Another set of practice sketches suggested by friends on Discord. Enjoy!
1. Zander-the-artist: Neon in Cinder's body teasing Harold
2. @trak-the-pichu REAL Cinder kissing his Chu girlfriend, Elissia
3. Denari-aiba Female Klonoa
4. @deathxael Damon and Xael sparring
5. @ask-lunaeclipsa Charmy and Sally
6. Thecreativeaura His bunny boy, Luke
((I’ve yet to sit down and properly think about how the toons take to illness, so I guess its about time I did. Also, no such thing as too many questions! I’m glad you can think up so many of ‘em, keeps the blog active. Headcanons under the cut! :3))
✮ Please don’t tag as kin/me - Please don’t repost to other websites - Ask Before Dubbing - Please don’t remove caption - Reblogs appreciated! <3 ✮
The farthest I’ve ever taken the idea is that they get sick if they have too much contact with water, since they’re made entirely out of ink. While the studio does leak like heck when it rains, they aren’t allowed outside until the mid 40s, so its currently not much of a concern. I've also come to accept that they'd probably get super sick if exposed to religious-anything (crosses and holy water, smack 'em upside the head with a bible, y'know the cliches) at all but that would go away within minutes of being removed from them. But can they get sick from contact with other sick employees? ...Only if they get really, really unlucky. Currently the toons aren't even two years old yet and they've all only gotten sick once, and they were confused because it had never happened before.
It started with Henry coming into work really sick one day, and Bendy wouldn't leave him alone - partially out of curiosity ("jeez, whats wrong with you??") and partially out of just enjoying being around him. By the end of the day Bendy was sick, and by the next morning the other toons were too thanks to him. Naturally, they were all fully convinced they were dying. Now, Joey's got this thing about sick people: he doesn't like them. He's old and his immune system is shit, it takes him weeks to get over a cold. If someone comes into work with something, he will avoid them like the PLAGUE. So imagine his horror to wake up only to find all the toons are sick and scared because this is such a new (and terrifying) experience. His first instinct is to go drop them off on Henry as soon as he can, but he wont be around all day and he's already trying to get work done while managing an awful cold. Against his better judgement he decides to let them mope around his office the next few days as they get better. He figured it would make them easier to take care of, and keep their messes out of Wally's hair for a while.
So how does everyone behave while so under the weather? Well, Bendy gets really over dramatic. He keeps telling everyone he's dying and he exaggerates his symptoms. Slight dizziness becomes "OH NO, THERE IT IS - I'M GONNA PASS OUT AND DIE, SOMEONE HOLD ME" and so-on. He hates being sick because all he can do is sit half-melted under a pile of blankets (he sneezes, ink flies everywhere - the blankets are required) and try not to think about how crappy he feels or how bored he is - he'd like to go snuggle up to Joey as he works at his desk but they've all been told to keep their distance from him for now, and they're all too exhausted to try to talk to each other. Poor bab.
Boris hates being sick almost as much as Bendy does, he spends a lot of his regular down time sleeping but at least then he has the OPTION to do something else. All the toons drip ink like mad when they're sick, which means doing anything gets really difficult and really messy. Can't cook, can't read, can't do anything without getting ink everywhere. Sleeping all day isn't nearly as fun when you have to do it because you have no other options. He was glad to be the first of them to recover, but less glad to be kept in the office to play nurse to Bendy and Alice while they were sick another two days.
Alice, at first, decides to still try to be useful - she tried talking to Bendy and Boris, they seemed bored, but all the conversations quickly fell flat. Alright, maybe Joey needs something he needs done? He’s always so busy... "Alice you're sick, go get some rest and... stay away from my desk, please." 'fine.' Suddenly deciding she didn’t feel too terrible, she starts heading to the door. “Alice, you know none of you are supposed to leave until you’re better. Go lie down, the rest of the studio isn’t going anywhere.” ‘ugh, fine. y’know what, i give up.’ Joey's got a radio, she turns the volume down low (to not disturb the other toons or Joey, though he wouldn't mind anyway), wraps herself in a blanket to avoid getting ink on the furniture, and just spends her few sick days on the couch with her eyes closed and the radio on. She isn't even always listening to it, she just enjoys the noise.
