#batdr voice cast

[angelofthepage]

Hey everyone! Kat here, and boy has it been busy! Yours truly has been working hard alongside a bunch of fantastic folks here in the Bendy community and the BATDR voice cast! We’re in the process of cooking up something pretty special for all of you! I really hope you enjoy our teaser for this project, you’re in for a real treat!

I’m not permitted to share details on what this is, and I can’t confirm if your guesses are right or wrong (though I will absolutely encourage you to try and unravel the mystery). But I CAN tell you that I’m responsible for some of the art on this! I illustrated the stage and did a lot of the static typography. I had a lot of fun making it, it was honored to be asked to help. I can also tell you that this is NOT DLC or official/canon. There’s so much more to come, you have no idea what you’re in for!

[mushroomcontessa]

[fandom-will-be-my-fall]

Mildly (though pleasantly) surprised that Wilson Arch hasn't become a sexyman. I mean he's nasty and pathetic and evil that's all things Tumblr likes right

[zeldaspeaks]

wilson speaks to me and all i can hear is vulgrim

[inkdemonapologist]

Ok. A hypothetical scenario if you'll indulge me. You are a casting director on the movie. You are familiar with the material and you are asked to present some actors to the crew- *besides JK Simmons who everybody thinks should play Joey I guess?* who do you suggest and for what role?

I don't know any actors other than The Guy With The Cool Lips Who Played Scarecrow That One Time, so setting me up as casting director would be a questionable decision! I feel like the very tiny amount we know about this movie also makes this difficult; like, am I casting Sammy in 1932, Sammy in 1946, Ink Sammy, all three?

So, rather than picking specific famous people, some broader thoughts on what elements to prioritise?? as hypothetical casting director. For sake of this exercise we're going to take this all very seriously and pretend that the writing for this movie is already great lmao.

Joey: Ironically for the first BatIM character to get a canon human appearance, I think Joey's acting chops are more important than his looks; as long as makeup can do a decent moustache and the voice is good, the energy is what will really sell him. Joey Drew is both VERY important to get right and also the most complex character in the Bendy Franchise, but he's also really really easy to turn into a stereotype, and I feel like this implication of "obviously he should be played by the guy who played J Jonah Jameson" kinda speaks to how easy it is to see just one side of him. Joey is simultaneously ruthless but also disarmingly charming, likeable but also punchable, confident but also pathetically insecure, genuine but also manipulative -- it seems like a tricky energy to nail. If he doesn't have a sharpness to him, that Curiosity Where Empathy Should Be element, you've erased a really important part of the man behind so many nightmares; if he's a cartoon evil capitalist, then everyone who believes in his dreams looks stupid for falling for something so obvious. Whoever plays him has to be able to get in his head AND ALSO convey that nuance. But if you have the luxury of nitpicking appearance after that, I think it's worth noting that Joey doesn't look the way he's trying to look. I keep saying I'm obsessed with his overbite in BatDR, but like:

See? Henry's the one with that aggressive strong jaw facial structure. Compared to him, even this less-aged Joey has facial structure more like mine, with a weaker chin that gives the impression of an overbite and a shorter face (which, to be clear, are attractive traits, but they are definitely not the Stereotypical Energy for this character archetype) -- he just knows how to carry himself to give off that j jonah jameson energy. I think attention to that kind of detail would also help him be his own fascinating character instead of just shoving him into an existing archetype.

Henry: If it's Ink Henry, his vibes are the most important. This character is famously non-emotive, often to an inappropriate extent, and frankly I think whoever plays him should keep that as part of his character. Henry strikes me as someone who wants to be kind but he's so, so tired, and just looking at this guy needs to sell that because Henry's actual behaviour and dialogue won't.

If it's Actually Worked In The Studio Henry, then I think his voice and appearance need to be SPOT. ON. so that they can play him a little differently and it still works rather than just not feeling like Henry. If he sounds like a perfect Henry but he has more energy, he's still quiet but he's more confident, he's not the follower Joey tried to sell him as... that would be such a neat thing to leave as an implied reveal for fans -- that the Henry we know is either a dishonest representation, or changed by his experiences, and is actually a bit different from the man Joey worked with.

