Something something I fell into a puddle of ink and brought some Sammy/Norman sketches with me. The third one is a scene from my fanfic (it's in Russian tho, I'm not confident enough to write in English yet).
Some headcanons regarding Jax in a hypothetical "They manage to bring him back post-abstraction" AU:
• Right after being back in his body Jax still feels uncomfortable communicating with other people. Pomni is the only one who he makes an effort to be more open about his feelings to.
• The "redeption arc" (sort of) starts with him learning to except help. Though he still uses his jerk persona as a defence mechanism sometimes. He just learns to say sorry afterwards. First exclusively to Pomni, than, slowly, to others too.
• Of course the gender struggles come back again. I imagine that during that argument with his mother he said something like "Well, maybe I don't want to be like my father! Maybe I don't want to be manly!" or smt like that and instantly regretted it. Thus the idea of being anything but a masculine man is hard for him to let inside his mind. Even if his feelings sometimes say otherwise. That's dumb thoughts. Unexceptable. Yet they keep coming back.
• Pomni is the first to hint at his gender non-confirmity, have been being inside his mind and all. Jax denies everything. First he tries to laugh it off. Then he becomes more serious. Angry. But Pomni knows now she should hold her stand. She allows him space and says that no matter what, Jax is still Jax. And people in the circus are ready to accept him in any case. They didn't abandon him when he acted like an asshole, afterall.
• The first time Jax puts on a more "girly persona" he makes a caricature out of it. Remeber the scene of hypothetical "what if Zooble abstracted" scenario in Episode 9? Jax does this - puts on a girly dress, heavy make up, a bow and a wig, jumps around everyone like "What's the matter you guys? You said you will accept me anyway! From this point on this is who I am! Enjoy!!"
• Obviously, Pomni isn't an idiot. She sees that Jax is just trying to provoke a certain reaction out of them. She doesn't yell at him for not taking it seriously, doesn't go away and doesn't give him a silent treatment. After all, she did say 'you won't be abandoned no matter what'. And so she plays along. Treats "her" (I imagine Ragatha tries to refer to Jax as "she", which immediately sends shivers down his spine, for a monent he breaks the character and says "don't call me that." and then immediately after goes back to playing "girly girl Jax" persona) as Jax portays it, causing confusion on his side. She only metaphorically slaps his hand when he tries to excuse being creepy and invasive (again, provocative) by being this "new me". In the end Jax ragequits and leaves the crew. Before reaching his room he passes by a mirror. He looks at his reflection. This outfit is too extra, just like he intended, but... if you remove some make-up... maybe loose the dress for something less pink and frill... and put the hair a little to the side... He quickly catches himself mid-act and angrily throws the wig to the floor, rips off the dress and ready to throw the bow too, when he catches a glimpse of something. A distant memory. In her room. A memory of something sweet. He grips the bow tightly. He can't bring himself to throw it.
• Jax doesn't leave his room for a few hours. Pomni comes to check on him. He didn't abstract. There's tons of clothes and accessories on the floor. He complains that he looks stupid. Pomni suggests to bring over Ragatha or Kinger to help him get dressed, but he immediately stops her. He doesn't want more people to see him embarrasing himself. He can barely convince himself that Pomni doesn't laugh behind his back. Pomni says that people in circus won't laugh at him. And if he acts nicer to them, they will be more willing to help. In the meantime they can start with something small. She considers putting a bow on his head but he flinches. Then looks back at Pomni. She smiles reassurenly. He lets her put on the bow. It doesn't kill him, the world doesn't collapse. There he is. Wearing it. With Pomni by his side.
• The next day she sees him wearing it. Others notice the change but, being warned by Pomni, don't say a word about it. After a few minutes of silence Jax snaps like "What? Is no one gonna say anything?" to which Zooble nonchalantly replies "Nice bow. You kinda look like Ragatha". Jax snorts, crossing his arms. Ragatha says that she loves his bow. "Of course you do", Jax rolls his eyes. Then Kinger says he likes it too, it kind of reminds me of this butterfly, which he can't remember the name of. Others try to help, suggesting possible names that they know. The world doesn't stop. Jax put on a bow and no one made fun of him for it.
• At some point Ragatha and Jax make ammends. Ragatha is honest about everything. Jax listens.
• Gangle never forgives Jax for how he treated her since the moment she appeared in the circus. Jax has to accept it in order to move forward.
• Zooble also isn't too fond of Jax for his past actions, but they see his struggles and emphathize with him. Zooble is a big part of Jax's experiments with gender.
• This is a veeeeery slow process. First he starts with that caricature and strong resentment to she/her pronouns. Then, when he's actually willing to give it a try for real, he starts with a bow. Than puts on different clothes. Slowly allows Ragatha and Zooble help him find the best looks. He also tries experimenting with hair. Caine helps him better control his abilities and create new things with them. In fact, Jax so likes how he looks with hair, he makes the wig a part of his day-to-day appearance, even when wearing his usual pink overalls.
