Shazz Replies to Things

I was wondering something very...special but don't worry!

I've seen a lot of people in the batim's fandom who represent Sammy as a trans masc, I know that I've seen a Tumblr post on this headcanon with a lot of "proofs" (not proofs but you understand me) but I CAN'T FIND IT AGAIN- And I'm very interested...

So, my question is simple and totally by curiosity, but what are the characteristics which told you that Sammy is "potentially" a trans masc ? A lot of my friends represent him as a trans but I can't really find why exactly, and I'm very curious!

but honestly I feel like when a character isn’t specifically written to be transgender in the source material, there’s often not really specific characteristics that would tell you “this character has these traits, which means they could be transgender!” But it can be a case of just pondering “hm, what if this character is transgender?” because it’s an interesting question, and then enjoying how that impacts the interpretation of the character and adopting the headcanon. Or a fan who IS trans seeing a character they relate to aspects of, and choosing to interpret the character that way based on their experience. There doesn’t have to be a reason or specific evidence to headcanon a character as trans!

For me, it was a combination of seeing one of my friends headcanon Sammy as a trans man and enjoying that version, pondering whether that might be true for any of my own interpretations, and finding that it fit in a way that I liked! There’s definitely specific things that I thought slotted in nicely  -- the way Sammy seems to depend on his job for survival as though he doesn’t have a family to fall back on, or the way Sammy’s ink form has such a uniquely and overtly masculine appearance and how that could be interesting if it’s in some way a response to his own desires or self-image -- but those weren’t reasons Sammy could be trans, they were just reasons that a trans interpretation of Sammy would be interesting.

The audio logs in all of the chapters start to point out that "the Ink Demon" has no soul. And Joey, being the scum he is, is worried that investors will be scared of him. From what the audio logs indicate, Ink Bendy was literally milling around.

I will firstly point out that not once was it mentioned that anyone feared him(even though highly likely) and that he hadn't hurt anyone.

Note: Apparently a guy named Buddy did injure Ink Bendy in a prequel book. For future reference I have not read that book.

So Bendy is milling around on the top floors sorta just existing. Of course Joey would hate to see his failure but I'm sure he wouldn't have a death wish either.

Ever since the full game was released I've always envisioned a scene where Ink Bendy slowly jaunts into the music room where the orchestra is playing. Sammy keeps them playing despite his sudden entry. Bendy finds a box and simply sits on it. Staying the whole time as they practice. While aprehensive, I think Sammy would eventually enjoy the company.

Then just to make it even worse, Joey would probably request that Sammy himself guide Bendy to the vault to lock him up. Thusly creating a vendetta against Sammy for his "betrayal".

Don't get me wrong, Ink Bendy is evil in the game.. But I do wonder if it is more of like how animals react to such things. If wronged enough times they're too far gone. Made into a villain instead of being one outright.

Definitely agree with the idea that it’s possible the Ink Demon is the way he is due to being mistreated, and that one audiolog is the biggest indicator. In the Dreams Come To Life novel, the demon is violent and dangerous and tears people apart, but Joey’s audiolog in chapter 5 describes him as a “grinning thing wandering around your office,” which implies he was roaming, at least in the one room, and not murdering anyone? That Thomas didn’t see a need to restrain him? Joey was the one who insisted on having him locked up.