Susie: they won't do this because they're cowards, but I personally think Susie would be such a good candidate for protagonist of a Bendy movie..... anyway if human Susie is in it, she doesn't have a canon appearance so you have a lot of freedom here. Most important thing is that She Has The Range; she needs to be able to be both believably naive and starry-eyed in a likeable way rather than coming across as desperate or annoying, and she ALSO needs to have a ruthless energy in her so that her later Womens Wrongs don't come out of nowhere. If Twisted Alice AND Susie both make appearances, I'm torn on whether they should be played by the same person... it could be cool if they were, since then you could see a lot of Susie in Alice even when she's behaving VERY DIFFERENTLY, which I think would humanise Alice in a good way (and also humanise Susie as more than just a Sweet Naive Girl Who Was Tricked)

Either way Twisted Alice NEEDS TO BE HOT. IM NOT JOKING I THINK THIS IS THE PRIORITY. Yes yes half her face is melting, but her vibes are UNIRONICALLY "hot and evil and wants to vivisect someone." Like, it would also be nice to get someone who can play her with dimension, with an implication that she has reason to be a cartoon evil sexy person who flies into a shrieking rage beyond just women be crazy (which is kind of what she is in the games), but also, she IS a cartoon evil sexy person and you CAN'T lose that; she needs to be able to pull off EVIL AND HOT with half her face gone without it feeling like a parody. Lesbians in the audience need to fan themselves. ITS VERY IMPORTANT.

I don't have a ton of thoughts about Allison. We have a pretty specific physical description of her human self. She needs to have enough ethereal poise to justify the lovesick way she is described in every novel lmao. Allison Angel, though, is where I would put a priority of Needs A Character Actor i think; she's a fairly major character but it's so hard to get a good handle on what she actually like..... wants or feels beyond Helping The Protagonist and Being A Good Person, but if she could really sell the bits and pieces so well you believe it, so that she really seems like she's been harshened by the brutal world she lives in but genuinely values a hope she won't let go of, it could make the character really good.

Sammy.............. Well, it's hard to not be biased. But human Sammy has no canon appearance, so I think you can't go wrong there as long as you pick someone who could conceivably be described as "pointy", and I PERSONALLY think based on the little crumbs of description we've gotten that a human Sammy should be fairly distinctive and intense, attractive in a Strange way - but I think the really really important thing for Sammy (ink or human) is his vocal performance. This is a character who took off in popularity in large part because of a couple of really compellingly delivered monologues; Sammy's voice NEEDS to be right, especially when he's speaking quietly. I think physicality in the sense of How He Moves is ALSO really important for him; Sammy's wiggle-fingers in game and constantly odd descriptions in the novels and complete lack of personal space in both all imply that he moves Strangely, and I do think he should have an unsettling Renfield energy, but it's also so easy for Character Who Is Losing His Mind to get portrayed so over-the-top that it becomes goofy or unbelievable or weird for the sake of being "creepy". Sammy's energy shouldn't be Insane Batman Villain, it should be Doomed Guy In A Lovecraft Story -- it's just that nobody but him is in a lovecraft story.

there are other characters but I think these are all the ones i have thoughts on

[spotlightstudios]

Thinking about The Siren (aka my self-insert oc for Dark Revival) again! :D

@neonsix67 got the Batdr game on console, and I briefly mentioned it, but we had like a 7 hour gaming spree and managed to get halfway through the story!

We had a lot of great moments, including but not limited to:

-> Running face-first into multiple Lost Ones

-> Jumping into an ink-pit instead of getting killed by Bendy

->Neon evading him multiple times somehow. (A few involve "You wouldn't hurt a girl in bed, would you?" While standing on Joey's bed, and he waited until she got off to kill us. As well as fast-traveling, getting the warning that he's arriving, and turning around + fast-traveling right back. Etc.)

->Apparently Piper comes out of the ink-shower things???

->Left Fisher in his lil locker. :)

->Neon hoping we get the death cutscene where Bendy stomps on us. (We, in fact, never did lmao-)

->Me screaming for no good reason at a Fisher on the other side of a crack in the wall we approached.

