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cartoonus-maximus · 2 months ago

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Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Bonus Story: "Monster"

So this story is technically the last of the published TFTP stories. It was supposed to be the opening story for the "Bobbiedots Conclusion" volume, but ended up being scrapped and replaced with "GGY." But, months later, apparently "Monster" would be scraped up off the cutting room floor and hidden away in a special edition, Walmart exclusive TFTP collection, along with the six combined stories from the "Help Wanted" and "Somniphobia" volumes.

I don't really understand the existence of this exclusive volume, but I really dig the cover art for it. It's a fun alternate version of HAPPS, now with more pincer action! (Plus I think he looks a little like Choo-Choo Charles, which I find hilarious.)

You can tell that this one and "GGY" were written in tandem with each other, as both feature a kid who fancies himself an investigative reporter and both center around this idea of someone not quite being the kind, normal person that they present themselves as. But between the two, "GGY" is definitely the better one, and it's easy to see why it was chosen and this one was cast to the side. (I mean, the Pizzaplex isn't even directly mentioned in this one! Nor are there any references to ghosts or animatronics, or any of the other standard fodder for these stories. Does it even know what series it's in?!)

(Side Note: As you can see on the cover, the "Somniphobia" volume is being referred to as "Cleithrophobia" at this point, and I think that's intentional. Both stories are contained in that volume, and the volume's title and cover art focus heavily on "Somniphobia." But "Somniphobia," as a story, centers around an earlier concept of the Daycare Attendant character, and portrays character traits that are no longer canon to the DA, while "Cleithrophobia" contains a lot of references to the Mimic and how it behaves, and these references are still canon. So by focusing on "Cleithrophobia" instead, we're being told which of the stories is more important for lore purposes between the two.)

(Not sure why the title for "Help Wanted" was traded out for "Happs," though. That feels like a more random choice than the other title switch did.)

Since we've only got the one story, this is going to be a short(er) exploration post. But of course, fair warning: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. But if you're cool with that, then let's get to it and start throwing some noodles around.

Here are my observations on the other books in the series, if you are interested.

"Monster"

This story follows two protagonists, a pair of high school boys named Liam and Drew who both work part-time at a small pizza place in their town called "Justa Pizza." The owner of the place is their boss, an older man named Mr. Burton, a man who is frequently smiling and is extremely kind to both his customers and his employees.

Liam and Drew grew up together, have been best friends since they were children. They used to live next door to each other in a nice neighborhood, but Liam's father developed a gambling problem and a lot of debt, and Liam's family had to foreclose their house and move into a double-wide on the edge of town. The two boys have remained friends, but their relationship has only gotten strained over the years.

The two boys are portrayed as near opposites of each other in almost every way throughout this story. Liam's family lives in a trailer park, while Drew's family lives in a mansion in a ritzy neighborhood. Liam's father is abusive, and his mother keeps impulsively leaving them for weeks at a time, to the point where Liam doesn't bother to trust either of them to help with anything ever, while Drew's parents are both loyal and loving forces in their son's life. Liam's main goal right now is to save up enough money so he can buy a car and someday leave this town, while Drew wants to start planting the seeds of his dream career of being a world-famous writer and investigative journalist. Liam is patient, understanding, and compassionate, while Drew is self-centered, entitled, and often cruel to others.

Our story begins with Drew and Liam working into the evening hours at their part-time job, with Drew complaining that their boss doesn't pay them enough. Liam believes Burton pays them more than fairly, but Drew goes on a rant about how Burton and his father are both "stingy tightwads" who never give him enough money. It's made very clear from the start that Drew is an entitled moron who thinks the world revolves around him and that the world owes him something just because he exists. Liam thinks his friend is an idiot (and he's right).

They also talk about how prom is coming up, and how both their girlfriends expect them to pay for limos and expensive dinners. Liam isn't happy that his girlfriend, Shauna, and doesn't understand why prom has to be a huge, expensive undertaking for her, especially when she knows that he's saving up to buy a car, but he figures that he'll just pick up as many extra jobs as he has to in order to pay for prom expenses.

Burton helps the boys finish their work for the day and sends them on their way. Liam thinks Burton is a great boss, having worked several jobs before, but Drew, who has never worked for anyone before taking this job, thinks Burton is creepy because of how happy and friendly he always seems, and is suspicious that Burton is hiding something. We're shown over and over again that Burton is a fair employer and a good boss to the boys, and that he at least seems like a genuinely kind man, but Drew just gets more suspicious every time, not believing that people are kind unless they're hiding something dark.

