Hey, I don't mean to be a bother, but are you gonna add the nightmare squad into the Stein Family AU? It seems like they've been forgotten by most of the fandom, and I am just a curious wolf. Btw, the nightmare squad is just my nickname for Chester, Gaskette, Canoodle, and Dewey.
A’ight so! I have been thinking about this question since I read it two Mondays ago at 6 am, and the game plan had been to draw my answer for you
So Imma just write my answer instead
…
Yes.
Yes I will.
Read under the cut to learn moooore
So timeline wise, the toons start popping up at around 1930, but Henry at this point in the timeline wouldn’t be able to create the nightmare dudes until later when he actually knows HOW he’s bringing the toons to life (the main three were easy to unconsciously make for reasons I hope to elaborate on later). He’d probably bring them to life around 1937-’40.
I don’t really know how Gasket would adapt into the studio since the toons are still a secret to the outside world and the studio in the Stein Family au is not as wide and maze-like. Gasket just doesn’t have the space to drive around the place unless he shrinks to the size of a toy car (toons can shrink or grow at will, but how well/long they can hold an off-model size is largely tied to their emotions and whatever gag/situation they’re in at the moment).
If anyone has suggestions for him, I’m all ears.
Dewey takes a real shining to Linda (she is kind, intelligent, and diligent in any work she takes on, and she’s a good Toon Mom), so he likes to spend time with her during and off of work hours. Since she manages the business part of the animation company, Dewey likes to help her keep stuff organized. Paperwork, scheduling, tracking resources, stuff like that, he’s clever with, and when Linda doesn’t have work he can help her with, Grant welcomes Dewey’s sharp eye for numbers just as much. He likes the quiet spaces in the studio, so if he’s not being a busy body, he’s probably chillaxing somewhere crowd-free with a good book in his hands (what a mood, my dude).
Chester has pretty much become the studio’s walking lost and found station. If an employee has lost something, there’s a 99.99% chance that Chester has it (though whether he took the item or he found it while looking for lost items is up for debate). He has no problem putting the concerned employee’s mind at ease about whether or not he has their lost item, but the likelihood of said employee getting their thing back is entirely dependent on two questions: (1) how shiny or valuable was the item you’d lost? and (2) can you find Henry or Linda before Chester finds a hiding place to camp out in for the rest of the week?
He thinks he’s doing right by making sure the lost thing will never get lost again, but the truth is, you’re probably never gonna see that thing again if you don’t act fast.
He is a treasure chest. What else might you expect from him?
If all else fails, call Bendy and he’ll happily steal back whatever Chester has stolen – given you pay him a 5 cents.
Chester also keeps all kinds of important stuff for the Steins such as the deed to the studio, some family heirlooms, and Linda’s jewelry.
Canoodle ngl had also eluded me for a while. I feel like he and Wally would get along real well. Canoodle is a pretty serious dude from what I can tell, and Wally’s basically an immature kid, so it makes for a nice straight man-goofball duo that turns into basically those cartoon bits where a toon gets into shenanigans while trying to babysit a kid while there are death traps at every corner.
With Canoodle apparently running a dump in the cartoons and Wally being a janitor, Canoodle helps out Wally while he cleans and does maintenance around the studio. They’re surprisingly effective cleaners, but when it comes to replacing a lightbulb, well…
Thomas has made an effort to teach Canoodle and Wally the proper way to do tasks like that so Henry doesn’t have to call him in as much, but one of them’s prone to slapstick shenanigans and the other is Canoodle, a toon. Watching them fix shit, either together or solo, stresses Thomas out.
By the time the nightmare squad joins the family, Henry and Linda have raised Bendy long enough that he knows better than to push his luck too far when ticking the guys off. But Bendy will be Bendy, so they are not completely free of him and his pranks. However, the slapstick stays underneath the basically-a-homicide radar, and the throwing of axes and bricks stay at a minimum for the safety of the studio employees.