->Majora's Mask Easter egg didn't work :(

->Listening to the Keeper audio and a) mimicking their voices b) leading me to believe Sammy was the most recently caught CycleBreaker cuz there's something happening in The Lost Harbor.

Anyways, point is, The Siren used to be a member from the studio that worked as a stagehand initially, before she was casted in a holiday special with a Siren character.

Siren had stagefright in the cartoon, but in the end the cast helped her get over the stage fright and sing. Her singing voice was picked up by a recruiter from the cartoon, and she ended up leaving the studio for a singing career.

She was lured back long after her career took off, and ended up in the cycle like everyone else. (She starts as a searcher, then finds a few more memories after an accident and becomes more like herself, then her third variation is the most Siren-like.

Her Ink-thing is that she can see the glowing golden ink without the use of the seeing glass. A lot of the time, she uses that to guide her decisions. Along with that, she's particularly good at navigating through the ink, able to resist the voices and slip away from other grasping hands.

Nerfing her was easy too, because in every iteration she's a Siren. Her tail never full develops and is made of runny ink. She can't stay *outside* the puddles too long or she'll fall apart. Unlike every other soul, she thrives in the ink, and can't survive without it. (For her cyclebreakers moment, she literally has to be put in a bucket so she can't escape lmao.)

There's just a lot about her, but this is what I'm posting about for now. Just... shout-out to Neon for braving the studio + getting into my hyperfixation with me!!!♡

[multi-level-shipper]

Batdr was an absolute disappointing experience

You got same badly made game but "polished" and with another protagonist (both don't even have personalities, how familiar :))

Weak designs, weak mechanics, weak voice acting and fanfic instead of a plot.

But of course fans would be crazy over it, in fanbase that has pretty low standards for content

I mean....it did leave a few things to be desired but I still liked it?

Audrey's not super outstanding but she does have a little personality, she's got a bit more spunk than Henry did. I guess my big question was why she instantly smashed her hand into a canister and knew it would power her up. (I'm assuming that was part of her ink-stinct when she got inked?)

I'd argue the BATDR aesthetic holds up pretty well- it's more elaborate than the first game and it polishes off designs like Allison very well. It also introduces some great environments like the underground city. And the rainbow colors worked into the environment later for Shipahoy Dudley were absolutely genius.

I can see the weak mechanics- the sneaking aspect took forever and the enemy balance wasn't great. I can't speak too much on the rest of the gameplay because I didn't purchase the game myself.

I go back and forth on the plot, I liked how Joey, Henry, and Allison were handled specifically, but we weren't really given time to attach to any new characters. There were some things that were answered very directly about the first game, but I honestly could have done without the whole "multiple timelines" shtick. It's cool the way they presented it... but it reeeeeally wasn't needed in Bendy, it overcomplicates things in an uneeded way.

The VA's were excellent, they were just given some shit scripts. Again, l really think this game butchered the chance to create a new cast concerning the new tapes and notes. There were people in the first game like Wally who served mainly as gameplay hints, but he and many others from BATIM remain very memorable and well-loved. These new guys should've had more substance.

Also we...don't have low standards for content? I mean, of course I can't speak for the whole fanbase, but usually the art and ideas that I usually see come out of the BATIM fandom are pretty well thought-out. I think we were so quick to accept this game because it's a miracle it made it out of development hell at all, and I don't really fault people for having that reaction.

[inkdemon-whore]

i've been singing "i want it that way" in a shitty waluigi voice since the batdr voice cast vid

[skeletxnqueen]

BATDR rambling review thing

warning: BATDR spoilers

Just watched a playthrough of Bendy and the Dark Revival and quality-wise, it's an absolutely gorgeous game. I really like the voice acting aside from maybe one or two characters *cough*Audreyhaslikenoemotion*cough* and it's just overall nicely polished!

I'd say my only real qualms are how it seems even less of a horror game than its predecessor, and the writing is a little cheesy and predictable. Particularly the portrayal of Wilson, whose voice is just a little too cartoon-villainy for my liking. He's a very obvious villain from the very beginning (even though the game does try to subvert this and throw off your expectations a little... it doesn't do a very good job of it and he ends up being bad anyway).