Idly, Liam observes that, whenever Mr. Burton is holed up in his office, Drew is also scarce. He assumes that his friend is simply slacking off while the boss isn't looking. (Drew will later use this observation to make Liam second-guess his loyalties, so just keep it in mind for now.)

"[Drew thinking about himself] He was going to be a serious book author. He was going to be an influencer. People were going to hang on his every word." This guy is insufferable. And no, he doesn't get better. Somehow he gets worse.

While on a family outing the next day, Drew sees a billboard that "Old Mr. Schmidt" has plastered a message across, reading "Demons live among us! They're masters of deception!" This gives Drew an idea, and he writes a news article about how Mr. Burton must either be a psychopath or a demon disguised as a person. He doesn't actually believe demons are real or that Mr. Burton is one, but he thinks by slamming the man's name in public, his boss will pay him more. He encourages the article readers to boycott "Justa Pizza" until Burton starts paying his employees more money, claiming that the man severely overworks and underpays his workers (something that we've already been shown isn't true). Since Drew is an editor on the school newspaper, he publishes the article there.

Liam reads Drew's article in their school paper the next day and tries to understand why Drew would just throw their boss under the bus like that. When they arrive to work after school, the pizza place is practically empty, devoid of the usual after-school rush, and Drew is cornered in the kitchen and yelled at by their coworkers, all of whom would like to keep their jobs and are stressed out about the empty dining rooms.

Mr. Burton calls a meeting, where he explains that he's been fielding complaints, and in response he's agreeing to give all of his employees a raise. All of the employees aside from Drew insist that they don't need it, but Burton says they're getting it anyway. As soon as Burton is out of the room, the other employees turn on Drew again, snapping at him that he should detract his article, but Drew only sticks his nose in the air and ignores them.

Later in that same day, Drew catches and kills a rat, leaving its remains in the bathroom for someone to find. It's Burton who finds it, and the old man cleans it up before it's found by either a customer or Liam, whose job it is to clean the bathroom. Liam comes in just as Burton is finishing, and he sees Burton washing blood off his hands. Burton doesn't tell him what happened, so Liam doesn't have any context for whose blood his boss has on his hands, which becomes the first of many doubts Liam has about his boss' intentions.

Liam and Drew are working together on a school project about Celtic folklore, where they're supposed to research about a specific story or creature from Celtic tales, and then give a presentation to their classmates about their findings. Drew has already begun doing research and says that he wants to focus on kelpies, being drawn to the cunning creatures. Researching them has sent him down a rabbit hole of different trickster spirits and shapeshifting creatures from different folklore around the world, and he decides to double down on his angle about Mr. Burton, once again portraying the man as a supernatural monster that's only pretending to be human, referring to the old man as both a "skinwalker" and a "psychopathic serial killer" in the same conversation.

Ultimately, Drew takes over the entire presentation, using it to convince as many of their classmates as possible that Mr. Burton is a shapeshifting monster of some sort. He successfully convinces a lot of the student body, including Liam's girlfriend. The boys get a bad grade for not presenting the correct assignment, and Liam wants to sink into the floor from embarrassment.

Drew begins publishing a new article in the school paper nearly every day, with each new article centering around new horrible lies about Burton and his business. It's gotten so bad that the general public of the town have taken notice of Drew's writing, and plenty of people wholeheartedly believe all of the lies that Drew keeps spouting, giving him a healthy audience of supporters for his smear campaign. When Liam asks Drew what his goal is, Drew says that he plans to "trigger the truth out of Burton, the same way a full moon triggers a werewolf into revealing their true self."

Business gets slower and slower at the pizza place. Liam continues coming into work, and he notices Burton hiding in his locked office more and more, the old man getting increasingly stressed and agitated with each passing day. Things seem to reach a head when Drew writes an article that accuses Burton of physically attacking one or more of his employees; the article also says that a dead child was found in a previous restaurant that Burton owned, and, although Drew offers no proof of either events happening, it's enough for the local townsfolk to stand outside the pizza place holding up protest signs and yelling obscenities, calling for Burton to be run out of town.

Not knowing what to think, Liam begins having nightmares about Burton showing up in his home, hiding in wait in his bedroom and stalking him, plotting to kill him. Sometimes Burton lunges out from inside Liam's closet or from under his bed, and sometimes Liam is at "Justa Pizza" and Burton is shoving him into a pizza oven and cooking him alive. (Burton also makes crow sounds in some of these nightmares, which largely relates to Liam having seen the man watching crows out in the parking lot, but also gave me "Blackbird" vibes for some reason.)