By the time of Dreams Come To Life (which takes place in 1946) the creature assumed to be the Ink Demon is locked up in the infirmary that you find in chapter 2. Without outright spoiling the whole book since idk how many spoilers u want: Buddy, a recently hired gofer-turned-artist, and his friend Dot, an intern for the writing department, are the main characters, and there’s a scene where Buddy is working late and hears the horrible, unhappy moaning of some kind of animal, and ends up finding the infirmary and opening up a locked door, assumedly letting the demon out -- he never gets a good look at the creature he released, but it shoves him aside and runs. Sammy accidentally swallows ink early on and is kind of an unhinged jerk for most of DCTL; it’s suggested that the ink is making him rapidly lose his mind, and he is in that inky, cultish state by the end of the book. If there are any interactions between Sammy and the Ink Demon, we don’t get to see them; his music notes do end up with scribbled drawings of what seems to be Beast Bendy, and its unclear if he encountered the demon or just had visions. Some time after the Demon was released, the Music Department gets mysteriously closed off and Sammy goes missing, so I figure the Ink Demon was roaming around there; we get a scene of Buddy and Dot investigating the closed Music Department and having to run and hide from that creepy ink aura, but we don’t get a good look at the demon again until the very end -- at the end of the novel, the demon is portrayed as sort of a clever predator, hunting/eating humans and toying with his prey. He turns on Buddy & Dot when they interrupt him, and they do their best to fight him off, including attacking the demon with an axe -- to be fair, the demon is hostile at that point and they’re fighting for their lives.

The most recent Bendy book, The Lost Ones, might also have some Ink Demon lore??? but I haven’t read that one yet.

But yeah, the interpretation I lean towards the most is that the Ink Demon came out wrong, and Thomas Connor kept him and treated him as, yknow, a living creature, while Joey saw him as an unsettling failure and demanded that it be locked away. The fact that he was in the infirmary in DCTL, and Buddy mentions seeing surgical tools in the room where the demon was kept, could mean that the Ink Demon was being experimented on or at the very least, medically poked and prodded to try to figure him out -- and even then, he doesn’t actually attack Buddy yet, just shoves him out of the way. We don’t fully know what happened to the Ink Demon, but the idea that he was mistreated and that’s what led to his violent behaviour and mistrust of humans is a very plausible theory based on the text, imo.

I had this revelation, about myself, back when I was on tapastic: I enjoyed reading comics, but I noticed that when I followed comics on twitter, even when I fell behind, the little regular updates on twitter would serve as reminders so that I could check back in and catch up eventually, or unfollow if I found I’d stopped caring -- and when I followed comics on Tapas (where you’d get a little notification for each new update), I would get overwhelmed and stressed by the notifications that I had to either read or clear out whenever I fell behind, so that I could barely use the system. My reaction was to realise that actually I would happily be able to use Tapas’ system if it presented an option that was closer to a social media feed, allowing me to opt out of notifications and the backlog of unread updates. I’d miss some updates, but I could go catch up whenever I wanted, and I’d be more likely to do so with that stressor removed. The people who wanted to save notifications for later could keep doing it that way -- I just wanted the option. 

The back half of the article explaining how folks are supposed to think of notifications as candy for later, how 30 missed updates should be seen as a blessing, and we should be able to implement simple brain hacks to make a backlog of messages into a pleasure rather than a chore, it all just gives me the vibe of the friend who tries to convince you that you SHOULD enjoy the challenge of a more difficult game rather than playing easier games for the story, and if you don’t then it’s your fault games are getting easier. Like, I dunno, you might not be wrong, but if people genuinely prefer it, then it doesn’t seem like an effective approach to try to convince someone to have the same preferences as you -- why not advocate instead for an easy mode on the games you like, so that it can work for both kinds of players? “What, notifications stress you out? Have you tried... not being stressed by them?” is only gonna work for people who CAN make that reframe stick for them, and not everyone can.

The premise is a really interesting observation and I just don’t agree with the conclusion. Because reading the introduction to this article, I thought, man! That’s so true, that’s absolutely it -- if I tried to start using a system that made me clear out a backlog of messages, I’d get overwhelmed and leave! I absolutely DO prefer the nature of a scrollable feed to the nature of an inbox for browsing stuff I enjoy casually, for updates that aren’t specifically for me! But then why isn’t the next question “would it be possible to set up a feed reader system that displayed in a similar way?” To make it so that trying to squish your brain into the shape of a person who enjoys an inbox approach isn’t mandatory? An option to turn off the notifications so you can just miss things if you want to? 

-A backstory for a character you consider is underrated.

-Angst skit of Bendy broken relationship with Boris and Alice.

-BATIM meeting with another terror game(and by that i mean a crossover that still didn't happen).

