5th pic’s based off art by basessilisk on twitter, 9th pic’s swap au belongs to @kiksmelbre

If I post more sketchbook skribbilydoos they will be more frequent and more idea focused (like concepts, shit posts & au’s) while my digital doodlydoos care more about looking nice. These are all months old i very clearly did not know how to draw Boris.

When you look at the updated character card for Bendy, the second to last bullet point says that he's one of the only demons in Toon Town. When I first read through the comic (and saw the updated cards), that small piece of information immediately caught my eye: why was he one of the only demons left? More importantly, the cards only have the most important information about the characters (like their base personality), so why would the creators of the comic highlight this? So, I decided to stop, go back, and reread through chapter one just in case I missed anything. And I found quite a bit of interesting panels (featuring my messy annotations):

It's heavily implied from a lot of these panels demons face a lot of prejudice in Toon Town: when referring to Bendy, the words demon and devil are thrown around like they're being spit out, there seems to be a lot of stereotypes surrounding demons, and there are implications that there might be some form of Christianity in this world, or, at least, there's a religion that could be a "stand-in" for Christianity.

In the fifth and eighth panels, I put little annotations about Bendy's reactions to some of this - and, yes, I know Mugman wasn't trying to be rude/prejudice towards Bendy (I'll talk more about what he was implying later), but Bendy and Boris took it that way, and impact vs. intent are very different things. Anyways, Bendy reacts to these two instances by being sarcastic like it isn't affecting him that badly, but, looking at how he's drawn, he genuinely seems really upset with these instances. This implies that Bendy has been a victim of microaggressions so often that he's gotten "used to it" and his immediate coping mechanism is to play it off or act sarcastic, but deep down, these instances of prejudice hurt him.

(It's important to note that, in the fifth panel, Boris gets defensive on Bendy's on his behalf, implying that Boris has seen the bigotry directed at Bendy and how that affects his brother - considering that, it makes sense that Boris would immediately come to Bendy's aid when someone is awful to him)

I also want to focus more on the seventh picture in this batch: in the panel before this one, Cuphead explained how he never got to go to school because it was too expensive to send both him and Mugman. When asked why Mugman never taught him anything, Cuphead says that he was 1) too busy and 2) the teachers thought he was too stupid. Bendy then says that he understands how Cuphead feels, and proceeds to say that his teachers (the Nuns) weren't kind to 'kids who didn't talk'. Now, on the surface, this is all commentary on the education system within the world; it's a for profit system that throws kids who don't have enough money, or are 'too stupid to learn', out the window, and expects them to fend for themselves. And for the kids who don't do what the teachers say, or act the way the teachers want them to (like, for example, kids who don't talk or are 'too bad'), they're treated badly because a lot of school systems force kids to conform to specific standards.

But what if you look deeper into what Bendy says? He's a demon in a town with barely any others like him, being taught by Nuns, and he implies that they 'didn't go easy on him' - and, while Buddhism is known to have monastics who are women, they're usually referred to as Bhikkhunī or Bhikṣuṇī, leading me to believe that, in this specific panel, Bendy is talking about Christian Nuns. Which, if you know anything about Christianity, you know how they portray devils and demons and the implications of that are pretty disturbing. Even if the Nuns were 'hard' on him because he was 'quiet', how do we know that his teachers weren't awful to him because he's a demon?

The worst part about all this? I think there's more evidence that points to what exactly happened to Bendy in the flashback that occurred after Felix and Sheba kidnapped the B-Bros.

Okay, there's a lot to unpack with this one scene.

Let's start with how they're drawn: I noticed that both Bendy and Boris seem to have a lot of scuff marks on them, implying that they were in some sort of fight. There are two scars on Bendy's left forearm, and there are two on Boris' upper right arm. I can't recall if they have these scars in their older designs, so they might've faded away, or they were open wounds (but that seems a lot less likely because I can't see any blood). Bendy's also holding his tail, which is something he does when he's nervous/scared. However, the most interesting thing I noticed was in the fifth panel: Bendy looks like he's spilling ink. At first, I thought this was the Blot, and proceeded to freak out a little. But, when I thought more about it, I realized it could be him struggling to maintain his form. No matter if its the Blot or him keeping his form, him spilling ink shows that he's under a lot of stress.

