#batim rewrite

[artflameball]

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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.