Eventually, business is so bad that Burton is forced to let go most of his employees, including Liam and Drew. Liam gets upset with Drew, having actually needed that job and knowing that this is all just a game to Drew. Drew shrugs, unbothered by Liam's problems, and instead seems convinced that Liam will come around to his side before long.

With all the attention he's been getting, Drew begins to think of himself as "Batman with a pen" (which made me cringe so hard! Anyone older than 13 who unironically compares themself to a fictional vigilante is a red flag, sorry not sorry.). He goes down a rabbit hole of researching unsolved murders and cold cases from the general area around their town. He learns that Mr. Burton has moved around a lot over the years, and that his moving schedule lines up rather conveniently with events where people went missing or were found murdered in the same town. This results in Drew writing an article about several missing children that vanished from each of the towns Burton has lived in over the years, making the very obvious suggestion that Burton's the one responsible.

The town holds a rally, cheering and yelling about how Burton is a monster who should be punished, saying that they don't want him in their town. In the crown, Liam sees plenty of people that he knows to be intelligent, rational individuals, and it makes him wonder if he's the one that's wrong, and that Burton really is a monster. At the head of the event, Drew announces that he's going to be the one to confront Burton, and that he's going to do it alone.

While Drew goes to confront Burton, Liam goes home to fact-check Drew's latest article. He learns that there have been, in fact, several missing children from the various towns that Burton has lived in over the years, and that they did actually go missing shortly before he moved, setting up what looks like a very convenient timeline. Liam sends a few e-mails (presumably to the police departments and/or whoever is the lead on each of the missing persons cases, but we're not actually told who he's contacting) in order to get more information about the cases.

Meanwhile, Drew goes to "confront" Burton. He never actually interacts with the man, choosing instead to spy on him and cause property damage. Drew cuts himself pretty bad while breaking in through a window of Burton's apartment above the restaurant, and he searches for dirt on Burton as he skulks around, planning to plant some if he doesn't find any. He overhears Burton muttering and arguing with himself, saying things like "it's wrong" and "I can't do it," and finds evidence that Burton may be planning to set his own building on fire to commit insurance fraud.

Liam goes to talk to Drew the next morning, wanting to learn what happened during the other boy's "confrontation" with their former boss. Drew's arms are bandaged up, and he has fresh injuries on them that look like pretty series gauge marks. Drew shows Liam his new injuries, as well as several older scars on his body, and tells Liam that Burton attacked him, and also says that the old man has been physically abusing him during the entire time he's been working for him. He reminds Liam of the many times when Liam couldn't find either him or Burton while they were working, and he leads Liam to believe that it's because Burton was harming Drew in a back room, and that he was threatened to keep quiet about the events. (The older scars are actually just old injuries from Drew's own stupidity, but Liam doesn't know that.) Worn down, Liam finally concedes that Drew is right -- Burton is a monster.

Drew types up and publishes an article about Burton's insurance fraud scheme, preemptively labeling the old man an "arsonist and murderer." He publishes it too early though, and lots of people end up crowding the streets around the "Just Pizza" building, seemingly waiting to see if Burton will set it on fire. Worried about being caught in his own lie, Drew rushes toward the building himself, planning to set it on fire himself if Burton won't. Liam tries to stop him, saying that Drew doesn't need to interact with "his abuser" anymore, but Drew throws his friend to the ground and steps over him. Carrying cans of kerosene, Drew storms into the restaurant through a back door and grabs Burton out of his office, dragging the old man through the building.

When Liam reaches the restaurant's back door, he sees Drew dousing the entire inside of the restaurant in kerosene, and even pouring it onto Mr. Burton. He panics when he sees Drew pull a lighter out of his pocket.

"I'm going to make sure it burns! That way, everyone will know how powerful I am!"

Drew rants about how "powerful" he is, how he created the entire "Burton is a monster" narrative, and how everyone listens to him and respects him now. He gets mad at Burton for "bossing him around" (which, gee, it's almost like… he was your boss? Like you intentionally entered his employment, knowing that he would give you orders and expect you to carry them out? Because that's how employment works?). He flicks the lighter on and drops it to the floor, and a fire immediately starts. (Worth noting that this whole thing is now happening in front of the main window in the dining room, and the crowd out on the street can absolutely see and hear what's happening. They're still rallying behind Drew, though.)