Also the reveal of Audrey being the daughter of Joey Drew, which ended up being really cheesy and, again, predictable. The entire scene is honestly just really corny from the dialogue to the delivery. Despite all this though, I loved the game. I loved seeing Alice again, and especially seeing Tom and Allison. (Honestly, they didn't show up enough I rlly wanted there to be more opportunities to pet Tom)

I'd probably give it a 7/10 ????? Not a perfect game but still really fun to return to that environment and cast of characters. It was so nice to finally see Henry! Hearing his voice again really warmed my heart. Also little tiny Bendy <3 I hate that he disappeared not long after getting to be your little buddy. He was so cute!

[looking-cool-joker]

Final thoughts on BATDR.

I think its a drastic improvement from the first game, all around, i have a bunch of nitpicks, such as, I wished that there was more Sammy, Allison and Tom (and Steve).

Seeing all the way through I actually don’t hate the cycle as much as I thought I would.

I wish the memos had voice lines, I understand that it could be difficult because they had the tapes, but it feels a bit lackluster.

Also I feel like it was pointless giving the Subway option right before the end, unless if I’m missing something but Betty was the only one with a fetch quest for you to go to the city.

I hate Wilson, he freaks me out.

I think the games genuinely good, I think it looks fun and the plot is enjoyable along with the cast, next time it goes on sale, I’ll probably pick it up.

[angelofthepage]

BATDR Voice Cast Event INCOMING!

Saturday, February 4th there is going to be a livestream over on the DAGames channel with many members of the BATDR voice cast present for autograph signings via Streamily! (Check the link for more details on the schedule) For a portion of the event, the voice actors are gonna be answering questions, so if you have any, head over to Twitter and use the hashtag #BATDRCast to ask them! Let’s show this group some love!

[quillsinkwell]

I posted 352 times in 2022

That's 340 more posts than 2021!

25 posts created (7%)

327 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ministarfruit

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I tagged 195 of my posts in 2022

Only 45% of my posts had no tags

#quill's reblogs - 111 posts

#batdr - 55 posts

#ace attorney - 42 posts

#misquillaneous - 31 posts

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#batdr spoilers - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 82 characters

#this is what happens when you turn all your queer employees into ink monsters joey

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

OK, FINALLY HOME, TIME TO SAY MY THOUGHTS ON THE TRAILER

The animation was really good, even for Illumination. You can really tell Nintendo *put a lot of money in to make this look good (read: held a gun to Illumination's head to make sure they didn't fuck this up)

So, fun fact about me, before this trailer, I have never heard Jack Black's voice. I didn't even know who he was until he got cast! Still, I gotta, you can tell he put a lot of effort into Bowser's voice, to make it that perfect mix of villainous so you can see why he's seen as a threat but also cartoony enough to be funny.

Speaking of funny, the scene with the peinguins? Hilarious!

Also, internet, can we bully Nintendo into getting rid of Crisp Rat? That man IS not Mario. We did for Sonic's design, we can do it for this.

Toad was pretty ok, he wasn't a dead ringer, but he also wasn't Crisp Rat.

Also, once again, My Boi Luigi is getting buried under the rug! But, at least there's confirmation they didn't fuck him up so....

Conclusion:

Me: I want to see my little boi

Nintendo: Here he comes!

Me: *slowly lowers the gun from Miyamoto's head* ok..you may live...but i want mORE

71 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#4

AN ACTUAL TRAILER WITH GAMEPLAY AND NOT JUST A PRANK?!

BIG BOI SEARCHER BOSS!!

NEW CHARACTERS!!

ALLISON!!

PEOPLE BREAKING INTO THE MIRACLE STATION?!

WEAPON UPGRADING?!

EVIL ALICE HAS A GUN?!

MORE LOOKS AT AUDREY!!!

BABY BENDY REAL?!?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

86 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

#3

@knightinink WAIT REALLY? /GEN?

Whelp, time to ramble

TW for implied torture

Instead of trying to gas her, the Keepers decided to lock Audrey up with the rest of the Cyclebreakers

The barrier curtains that cover the cells? Outta here! Audrey interacting with Henry and Sammy (and Norman, he's there too) more then in-game!

