang of wording things thoughtfully.

This moment helped me immensely. I'm actually a bit rusty when it comes to tabletops, played a little in college, but not in a long time and never on the MOTW system. This is what got me back into the headspace. Every other time, I've played as a healer, but this time I said "no, because if I do that I'm just gonna die again, and I hate getting targeted." Susie is very different, I'm much more invested in her than my other characters (sorry Medichi, Arielle, and Tito, you still rock, she's just different). She isn't built to heal, but she is built to fill a space that the other gents don't. I can't believe I play the muscle and work through scenarios by talking my way through them. X'''D She talked a cultist out of murdering someone! Oh my good gravy I love it! X'''D Just, Susie my belusie, oh my heart. I love you.

At any rate, the scene that followed this was everyone in the infirmary together patching each other up, and thus started the extreme mom-ing of my fellow players. Because after Sammy and Herby got the glass out of her and Joey healed the wound (hence why she has strange scars), like hell was she not gonna return the favor. And this is when I learned that Susie is incredibly physically affectionate. She hugs, she does forehead and cheek kisses, there is nose booping, hand holding, gentle playing with hair, many flattering compliments, by golly she is just very gentle and affectionate.

In conclusion: I have a LOT of feelings about Susie that stemmed from her getting hurt, oh my word.

[angelofthepage]

Link to original template: https://twitter.com/cparrisart/status/1475535559984656392 

So a while back, the MOTW crew decided to play around with some character value charting for fun. I was a little late to the party, so I put this together after arc one (mostly because that’s when I had proper art of Susie for it). If you’ve got any questions based on this, my askbox is open to you, fire away. XD I’m gonna be dropping some fun facts on her soon enough, but I’m always curious as to what catches people’s attention. Sometimes it’s very different from the details I’m most focused on!