-A character study for an antagonist of the game(Joey, Sammy, Alice, Bendy, etc).

-Humor skit of a BATIM AU(like BATS, Good Bendy, Fantasy, any AU you can think about is open).

-Your own "What if", no matter how crazy it seems.

-Alice questioning the morality of what she's doing to Boris.

-A plot twist related to Bendy's death.

-Your own description of Henry appearance(we never see how he looks, so ALL kind of descriptions are valid).

-5 things that Boris hates of the old studio + 1 he doesn't.

Would you consider ships like Joey x Grant, Sammy x Norman, Susie x Allison, etc, problematic/toxic/unethical because in canon Joey and Sammy, for example, are bad/abusive people? (I’ve been told Susie x Allison is bad because they hate each other, which is as far as I know not confirmed though)

I’ve been talking about an AU but apparently it’s not any better and falls into the same category as making siblings not related, aging characters up/down. Would you agree with that? (I personally do not think so)

Take my thoughts with a grain of salt i guess b/c uh.......... obviously I do a lot of stuff exploring Joey x Sammy and that is not a good, healthy ship lmao. But I think striving to be a responsible and thoughtful content creator who is conscious of the kinds of things youre creating, and where those might become uncomfortable, is a good thing.

It makes a lot of sense to want to have Unambiguous, Always-True Rules to fall back on to make sure you can avoid being unethical and can spot unethical content easily. But unfortunately, while you can definitely keep those sorts of rules for yourself -- someone deciding that they will never ship characters who hate each other in canon, for instance -- it can get very difficult and harmful to impose those limits on other people. People don’t always choose which characters they kin or project on or identify with. Person A might find Joey X Grant very upsetting and harmful to them personally, because it’s too reminiscent of some abusive relationship they suffered, and an AU where it’s loving and healthy might give them the creeps because it feels like romanticising something that hurt them. Person B might find Joey x Grant useful, because they relate a lot to Grant and exploring that as an abusive relationship helps them process and understand a lot of their own experiences, and have a space to safely talk about their emotions without it feeling too vulnerable. Person C might find an AU Joey x Grant healing because they relate a lot to Joey, and want to tell a story where Joey can become a better person and have some kind of happy ending, to give themselves hope and to process their own struggle with feeling they don’t deserve love.

Basically, the same ship can be harmful to one person and healing for another for all kinds of legitimate reasons. So.... the answer to this that’s kind to everyone, in my opinion, is for people to be open and direct about how they tag that content, so the people who find that content harmful for them can block those tags, or unfollow people who post that content, and not engage with it. 

I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a very long time but didn’t know how until now. And this may come as a surprise to you…but…

I really hate my art. 

I know that on social media I say otherwise and that’s mostly just to keep you guys happy. But I don’t have that same love for it like I used to when I was a kid.

You need to understand that I have Tourette Syndrome, which is a neurological disorder I was born with. What it is is that it’s a problem with the nervous system that causes people to make sudden motor/movements or vocal/sounds, called tics, that they can’t control. My tics include rapidly blinking my eyes, humming and saying “cool” and “cup” repeatedly, and aggressively throwing my arms out to my sides. When I do this I look like a cheerleader or one of those inflatable balloon men.  And on top of that, Tourettes also includes additional problems such as OCD, ADD/ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, and too many other problems to list. If you are interested then please click on the link. It will take you to the Tourette Syndrome Association. Link: https://tourette.org/

You guys have no idea the constant pain I’m in on a daily basis. Imagine your arms, shoulders, and back muscles are constantly being ripped apart, sewed back together again, ripped apart again, and all while nonstop gasoline is being pored on them to feed the never ending fire that burns away at your muscles, cartilage, and your bones. 

There is no medicine or cure for Tourettes. I take Muscle Relaxers to help ease the pain and I also take Inositol to help calm the neurons in my brain. But that’s like putting ice on a wound that’s bleeding out. It doesn’t help. And my art really suffers from this. It takes A LOT for me to hold back my anxiety, my depressive thoughts, and my tics in order to draw. That requires so much energy that I’m always drained by the afternoon. 