During this stint in prison, Audrey sees one of the communication-radio thingies that Allison talked to her on nearby and goes for it while her cellmates cause a distraction!

She speaks into it only to hear instead...Porter?!

He was in the nearby area of one and heard her voice coming out of it and decided to strike up a conversation!

Obviously, she's like, "h e l p m e" and Porter, while kinda not getting the fact that her life's in danger, promises to come save her!

Audrey gives him instructions to find a woman with a sword named Alice and that he has to find a way to take out the power, because his powers would be canceled out.

But then the Keepers come and take Audrey away!

And they uh...let's just say that her punishment was exactly what Bendy was trying to prevent

And that everyone in the prison heard her screams.

And there was a certain someone with incredible hearing far away from the prison who heard her.

A n y w a y s, the next day, there's a power outage! So Audrey, Sammy, Henry and Norman take this opportunity to escape! (With Henry carrying Norman's head)

During the chaos they manage to unite with Porter, Allison, and Tom (the latter two have to be told that Sammy is an ally, so don't curbstomp him please-)

But then the Keepers corner them, and when it seems like they're dead just when they had a chance, the Ink Demon comes and takes advantage of the lack of power to f*ck em up!

While the others want to use Bendy's rampage as cover to escape, Henry, Audrey and Sammy aren't so inclined.

For Sammy, it's relatively simple; he can't abandon his lord! Not at his grand revival! What kind of prophet would he be?

For Audrey, she's having an internal debate. On one hand, she knows the Ink Demon could kill her, if stories from her cellmates are true and he had. On the other hand, he came here, even after what had happened to him here.

(Wilson spilled what he did to Bendy when he came by in a attempt to get Audrey's trust. It Did Not Work)

He wouldn't have done that just for no reason, and the reason that a part of her wanted to believe that it was to help her. (That part of you is right Audrey~)

Henry's having a similar debate, with the knowledge of the Cycle and the fact that's Bendy's one of Joey's pawns too.

The party's left in a stalemate until Porter just straight up yells to Bendy, "Hey silly! We're leaving soon! You don't wanna be left behind!"

And Bendy? He actually listens and heads towards the group

So now we have Allison and Tom trying to run away from Bendy but also trying not to leave Henry, Audrey, and Porter behind, Bendy in his massive Ink Demon self running behind him, Porter quick teleporting and having the time of his life, Sammy frantically screaming about Bendy, Norman screeching into Allison's ears, and Audrey and Henry just trying to keep up and wondering "how did my life get to this point"

It all comes to a climax when they're almost out of the prison when the power comes back on! And the Keepers found them

Bendy's shrinking into Benders and the Keepers are making a move on him and that's when Audrey makes her choice...

...by scooping him up in his arms and yelling at everyone to keep running

A long and heavy chase ensues, until the group manages to hide and shake them off

See the full post

115 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#2

Thinks about ghosts as a recurring motif in BATDR. In the literal sense with Carly, the Phantoms of the Machine, Memory! Joey, etc. But also thinks about ghosts in a figurative sense. Joey haunting the studio even after dying, but not being the real Joey, just haunted by the monster the man was. Henry being created solely for Joey to haunt and torture. Audrey being haunted by Joey's legacy and not even remembering it. Alice being haunted and tormented over a false standard of perfection. Allison being haunted by Alice and what could have been. Bendy being haunted over never being good enough for Joey and being tortured and forced into what everyone else wants him to be until he meets Audrey.

god. this game heard the saying "there's more than one way to be haunted" and fucking ran with it huh

185 notes - Posted November 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

do i understand that since hunter is one of many clones of a dead guy from the 1600s him being transmasc most likely won't be canon?: yes

do i subscribe to the headcanon regardless?: also yes

289 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lucky-dreamfisher]

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe:

Redditor: Hi, Mike! Are there any minorities in your games?

Mike: Of course, there are! As you may remember from the novel, Joey values talent above all else and his studio hires many minorities, despite the times. And if you look at our vast BATIM and BATDR cast, it really shows! Just to give you two examples - Norman is black, and Lacie is Native American (pay no mind to the fact that they’re both voiced by white people, you have my word that these characters are meant to be minorities).