(Side note, just for my own amusement: there's an editing error in this section where the two protags names get mixed up, so sometimes it sounds like Liam is the one that started the fire, even though he's actually just sort of standing there for most of the scene.)

The fire spreads quickly, and Mr. Burton is burned alive, going up in flames and dying instantly. Drew also catches fire, and he laughs triumphantly, even as he's consumed in flames. Liam realizes that, even though Drew is dying, he got everything he wanted, so he's satisfied with this outcome.

"The fire burned brighter and it expanded, shooting out sinewy, hot tentacles throughout the room. One of those tentacles whipped its way toward Drew. It ignited Drew's jeans and surged up his body. … [Drew was] still on fire, like a molten-hot mannequin throbbing, screaming-hot red … he had raised his arms above his head, and he curled his hands into fists of fire. … [Liam] saw Drew shift his right hand to give Liam a charred thumbs-up. The gesture was his last act."

Liam abandons the building, rushing outside to join the crowd out there. The crowd cheers as they watch both Burton and Drew die inside, and then again as they watched the rest of the building go up in flames. Smoke rises into the air above the building, and it briefly takes on a shape that looks almost like a horned monster's face. The crowd of people take this as a sign that the "demon" has been vanquished. There's a block party happening on the street in front of the burning building by the time the firefighters show up.

Liam runs home. He retches and throws up in the bathroom, still reliving the final moments of both his former employer and childhood friend. He throws his smokey clothes in the trash and climbs into bed, seeking comfort from a quilt his grandmother made him years before. He later learns from the news that a serial killer was caught, who was responsible for the disappearances of several children in neighboring towns, and Liam realizes that Burton was falsely accused of all those crimes; the real perpetrator is now being put behind bars.

Liam decides to write an article for the school newspaper, wherein he talks about the real serial killer and the kidnapping cases, Mr. Burton's innocence, the truth behind Drew's smear campaign, and the danger of mob mentality. The article is published, but it changes nothing; in fact, the rest of the town seems to move on as though nothing happened, seemingly forgetting about both Burton and Drew entirely. At a certain point, Liam feels like he's the only one who remembers the events at all.

Months later, rumors begin to circulate about a "national franchise" buying the land where "Just Pizza" used to be. It's generally assumed that this unnamed franchise is going to build something new right on top of the former burn site. . . . Let it be known that I had this song stuck in my head the entire time I was reading this one: Kyle Allen Music - "Monster."

Anyway, what a weird one. The "smoke demon" scene gave me "Uzumaki" vibes.

I would have liked to have seen less of Drew's POV, but more of Drew's nefarious scheme. It had the potential to be fun.

This one really felt more like a "Fazbear Frights" story than a "Pizzaplex" story. I get the feeling that it was trying to draw parallels with the old Fazbear's Pizza that's buried underneath the Pizzaplex, as well as with the relationship with William and Henry (two friends who don't understand each other, one with violent urges who ultimately dies in a fire), and those were themes that popped up a lot in the "Frights" books, but don't show up very often in this series.

Mr. Burton also reminded me of what we're told about Henry in "the Silver Eyes." In that trilogy, we're told that Henry had a stand-offish personality, and that, when children starting going missing or turning up dead around the pizzeria, he was an easy target to pin the blame on, despite being innocent about the whole thing. We don't know much about Henry from the games, but we know he apparently dies in "Pizzeria Simulator," lighting his own building on fire and choosing to stay inside while it burns. So it's possible that this story is meant to be telling us something about Henry, or about the "Pizzeria Simulator" building, from the point of view of outsiders who don't know the whole story.

That last part of the story that talks about a larger franchise planning to build something on top of the burned building site also makes it easy to draw parallels with the Mega Pizzaplex, which is built on top of the site of "Pizzeria Simulator."

I find it interesting that this whole thing is, albeit inadvertently, started by the paranoid ramblings of a guy named "Schmidt." That name carries certain connotations in this franchise, and it makes me wonder if, while trying to blow the whistle on his father's company, Mike accidentally gets Henry in trouble in the crossfire.