I have to work twice as hard just to keep up with other artists my age and even then, I’m still behind. I see people my age with incredible looking masterpieces, they have the commissions from big time clients, the dream art job they always wanted, they just seem to have just about everything they could ever ask for. And I’m over here, tripping over my feet trying to get caught up, no commissions, no dream job, feeling like I’m an absolute failure. 

I know that comparing myself to other people is stupid but I’ve been doing it since I was a child. I know that I am on my own path and they on theirs. I’m happy for them; for the people I follow on social media and for the close acquaintances that I do have. I want them to be happy and to succeed in life. But I keep looking over at their paths and seeing the blessings and success in their lives and asking myself, “What am I doing wrong?”

I’m sorry if this is a lot for you. I don’t mean to dump my problems on you guys, that wasn’t my intent. I don’t have friends that I can talk to about this. If there’s any advice that you guys can give me, I’d greatly appreciate it.

I want to know how to love my art again. I want to be happy with what I create. I want to reignite that passion I had as a kid for drawing and creating. I feel like that spark is fading and I’m scared that I’m going to give up art all together. So, how do you guys discover that passion for art again? Do you guys ever struggle with this problem?

Here is my feelings:

give yourself a break from art

seriously if you are starting to hate it, that is NOT when you try to “push through,” that is when you give yourself space to breathe

you can only do what you are physically able to do. often you can still find ways to enjoy the things you love, but staying within your physical limits does not mean you’re doing anything wrong

if comparing yourself to others really messes with you, give yourself breaks from looking at other people’s art. Really!!

if you’re not already, look into therapist options and whether there’s anything that’s doable for you

look into other things you’ve been curious about trying or learning to do -- try new stuff and cultivate other things you enjoy!!

join communities/fandoms/w/e where your contribution doesn’t hinge on your ability to draw

it seems to be hurting you to lie about liking your art; see if you can find ways to be honest without putting yourself down

So here’s where I’m coming from: up until this past year, I did art professionally! I had a growing patreon and a growing webcomic and my art looked like this. In between then and now two things happened: (1) last year, I suffered mental/emotional burnout so severe that I could barely stand to draw my comic, the thing that used to be my most burning passion, and had to put it on indefinite hiatus, and then (2) at the beginning of this year, after some very alarming wrist and hand pain, I was diagnosed with tendinitis -- in both hands. I had to cancel all my patreon rewards because I couldn’t create consistently. After time spent completely unable to draw, I worked back up to being able to sketch again, and I had gone from being able to finish one of those fully polished comic pages a week, to needing 2 weeks to recover every time I drew some sketches. I’ve been getting better over this year, but it’s unlikely that I’ll ever be a professional artist again.

So, that’s the background I’m coming from. It’s not the same thing AT ALL as the Tourette’s you gotta work with, but the fact that the “dream job” is actually impossible for me and the body that I have right now definitely influences how I approach these kinds of things!

here’s a little more detail on these thoughts b/c I’m incapable of being succinct:

Aem: I’m a knife.

Beetle: Oho! You work best when used together?

So far I’ve discovered that flamethrowers are semi-effective, but overall too much of a safety hazard to be considered.

So this is something I’ve been wanting to write for a really long time. I’ve been putting it off for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I still haven’t come up with a decent solution that I feel I can live with, and that won’t upset or anger anyone who has supported me in the past.

Every now and then I’ll get a concerned e-mail or a curious message through Tumblr, Twitter, or a comment directly to the comic’s website, asking what’s up, if I’ll ever continue this project, and sharing their memories of reading new content and following along with me in this weird little horror-fantasy adventure. I have a hard time responding to these messages because, honestly, I don’t know what to say.