Now, onto the dialogue: this scene obviously sets up a lot of interesting dilemmas for where the comic's timeline is currently, like Boris struggling a lot with his morals in a world that punishes him for it, and Bendy killing a man because he wanted to live. However, I want to focus on the implications for their past, not their present.

When Boris says, "They could've killed you," in the first panel, I think the "they" in question could be referring to the Nuns that taught them, or random people in Toon Town. When I first read the scene, I thought it was the later, but now that I've gone through an analyzed these scenes, it seems like the people that almost killed Bendy could've been the Nuns. We don't know exactly what happened before this scene, but if we go with the Nun interpretation, maybe Bendy was facing some kind of punishment (maybe the punishment was physical, but there is a chance the Nuns could've gotten a ordained minister to perform...something), and Boris realized that this could've killed Bendy, and they ran.

Bendy's dialogue implies that he's been taught to view himself as a bad person because he's a demon. He asks Boris why it was bad "they" were trying to kill him, and then if bad people deserve to live, and finally asking if he was bad. When you consider that organized religion, especially Christianity, has been used to attack a lot of marginalized communities in real life, it makes sense that an organized religion seemingly based on Christianity would attack minorities in this world. And, well, when you look at how Christianity depicts devils/demons...it starts painting a horrible picture. So, all of this together implies that the Nuns, who were Bendy's teachers and most likely some of the only adults in his life, taught him that being a demon was bad, that he was automatically a bad person for being something he had no control over. This most likely caused Bendy internalize a lot of this, and that's extremely tragic.

And let's circle back to my original point - the fact that Bendy is one of the only demons in Toon Town: this fact alone implies that other demons either moved out, were killed, or they outright avoid Toon Town (or most towns in this world) due to the bigotry they face there.

So, demons face a lot of bigotry in this world. But that leaves the question: why?

Well, a lot of prejudice and bigotry is based on untrue stereotypes that usually comes from bioessentialism. No types of bigotry are based in logic - at their cores, they're illogical and usually used by people in power to create division amongst people.

Myth starts off telling us that the Blot reemerged to due peoples' greed, which separated the toons, and, as it says this, it shows a picture of Mickey, implying that a lot of this was his and his goons' fault - however, Mickey's still mayor of Toon Town, and most people still think highly of him. If people were divided during the time of reanimation right before the Blot came back, then that allows the people in power to take control of the narrative once shit hits the fan. And, as we see in the comic, Mickey and Bugs (and the other stars) seem to have a death grip around Toon Town. In order to do this, it's likely that they needed someone to blame in order to keep their power.

There's a version of Christianity in this world. When people get desperate, they usually turn to religion. People in power need a scapegoat. We know that the Devil exists because Cuphead and Mugman seem to have already sold their souls.

So, even though no one knows for sure where the Blot comes from, it would be pretty easy to use religion and blame it on the Devil - maybe, they'd take an extra step and blame it on the Celestials, since they "left" the toons to deal with the Blot; it would make sense since the Stars don't seem very fond of the Celestials to the point where they don't mention them by name, and Mugman seems to dislike them too, implying that people other than the Stars hate them.

(Maybe the Devil is connected to the Celestials? Who knows...)

This would easily create someone people could get mad at, and this affected the demons because, well, people would probably connect them to the Devil. It's really interesting because a lot of the discrimination we see directed towards Bendy comes from the Stars or the Cupbros (the later obviously don't have a good relationship with the Devil).

Now, is it possible that all of this (the Blot, the searchers, ect) is the Devil's fault? Uhh... I don't know?

In Quest of the Ink Machine, the Devil was the one who started spreading the "ink illness" again, and the map to all of the parts belonged to him. However, I don't know if the same will be true for Myth, but I do think that the Devil has something to do with what's happening based off of some dialogue from Cuphead and Mugman.

Why that reaction? Why did Mugman specify that Bendy was a demon before asking if he could see the map?? Why, unless they know something about why Bendy could see the map??