The fact that this story was scrapped is really interesting to me. At some point, it was going to be part of the canon, and it had a certain amount of important lore shoved into it, but then, for some reason or another, it was taken off the docket, and is no longer part of "canon proper." It's in the same boat as the stories from the bonus "Frights" volume ("Felix the Shark," "You're the Band," and "the Scoop") in that it holds a certain amount of vital information but not information that we need to pay attention to or take too seriously. A very "pick and choose what you think works out of this" situation, if that makes sense. . . . Anyway, that wraps up the entire "Tales From the Pizzaplex" series! Cue the confetti, pop an ibuprofen for your headache, and go take a well-deserved rest because we are done, baby!

I have one more post after this, wherein I will wrap up the entire series and the lore bits and theory noodles that I gleaned from each of the stories, and then I'll be done with this series for the time being. I don't currently have any plans to move onto any other parts of this franchise (I don't particularly care about the graphic novels or the interactive novels at this point in time), but I may revisit this series or the "Frights" series again further down the line, re-examining them with hindsight vision (idk, we'll see).

But yeah, it's been fun! Let's not do this again!

#five nights at freddy's #tales from the pizzaplex #a brief analysis #my thoughts and theory noodles #my tftp analysis

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cartoonus-maximus · 1 year ago

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Notes and Observations on FNAF TFTP Vol 2: Happs

Before we get into it, I need to say… I did not enjoy this volume. I thought the first story was pretty good, but the second and third one were not fun, man. I really liked the character of Steve in the first story, and the plot of a man being essentially kidnapped and continuously gaslit by "his family!" It really worked for me! But those other two… oof.

I have two main complaints about the second and third stories. The first problem is how long the stories are - so much of the stories is just long segments of nothing happening, and I was so bored for so much of them.

My second complaint is that both of these stories portray subject matter that I don't think is appropriate for the book's target audience of young, impressionable teens. "Happs" is told from the POV of a teenager who thinks about harming his classmates, with a narrative that encourages the reader to understand his reasons and rationalizes them, not offering alternatives for dealing with his negative emotions. And "B-7" is… well, I saw a few book reviews that referred to this story as "tone deaf at best and outright offensive and cruel at worst," and I'm inclined to agree with that statement. I'll get more into it later in this post.

Also worth noting: according to the wiki, these stories were written solely by Andrea Waggener and Elley Cooper. Whether the initial story outlines came from Scott or not I don't know, but I thought it was interesting that he isn't doing any of the main writing on the books by this point.

Here are my observations on the other books in the series, if you are interested.

Overall, this volume was a disappointment. But, with that said, let's get into it.

"Help Wanted"

This story centers around a gas station employee named Steve Snodgrass. Steve wanted to be a video game developer but never got the chance, so he's stuck in a low-paying job he doesn't want.

"Sometimes stray cats followed him…" I see this as an absolute win.

Steve is working on making a computer game on his own time, largely just as a way of sorting out what his actual abilities are and to hopefully turn it into a portfolio project. The game is a family friendly game of fetch quests starring playable chipmunk characters, and is called "Chip Off The Old Block."

(Steve is definitely a stand-in for Scott himself, isn't he? Down on his luck game dev? Making a game that sounds similar to "Chipper And Sons?" He's gotta be Scott.)

At work the next day, a strangely well-dressed man approaches Steve in the gas station and offers him a job. He gives Steve his business card, which labels him as one of the higher-ups at Fazbear Entertainment.

(The man's name is Brock Edwards, which absolutely SENT ME when I first heard the audiobook narrator say it. Sorry, but I've been a Marvel fan for years and all I could think of in that moment was an image of Eddie Brock wearing the Venom symbiote as a business suit.)

Steve's first thoughts about the Fazbear company is remembering all the rumors that used to float around about why the pizza places closed down - rumors involving murders and paranormal events. He doesn't know much about the company, though. Edwards assures him that the rumors are untrue, and explains that the company is trying to turn their public appearance around.

Steve has previously published two computer games that he made online, and Edwards says that Fazbear's found Steve through his games, and that they want him to make games for them. Specifically, they want him to take all those rumors about murder and hauntings and make horror games out of them, specifically to make fun of them.

"The idea seemed distasteful at best, cruel at worst." Yeah, that's just how Fazbear Entertainment rolls, baby!

Edwards explains that the company wants 4 of these games. He also says that, if Steve takes the job, he'll be taken to live in a fancy condo with luxurious amenities, all paid for by Fazbear's. FE will pay for his every want, need, or expense so long as he makes four simple games. (This… sure seems like a lot of kick-back for a game dev in this particular job. Especially given that Steve hasn't even accepted the job yet, or shown that he's remotely interested or even capable. His portfolio is made of family friendly fetch-quests, not tongue-in-cheek horror, but Edwards talks to him during this segment like Steve already has the job. A lot of it is just Edwards trying to sell the job, I get it, but Steve doesn't obviously seem to be a good fit for the role.)