Everyone noticed the toons' absence halfway through the first day, usually people had at least seen the toons or heard Bendy getting yelled at by 2PM. Though people first accepted the peace and quiet, they were relieved to see the toons again four days later. ‘Good to know nothing bad happened to them.' Boris and Alice were happy to get out of the office for the first time in days and actually go DO things, and Bendy decided he needed to get caught up on all the mischief he missed out on while he was out. It did not take long at all for people to miss the quiet of them being gone.
Also, turns out the toons can catch stuff from humans, but humans can't catch stuff from toons. Bit of a one-way street there, which was a huge relief to Joey. Made him a bit less reluctant to help them out if they got sick again in the future. They’d still get confined to his office when it happened though, Wally would kill him if he let them wander the studio dripping ink and making messes.
((this is like half-fic half-rambling below the cut lol have fun))
With the studio's many exits, a few axes, and Wally's knack for lock-picking I don't imagine it easy for someone to successfully trap everyone in by simply locking or barring the doors. Soo I took a more natural approach to the situation - a snowstorm. A massive snowstorm. We are talkin' more than three feet of snow on the ground when everyone tries to leave, and there's no way in hell people can drive or walk anywhere. It's hard to just get the studio doors open with as much snow is piled up against them, and the cars in the parking lot are practically buried. Some people live within walking distance of the studio, but the wind is bone-chillingly cold and the snow... seriously, who tries to walk anywhere in over three feet of snow and there's still more snow coming down?? Most people didn't need Joey to decide "nope, none of you are leaving" for them. Most. Five or six people, Wally included, seriously consider their chances out there for at least the first hour before realizing the storm's only getting worse and they could easily freeze to death on their way home. These same people are the ones that panic the hardest, Wally has a fear of being trapped places and this situation is hell for him. He talks a lot when he's anxious so he tries to talk to people to calm down, but with how much and how fast he talks as well as how everyone else is tense as hell they quickly snap at him to go somewhere else. From there he anxiously paces around the studio looking for things to occupy himself with, he even does things he's been putting off for weeks like fixing broken or leaky pipes and patching up weird bits of the studio just so he can try to get his mind of being trapped. The good news is, he got through his entire to-do list by midnight. The bad news is, he got through his entire to-do list and continued to panic for another forty minutes before passing out from exhaustion in a closet. He stayed there 'till the next morning, after which he was one of the few who went out to try to clear the parking lot and nearby sidewalks. He was absolutely thrilled to be able to finally get home.
Speaking of people who panicked way too hard, upon hearing he was going to be stuck in the studio overnight with people he (mostly) hates and no food other than bacon soup, Sammy immediately locked himself in his office and drank the entire bottle of whisky he secretly kept in his desk. That was only there for emergencies, like "everything's gone to shit, this is the worst day ever, I need a drink" kind of emergencies, and even then he only takes a shot - this is an apocalyptic scenario to him. Down the whole bottle. Its better than trying the god-awful soup, anyway. He gets wasted to the point of almost forgetting why he was still in the studio at 8 PM, and falls asleep at his desk. Susie and Bendy both knocked on his door a few times to try to talk to him, but he was out cold at that point. Nobody saw him until almost noon the next day, going through what was easily the worst hangover of his entire life. He almost never drinks that hard, and when he does he usually regrets it - he had no regrets, not even when he had an absolutely splitting headache and was throwing up in the bathroom.