As for LGBT people, let’s just say that there’s a reason why Grant never married ;)

Sorry for not making it more clear in the game, as straight white men, writing diversity isn’t our strong suit. Thankfully, this AMA is our chance to reach out to our many minority fans and show them that they matter to us!

Redditor: Thank you so much for this answer, Mike! There’s a lot of bigots in fandom

who give people a hard time for having POC headcanons

and LGBT headcanons.

I don’t understand this, because no one ever questions it when people headcanon characters as white and straight, and demands from them a justification for that, so why would anyone want a reason for headcanoning these characters as anything else? It’s almost like, in the absence of canonical diversity, all characters are presumed to be white and straight by default!

Hopefully, your answer will make them suck up and accept that your game is as diverse as the world around us!

Mike: Oh, sure, I definitely wouldn’t want our fandom to become a place, where bigots feel right at home, while our minority fans feel invisible and unwelcome, not just in real life, but also in the place they come for escapism! Even Blizzard makes the bare minimum of an attempt to be inclusive, and we’d never stoop down to Disney’s level, with giving LGBT people a lip service, but keeping them out of sight in our works! After all, a major theme in Bendy is calling out corporations like Disney for all their wrongdoings, how could we be so hypocritical as to do the same ourselves? Especially after we’ve strongly implied that two major beloved characters in our games are black, only to whitewash both of them later. That came out looking very bad, so I hope that my answers here today can make up for it!

I mean, what would it say about us, if we couldn’t conceive of the possibility of one of those many voices we hear throughout the game to have belonged to someone with a slightly darker skin tone, or someone with a lover of the same gender? Our fans have no trouble imagining the characters with a vast palette of skin colors and romantic preferences, and we’re not going to be outdone by them! As writers and storytellers, we pride ourselves in our vast and rich imagination. Writing fantasy and science fiction is all about adding flavor and variety to the world, not taking most of it away! Plus, it sure would be nice to look at the fanart and know right away, which character is depicted, heh!

Redditor: It means so much to hear these words from you, Mike! Turns out you’re a much nicer person than you came across lately! Love your game, btw! 

Mike: I’m sure you’ll love BATDR as well! It’s coming out very soon, actually, we have 50 people working on it! <3

[angelofthepage]

Okay, so lately I've been seeing a lot of mixed feelings (namely on Twitter) about the announcement of Bendy: Dreams Come to Life getting a graphic novel iteration. There is a LOT to talk about when it comes to this thing, and maybe I'll discuss it more another time, but today I wanna talk about the thing I've been hearing the most: strong feelings about having canonical designs for the human versions of some of our favorite characters.

In Dreams Come to Life, we have physical appearances from the following BATIM characters (that I can remember off the top of my head, I may be missing some):

Joey Drew

Sammy Lawrence

Norman Polk

Thomas Connor

Allison Pendle

Bertrum Piedmont

Wally Franks (this one I'm unsure on, it's been a hot minute)

This means that for the first time, we're gonna know what all of them look like as humans in the minds of the game developers, since, let's be real, if they're doing this thoughtfully, there is likely a lot of communication with the artist they got for this book. Making sure these characters fit their vision is a very probable priority.

In this fandom, we have had the freedom to design whatever the heck we want for the human versions of these characters. And that has been so much fun. You've had all sorts of takes, from characters mirroring their voice actors to completely original things that you never would have expected. Some things would pop up consistently in fan designs, and others would be an occasional pleasant surprise. We've seen a lot of things tweaked over the years, sometimes because we latch onto designs we like from artists we've met in the fandom and incorporate them into our own. Sometimes it's because we get new information in the canon, like Sammy confirmed to be blonde in The Illusion of Living (EDIT: I was extremely wrong on this, he is not confirmed blonde in this book, but he does have long and floppy hair that Joey thought should be slicked back more, and also Jack had some wild fashion), Allison is platinum blonde in DCTL, Wally having a hat as of his YouTube audiolog, Shawn and Tom wearing belts as of Boris and the Dark Survival, Tom being a wall of a man, Bertrum being a bear of a guy, etc. But even before Wally was confirmed to have a hat, a lot of us gave him a hat anyway, because the idea of him with a hat is fun! Bertrum being large, Tom being really tough! Heck, I saw a number of blonde Susies and Allisons before we got that bit on Allison, because it's fun to contrast their looks with that of Alice. That's the spirit of all of this, we make these designs because it's fun! You have characters all across the board in terms of race, sexuality, gender identity, age, body types, etc, because it's fun to imagine the possibilities for all of them with this cast that we love (and sometimes connect with them on a personal level), regardless of what's "canon" or not.