Steve was under the assumption that the murders really happened, and the idea of creating games strictly to capitalize off of them makes him uncomfortable. He says as much to Edwards, and privately thinks to himself that he doesn't like the idea of making horror games for kids. He turns down the job offer and returns to mopping the gas station.

The next morning, he gets messaged on a dating app by a woman named Victoria, who texts like a chat 'bot. I'm sure it's nothing, though. /sarcasm

Victoria immediately invites Steve over to her house over the weekend, saying she'll make lunch for him. He agrees. (Damn, woman! The grass doesn't grow under your feet, does it? XD )

Steve talks to his buddy, Matt, about the message from Victoria. Matt works at a computer store. (And this what… our third 'Matt who works with tech' character? Unclear if meaningful reference or running gag.)

Steve goes out to Victoria's house, which turns out to be a quaint little thing out in the country. He enters the house, but it turns out to be empty, completely devoid of any furniture. He wonders if this woman is actually a real estate salesman who's tricked him into coming to a house showing or something. A mechanical whirring and high-pitched ringing takes him off guard. The sound almost breaks his brain, but then seems to fade away, and he finds himself staring at Victoria, who's appeared in front of him and is somehow even more beautiful than her profile picture.

"Steve was instantly besotted." (Scott has really been letting Andrea's romantic fiction writing background come out in these book recently. XD I'm not complaining! But there are certain vocabulary words that I just simply do not expect from a FNAF book.)

The high-pitched ringing and mechanical screaming come back, and Steve falls unconscious on the floor. When he wakes up again, he's in the same house but the house is different. There's furniture in it now, and many personal items of his own, as well as those of Victoria's. While he's still disoriented, Victoria walks into the room to check on him, telling him he had a strange dizzy spell and talking to him like they've been together for years.

Victoria tells Steve that he was in a car accident a few years ago, and that because of it he sometimes forgets large chunks of his life. (Oof. Been there. Hate the feeling.) She's very patient with him though, and helps him fill in those blanks. As they talk, Steve realizes that he and Victoria have been married for a few years.

There's another time jump. This time, Steve is in bed, and is woken up by two children, a boy and a girl who look like both himself and Victoria. Steve assumes they must be his, but has no memory or knowledge of them. Assuming this is a normal part of his life, Steve follows them into the kitchen, where Victoria is making them breakfast. He learns that the kids are named Abigail and Avery. He and Victoria are both aware of his strange memory lapses, but they do their best to hide the situation from their children, who are too young to understand.

Steve learns he's still working at the gas station, since no other job opportunities came to him. Victoria tells him she's currently between jobs, and that they don't make enough money to keep the house they're living in. They're currently facing a foreclosure. Shortly after they're discussing their financial woes, a car drives up outside, and Brock Edwards himself steps out of the car.

Edwards and Steve have another conversation about a potential job with Fazbear's. Desperate to keep his house and provide for his family, Steve accepts the job.

Steve's cell phone is on the fritz. He doesn't remember how long it's been inoperable. The house Steve and his family live in is a ways out in the country, with no other human-inhabited structures nearby, rendering them completely isolated.

Steve is awoken during the night by the sound of someone moving around in the living room. Thinking it's a burglar, he grabs a softball bat and goes to investigate. It turns out to be his four-year-old daughter, Abby, who is walking in place and bumping into things like a Bethesda character. Her eyes are "blank" and "staring at nothing." This strange behavior stops when Steve calls her name, and she snaps back to behaving like a normal child (but not like one who's been sleepwalking).

All the doors in the house are kept partially ajar. "For some reason, none of them would fully close, let alone lock."

Victoria tells Steve that the kids both sleepwalk sometimes, and tells him that it's a trait inherited from him. She says that Steve sleepwalks and suffers from night terrors, but that so far the kids only have the sleepwalking part.

Steve doesn't sleep well. He keeps getting the feeling that there's something else in the house that's going to harm his wife and kids.

(Not me drawing parallels between this story and that time Scott was talking to fans online and said that he suffered from night terrors, leading to him convincing himself that his own characters were coming to attack his wife and kids. I'm not thinking about that at all.)