And then there was Susie... oh god, poor Susie. She tried to stay optimistic at first, telling her coworkers that It wont be so bad! and We'll be able to get home fine in the morning! Except, she’d already had a rough week and was worn out at six when everyone was told they were staying the night. Forcing optimism only wore her down more, and at the two hour mark she was losing her mind. She was known to be cheery and determined and an all around pleasant person to be in the room with, and seeing her slowly descend into a paranoid madness did not help anyone feel better. A few other still somehow optimistic employees tried to tell her what she was telling everyone else earlier, but she snapped at them and ran off. It's not like anyone was getting work done, its not like she could go occupy herself by working. She got some coffee from the break room hoping to stay awake in case things got better and they could leave later that night, but there was no such luck. Instead, she anxiously sat around in the break room for a while before deciding to grab her coat and go fall asleep for the night near Sammy's office door. She expected to be laughing over this with him in the morning? What she got was not seeing him until 11:30 the next day, he's a mess, and she's trying to help him through his hangover. When they were all finally allowed to go home around 1PM Joey didn't trust him to get home by himself and, knowing they were friends, told her to go with him. He was too much of a tired mess to protest, so she did. He only lived four blocks away from the studio but she ended up staying at his place for another few hours and didn’t get home until nearly 5PM.
The toons through this entire scenario weren't quite sure what everyone was so worried about. They stayed the night here every night, they lived here, it wasn't so bad! I mean, sure they had beds and actual living spaces here, but surely people can get by one night without that stuff right? ...Okay, maybe not. The studio's wooden chairs and old desks were anything but comfortable. People also had these things called families and pets that they were worried about, and some people who lived alone just didn't want to be stuck at their work place for longer than they had to be. Bendy thought people were overreacting through most of it, but Boris and Alice didn't like seeing their coworkers and friends so distressed. They decided to offer entertainment and laughs to employees who were taking the situation especially hard, and they were the only ones working hard through the night to make sure people kept as calm as possible. It's what they do best, after all - entertaining people. It's quite literally what they were made for. They kept up comedy acts and musical performances until nearly everyone had found somewhere to fall asleep, at which point they decided to get some sleep themselves. While their acts the previous night had brought ease to some, most people were in such sour moods the next morning they couldn't be bothered to even acknowledge the toons' existence, so they decided to stay to their own devices until everyone left.
Henry and Joey are the two that were the least affected by this mess. Henry's used to spending long nights at the studio, and he's used to waking up at his desk because he dozed off somewhere in the night. He also lives alone, so there's no one worried sick over him at home. This whole situation isn't too unfamiliar to him. I mean, ideally he would like to not be stuck in this place with everyone in such bad moods, but as long as he keeps to his corner people shouldn't really bother him right? He went back to business as usual for a few hours, got tired, put his desk as horizontally as it would go and fell asleep without much of a problem. Business as usual. He also would have preferred to not have bacon soup and coffee for breakfast the next day, but he had forgotten to eat the previous night so he didn't complain.
Joey kept himself in his office for the entire night, the only times his door opened was to the toons and even then they were told to come and go as little as possible. He didn't want anyone realizing he had a stocked kitchen, a bed, the usual cozy stuff you might find in an apartment that you wouldn't find in an animation studio. He wasn't exactly worried people would overrun his office, but he knew a few people who would be rightly pissed if they found out and probably wouldn't let him hear the end of it. He's not too sure how people didn't just ASSUME this to be fact from the beginning since most people know he lives out of his office, but he wasn't going to question it because as soon as he did someone would conveniently figure it out. He didn't like having to keep everyone locked in the studio overnight, but given how bad the storm was and how he knew he'd feel bad if something happened to someone because he let them walk out the door he didn't let it keep him up that night. He was more than happy to let everyone home the next afternoon once people's cars were uncovered and the roads and sidewalks weren't under four feet of snow anymore. Few people were supposed to work that weekend, but he closed up the studio after everyone left and made sure they knew nobody had to come back until Monday.
People feared snowstorms for years after this, some people even left early if it started snowing heavily, but thankfully they never had a storm that bad again.