I’ve told myself that I haven’t given up on this story. That one day, when I have the time, I’ll get back to it. But there are some realities that I really need to face:

1: I wrote this story when I was 18, and I began posting online during one of the darkest points of my life. The first Awakened story was written for NaNoWriMo when I was a teenager, and I worked it into comic format and began posting online in 2006, not long after I tried to take my own life. A lot has changed. I’m in my mid-thirties now and I’m a very different person. The experiences and goals and worldviews of my 18 and 21-year-old selves differ wildly from the person I am today. The stories a conflicted and confused teenager wants to tell are not the stories a (mostly well-adjusted??) 30-something person wants to tell. I find it difficult to relate to this story now. I am compelled to, at the very least, give it a very significant overhaul to reflect my own personal growth as a storyteller and artist, and incorporate a more mature understanding of the world and its diversity. But this wouldn’t be the first time The Awakened has undergone an overhaul to try and make it work with my own changing world. Will one final re-write now that I’ve settled into my adult life make this comic work again? Maybe. Will it still be the same story my readers were interested in a decade ago? Maybe not.

2: I have numerous new ideas for comics. And I have held them back for years because I feel so guilty for leaving readers hanging with The Awakened. How can I post new comics when people are still sending me kind messages, waiting patiently for this old story to continue? My passion has always been storytelling, and comics are still my favourite medium. It’s been painfully hard limiting my personal creative pursuits to convention art and tabletop games with friends. I badly want to create comics again.

The Awakened is still my homepage. I see it every single day when I turn on my computer and open my browser. I want something to happen with it, one way or another. I’ve even tried to rewrite it when ideas come to mind. I’ve redrawn some of the characters as I rework their backgrounds:

More than anything I just want to tell stories again.

So this post is a mix of letting you know where I’m at, asking for feedback, and seeking out a sort of blessing to go forth and create again.

Would you be content with an entirely re-worked Awakened story? Or would you be okay with letting it rest as a young artist’s early storytelling attempt, paving the path for something else?

Apologies for the length of this post, and for getting kind of personal. I know a large part of my Tumblr following hasn’t read this comic and knows nothing about it, in which case IGNORE ME! For everyone else, thank you for reading and thank you for your understanding/feedback. If you contacted me over the last while about the comic and I didn’t respond, I’m sorry, your message was set onto the “I’ll answer this as soon as I think of a good reply” anxiety pile. But I hope this helps.

When I ended my first comic, Today Nothing Happened, even though I like, officially ended it, announced it was ending and gave it a proper send off, I still got people for years afterwards asking me if I would ever “consider picking it back up again.” But the truth is that even though I did love that comic, once I moved on from it, I was happier, and able to make work I was excited about -- and I did lose some folks who didn’t care for the new story’s genre, but I also found lots of people who were just as excited about my new work. 

A lot of times I think that readers will have something they really do believe they want, but they’re working off incomplete information -- it’s only based on what they’re able to see. They see the comics you made before and go “yes, that’s what I want, it’s okay if it’s slower, it’s okay if it’s reworked, I want the thing I was getting before.” But what they really want is for you to be invested again, and my dude, that’s not possible sometimes!! And I think if you try to keep going with what your audience wants the most, that can hurt the work and your own confidence a lot, because suddenly it’s not You Telling Your Story like it was before -- it’s You Guessing What Story Your Audience Might Be Looking For, and that’s never a road to compelling narrative.

I agree with you a lot that sometimes you cannot tell a story anymore -- like writing a song for yourself and years later finding that your voice has changed and it’s not something you can sing anymore. People might want that song, but you literally can’t make it. I really believe that stories have expiration dates.

You could rewrite The Awakened to be a comic you’re able to make but like, at that point, it’s a completely different new thing -- so why not pick the new thing you most want to actually do? Webcomics are gruelling, man!! If it’s not something you really truly like... have to get out of your brain and bring into the world, it’s hard to stay motivated. And if that turns out to be a rewrite of The Awakened -- COOL! and if not??? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO MAKE THAT OTHER THING!

--

So it’s pretty simple, Whichever series was out when you were 10 years old is where your from.

This chart will help everyone out

In 2007 I had turned 10 so the game series that was out was diamond and pearl, which means that the region I started my journey in is Sinnoh!

Reblog with what region you start your journey in and what starter you picked.