Now with his new job working for Fazbear Entertainment, Steve gets to work on the first of their line of games. He works from home, and works at it very diligently. He's determined to make the games as scary as he can, and pours a lot of his own fears and night terrors into the them.

One afternoon, the kids want their dad to play hide-and-seek with him (a game that never goes well in these books). This scene is actually pretty cute, with Steve pretending to struggle finding his son, who isn't a good hider, and loudly and theatrically asking "Where is Avery?"

Steve has trouble finding Abby, and gets worried. He starts to spiral, thinking about situations where kids go missing and are never found, or are taken and their parents never find out what happened to them. He starts to panic, seemingly for no reason, and he starts desperately searching for his daughter.

"Something about her invisibility triggered a primal parental fear."

Steve is also scared of certain locations in his own house. Certain closets and doorways that feature prominently in his nightmares, or spaces in the floor and walls that creak loudly when he doesn't expect them to. He loves the house, and is happy to live here with his family, but he also attributes his nightmares to the house, believing that something in the house is causing his increased anxieties and phobias.

Steve thinks about this while getting back to work on the Fazbear's game. He's programming jumpscares into the game now, largely inspired by his children jumping out at him from their hiding places.

That night, Steve goes to bed keyed up, and can't get to sleep. He's scared to go to sleep. (Ugh, been there too. My guy really is just like me fr.) While laying in bed not sleeping, he hears mechanical whirring and rumbling sounds in the walls of the house.

"Whatever was after him was inside the walls. Scurrying. Scratching. Looking for a way out."

"The surface of the wall began to pulse and throb, forming a large bubble on the surface that reminded Steve of the way cheese bubbles up on a pizza. Then, with a wet 'splat,' the bubble popped like a zit, and an oily, black substance spattered across the room." (Again with the pulsing doors and walls???? Dude, that's so gross! I love it!)

Victoria wakes up and tells Steve that he's having a nightmare and sleepwalking. She gets him back to bed, but he doesn't get to sleep.

Lol, "DJ Dan the Music Man!" XD

O the weather outside is frightful, and Steve and his family are trapped inside the house for several days as snow piles up outside. Steve becomes more fearful of the house and more manic about it over time.

One night, when Steve is taking a shower, he finds strange little cuts and abrasions on his arms and legs. They remind him of shaving cuts, but they're all in places where he doesn't shave. He remembers playing a game of Tickle Fight with his kids earlier, wherein they touched him in a lot of these places, but he can't imagine that's connected at all.

Steve is also suffering from constantly hearing a high-pitched ringing sound. He doesn't know what it is or where it's coming from, but he's convinced it's something that means to hurt him. (Have you considered that you might have tinnitus? I'm told that's what it's like.) The high-pitched ringing only stops when he's working on the games for Fazbear. (… Huh.)

"Here's the latest hit from Sailor Thrift!" (Lol! What's her latest hit? "Fortresses Falling?" "Exurban Tall Tales?")

Steve has another round of apparent night terrors, wherein he sees giant mechanical snakes burst out of the walls of his home to attack him. He tries to warn his wife about the snakes. Victoria suggests it's time to find him a therapist. (Which is a fair call to make when your husband is hallucinating giant snakes in the dead of winter in the northern hemisphere.)

Oh! And now there are spiders! Steve hallucinates giant spiders next. (And boy howdy do I *adore* the nightmare imagery of this segment! It's soooo gross, lol.)

Steve comes to the conclusion that the high-pitched ringing he keeps hearing is a malfunctioning smoke alarm in the house. He finds the smoke alarm and yanks it off the ceiling, and then destroys it against the floor. This stops the ringing, but now he hears more mechanical sounds, sounds that make him think of "the production floor of a small factory."

As he looks around himself, he can also see that the house around him is different. There are treadmarks on the floor. There are trapdoors in the walls and ceilings, located in the same places where he keeps hallucinating monstrous animals emerging. As he looks around, he thinks the house looks like the inside of an amusement park's haunted house ride.

(The "smoke alarm" here is definitely something akin to the illusion disks from the earlier books, right? A circular object with a flashing light in the center of it, makes a high-pitched noise, causes those nearby to see and experience things that aren't real? Def illusion disk.)

Something approaches from behind him, and Steve ducks into a coat closet. The door doesn't close all the way, taking away his sense of security. Peeking through the gap in the door, Steve sees a robot wheel into the room, a simple steel design with a feminine mask. The robot is clearly looking around itself, and calls out Steve's name in his wife's voice and mannerisms. This robot is soon joined by two smaller robots, these ones with masks of children's faces on them. These smaller robots speak in Abigail and Avery's voices, and ask the first robot "Mommy? Where's Daddy?"