They don't know that this map leads to the Ink Machine yet, but they know it's some kind of magic, which ties it to the Celestials. SO WHY THAT REACTION??

How did Mugman and Cuphead know that finding the Ink Machine is extremely dangerous? Why did it seem like the Searchers are specifically after Bendy, Boris, Cuphead and Mugman? Why did the Mother of Searchers show up soon after Bendy got the map?

Maybe, the Devil is trying to stop them by controlling the searchers, and the Cupbros know that he can control them? The Celestials made is so only certain people can see the map, and Felix found the map in an 'angelic temple'; if the Celestials are somehow connected to the Devil, maybe that's why only Bendy can see the map because he's a demon? We know he has some sort of connection with magic because he was able to "fuse" his hand with Cuphead's and use his finger guns. BUT WHY?

*Elder Kettle died when the boys were pretty young

*Cuphead went to the casino to try and earn enough money to keep him and Mugs together because they couldn't live by themselves in the cottage but no one wanted a set

*The Devil took FULL advantage of his desperation and the fact Cups can't read.

*Mugs developed SEVER separation anxiety

*When Cuphead back talked too much the Devil slowly crushed Mugman's head and stole the tiny part that let him speak. When the Devil decided the punishment was over he repeated the process to put it back

*When Mugman failed his shots too much the Devil would break Cuphead's arm. Started with the fingers then moved his way up. He stopped at the shoulder by the time he was satisfied. Mugman continued to train until he wouldn't miss another shot.

*Mugman had one solo collection. It was against Wally. Cuphead couldn't do it. He couldn't make his kid an orphan especially because of what happened with him and Mugs. The Devil told Mugman either he collects Wally's contract or he collects his brother's.

*Their chains from the Deal are rusted and the chain is broken but it's not gone.

*He calls them his toys/weapons/etc.

*He likes to puppeteer Cuphead and makes him fight Mugman

*They have claimed that the other did something wrong to take the punishment (ex: Cuphead would say Mugman made the deal with Bendy so that he (Cuphead) would take the punishment instead)

*When the devil knows it's a lie he makes it Hurt

*Cuphead is suicidal because the Devil never let him DIE. Sure he's died, but they weren't allowed to stay dead, and even now it doesn't stick, so who cares if he gets shot? It lets him rest for a bit and it doesn't stick anyway. Even if he COULD let it stick, he couldn't not look for a way out. He CANT leave his brother alone. Not again.

*Mugman is the actual insane one and Cuphead knows it and he blames himself. He acts out more though, let's people assume that 'Crackhead' is a few shards short. It keeps Mugs safe and from spiralling, AND lets people underestimate both of them. (Cuphead with how smart he is and Mugman with how brutal he can be)

*King Dice actually took up a parental role for the boys. He was in a similar state when he first joined the Devil and they are children. A child should have never been able to get into the casino.

*He teaches them how to behave when the Devil is there (expressionless, empty, uncaring) but as soon as he's gone Dice is the first to start fussing and trying to heal them up.

*He would betray the Devil in a heartbeat if it meant those boys could be safe, but he has to be careful because if he failed then there would be no one in their corner.

*He has taken some of the harsher punishments for the boys

*They call Dice dad sometimes. They never knew their real parents and Kettle was always Elder Kettle. They were never allowed to call him anything different.

*Dice helped teach them what he could about Dishculture, especially cups but they tend to be a secretive lot so it isnt much to go off of.

*The boys can heal themselves with porcelain not their own but it is very painful. It's one reason they carry dip, to help soften the pieces so they can put them in place. (Break a plate and grind some of it into dust and add a bit of DIP to the powder to make a paste. Use the paste to attach the plate pieces)

*Any dishfolk would be absolutely horrified by this. It would probably be similar to taking pig skin and sewing it on for a person

*Mugs and Cups can make DIP if they have the ingredients but Cups prefers having Mugs do it because he is so worried he'll mess up because he can't read.

*The Devil still owns them technically

*King Dice gave both of them a single dice to roll if they are ever in trouble. Sometimes a little bit of luck can change fate. They have never used them because they are worried about what will happen if they do (Will the Devil come, will dad Dice? Would he get in trouble with the Devil if they used it??)