• One day Jax finds out about Lee and gets a little upset seeing that his real-life self is just some guy. Even makes him question himself and spiral a little. That is untill Zooble explains what 'boymoding' means. They tell him to relax and do whatever feel like with his looks. And if he doesn't feel anything, try things out and see what resonates the most.
• One time Pomni jokingly called him Pireta, because the name of the butterly that Kinger eventually remembered on that day Jax wore a bow for the first time is Cithaerias Pireta. Surprisingly, Jax liked it. (Ok, actually, I don't know if this word means anything stupid in any other languages, so I'm not sure if I want Jax to adapt it as a new name or not)
• At some point Jax noticed that he doesn't mind to be referred to as 'she'. She uses both he/she interchangeably.
• She hates heavy make-up and never changes her mind about it, prefering wing eyeliner and some eyeshade.
• After figuring all her shit out, Jax is ready to try bring back Ribbit.
After that everything is blurry. I don't know how they would manage to de-abstract people and why Kinger doesn't just de-abstract Queenie first. Or maybe he does? Maybe when Jax is back, the circus will already have more people than it did before. I don't want to bring new people from real world into the cast as to not shift attention to a new character, but I don't mind having everyone from the old cast brought back. Like I said in the beginning, these headcanons are solely Jax-focused. I'd love for her to make ammends with Ribbit. And Kaufmo. And introducing Pomni to Ribbit. But I don't have a strong glue to glue all these ideas together. So I throw them out like that, raw and unedited
So, this is sort of a... masterpost for a weird tag that will appear in my blog from time to time... or smt like that.
What is "Ink Frosted Brownies"?
Okay, so you know how practically EVERY BatIM-fanartist has their own headcanons about how Joey Drew Studios employees would look like back in 30-s/40-s? Welp, I got those too:
Not all employees are listed here, but it's a work in progress (I can promise to add at least Tom, Allison, Dot and Buddy to the main party in the nearest future).
I made several sketches with these characters...
(more of these in my VK group)
...as well as some comic strips and full colored stuff
Regardless, these guys is not what the tag "Ink Frosted Brownies" refers to.
Although I have my own view on what "Bendy" characters would look like in the past, otherwise I try to stick to the canon as much as possible. That's why I don't think that they need to be marked with a special tag.
What IS different from the canon is these two:
I just LOVE the idea of Sammy and Norman passionately hating each other. I know that in the game Norman stated that he finds Sammy 'crazy weird' and that pregame Sammy wasn't the most pleasing character at all, but something about them having a grudge against each other specifically... I don't know, I still kinda want to dwell on this topic but that's for another day.
Oh, and speaking of "passionately"... this word doesn't only refer to hate
Yeah, all the above is just a long way of saying "I SHIP THEM" and it's their ship name.
Why the "Ink Frosted Brownies"?
Basically, it's cause of their color pallets.
My Norman has a lot of brownish colors, so I accociated him with some kind of chocolate treat. Sammy's pallete is very pale, so he's like a kind of frosting. And since it's a Bendy-related thing, you HAVE to put the word "Ink" somewhere. Ink frosting. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And why make a post about all of this?
Firstly, I love my half-canon half-OC children (all of them). And I love talking about things that I love.
Secondly, I plan on a few things related to my versions of JDS employees and my version of Norman/Sammy specifically. I still want to put their origin story in form of a comic, and there's a cool song that I want to make an animatic to... So, I thought, it would be nice to make some sort of info post about what you are about to see from me.
Okay, so I was just now made aware of the word 'brownie' having a history of being used against POC. I swear I didn't know that when coming up with the ship name. Now that I know it's a slur, the name does sound very disrespectful. Which is why I decided to change it.
The alternative I came up with is Ink Devil's Food Cake. Devil's Food Cake is a kind of chocolate cake made in 1900s in New York City, so in terms of setting it's even more suitable than its predecessor. 'Ink Devil' part is representing Bendy and BatIM as a whole, and 'Food Cake' is now representing both Sammy and Norman.
I'm changing the ship tag here on Tumblr and will use the new one from now on. Can't edit all the old posts on other platforms, so they will have to stay the same.
I still care about this ship and am making content for it. I'm just not sure when I will be able to show it, so I can't make any promises.
hi guys im back on my bendy designs ummm hi bendy fandom ive been here before you probably remember me from this post about my au (still the same au just fixing it up rn ive got big plans!)
once im closer to done with all my designs ill be making a text post about the au itself with all the new added stuff !
characters in order are: Sammy Lawrence, Susie Campbell, Bertrum Piedmont, and Norman Polk