One of the things I'm hearing a lot is that some people don't want canon designs, and it sounds like it stems from a fear that they can't make their own designs anymore. And for those people, I'd like to ask, when has that ever stopped us? I mean that as a genuine question, I'm not here to mock anyone. Like, my first big fandom experience was over with Sonic as a teenager, and I never dreamed of deviating from the canon because I just, did not have any experience with that at the time. Bendy was really good for showing me that there's a LOT of ways the fandom experience can go, especially on this front. When Bendy and the Dark Revival came out, and we got two really major reveals for character designs: Memory Joey and Henry Stein. Henry, a character fans have been designing for YEARS, a character shrouded in mystery, finally got a confirmed design, and you know what happened? We started drawing this new design, but we didn't stop drawing our fan designs just because we got this new one. BATDR Henry has kind of been adopted into the fandom the same way we do designs for AUs, he's just another AU guy that happens to be canon to the sequel game. Heck, I love seeing art where fandom takes on Henry are interacting with BATDR Henry, it's really sweet honestly.

And that's exactly the attitude I have towards this graphic novel. It does not matter how these characters are designed, we are still valid and allowed to make whatever the heck we want. And if people really try to gatekeep it and scream that you're only allowed to draw the canon, I think that says more about them than it does anything else. Go draw what makes you happy (so long as it's not hurting anyone, obviously there is some nuance here but that is a whole other can of worms)! The only thing that this actually changes (or at least, what I'm guessing will change) is what's gonna fly when it comes to stuff like the fan art contests and challenges/what the devs might choose to retweet in terms of fan art. But that's only one part of the fan art scene. Otherwise, go fandom your way! No one is stopping you, draw what makes YOU happy. I am still going to draw a pointy blonde disaster of a music director however I please, even after we see Sammy in canon. Because darn it I like my Sammy, he is my strawberry blonde (depending on the world, sometimes it's more ashy) buffoon, and one new version of a book doesn't change my love for that.

That said, I am really curious how the teams behind this series imagine these characters. I feel the same way about it that I do my fellow fan artists. To me this really is just another AU, the DCTL AU. I think I'm less curious about the game characters and more about the characters native to this book, and that's got more to do with, well, I don't see a lot of people designing them! There's some, but they're not flooding my timeline like the game characters do. Like, I've designed the DCTL art department before for a Sims game, but I haven't gone much farther than that. I wanna know what Abby looks like, give me her fashion! I wanna see Buddy, Dot, and Jacob! I'm still keeping my Jacob design regardless, I love playing with him, but gosh do I wanna know what Jacob looks like in canon. Same with Dot. I have a lot of hopes for both of them, and I'm trying to lower my expectations so as not to be disappointed if it doesn't turn out that way. Like Dot has potential to be our first plus sized Bendy character given how she's described (also the first to wear glasses), of COURSE I want to see that! She's my writer girl that's super sus and incredibly interesting to me personally, I love her! And then I have more information to consider when I go to design my dolls (because believe you me, dolls based on the books have been on my list for a LONG time). I'm curious how much input Adrienne Kress will have here as the author, like I would love to know what's going on in her mind with these characters!

Whatever happens next, the most important thing to remember is that you're free to create whatever you like. Go make things that make you happy. That's all the devs are doing in the end, and if it's good enough for them, it's more than good enough for us. Bendy is made the way it is (hopefully) because that's what they wanted to make. Like why make an indie project that makes you miserable, you know? I don't know what to think of this new graphic novel, but whatever happens, I'm gonna take it with a grain of salt and keep doing what I always do: make my own fun out of what we're given. That's what fandom is, a place to enjoy a piece of media. And everyone enjoys this sort of thing differently. Find what works for you.