Steve has the unfortunate realization that his beloved family aren't real. Despite this, he has to sit still and keep silent so the robots won't find him.

As the robots search the nearby rooms for Steve, they begin to act less and less like humans, their searching becoming more aggressive and violent. (They pick up furniture to look under it for Steve, and it just made me think of that one bit from the graphic novel where Circus Baby picks up the couch while looking for Carlton. XD)

There's been a radio in the house that Victoria keeps on a lot of the time (the one with DJ Dan the Music Man!). During this scene, DJ Dan addresses Steve personally, trying to convince him to come out of his hiding spot. The DJ's voice tells Steve that he needs to come out, and that his wife and kids are worried about him, all while Steve's robotic "family" continue to tear apart the room searching for him. There are also multiple of these radios spread out around the house, allowing the DJ to speak to him in each room.

The DJ talks to Steve in a way that makes it clear that Steve is being watched, either by the DJ himself or by someone else. It's also clear at this point that someone has been watching Steve for years, since the DJ references private aspects of Steve's life from before he met Victoria, and even before Fazbear's approached him.

The DJ tells him that yes, the "night terrors" were caused by an external force (likely Fazbear's, but he doesn't say), and that their only purpose was to inspire Steve with making the games. The DJ offers to stop the night terrors altogether if that's what Steve wants.

Steve realizes that he's been both happier and more fearful in this house than he ever has in the rest of his life. He decides to stay here, in a fantasy world with scary robots and a fake family. He asks the DJ how he can stay in this house, and the DJ instructs him to walk to a specific part of the house and press a button. When Steve pushes the button, the high-pitched ringing returns, knocking him to the ground.

Once the ringing dies down, Steve finds himself facing Victoria again. Choosing to forcefully forget that she's not real, he goes to his wife, hugging her and kissing her. Victoria holds him lovingly and whispers comforting words to him… while stabbing him in the heart over and over.

Presumably, Steve dies in the arms of his robot wife, happy to do so because of whatever mind control device exists in the house.

He never did finish those games for Fazbear's, though. Like yes, he was hired to create the in-universe equivalents of FNAFs 1, 2, 3, and 4, but he never finished them.

I wonder if DJ Dan the Music Man is meant to actually be some form of everyone's favorite spider animatronic DJ Music Man, or if he's just Brock Edwards or another person from Fazbear's who's just using the DJ's name as a joke. Because the idea of the DJMM speaking into this fake house set-up is much funnier to me than the alternative. Just a big ol' spider standing over a house, playing pop songs while watching a man and three endos wander around inside.

"Happs"

The hero of this story is a high school boy named Aiden, who, of course, gets bullied by the other kids from his school, even when they aren't at school.

I… I didn't realize "jackass," "crap," and "pissed" were appropriate words for the age rating on these books. They definitely weren't when I was in that age bracket and reading Scholastic books. It took me by surprise but y'know, if your audience is willingly reading stories about murder robots, they're probably fine with some edgier vocabulary words.

Aiden and his friend Jace (short for Jason, I assume?) go to the Mega Pizzaplex, where Aiden gets a black eye from one of his bullies while playing Fazer Blaster. His new injury is then mocked and laughed at by some girls from their school, causing Aiden to mentally spiral a bit, thinking about how much he hates his classmates.

(Side note: because I'm listening to the audiobooks, I don't always know how characters' names are spelled until I hop onto the wiki later to check the spelling. Since I assumed Jace's name was short for Jason, I spelled it "Jase" all throughout my notes. And because there's a bit about Aiden's bullies and a teacher mispronouncing his name, I was led to believe that his name was an intentional misspelling of the name Aiden as "Aedon." Like his parents were those kind of parents who spell their kid's name strangely. I believe I corrected every instance of the spelling, but if you happen to notice a "Jase" or "Aedon," that's why.)

Aiden and Jace joke about stabbing their classmates. I get the feeling Jace is actually joking, while Aiden isn't really joking at all.

The Pizzaplex they're at has an indoor roller coaster and complex system of plastic climbing tubes, both of which run across the building, between smaller attractions and over the walking traffic of customers. This sounds similar to the description of the Pizzaplex from the earlier story, "Under Construction."

"Happs," or really H.A.P.P.S. (the Helpful Automated Pipe Protection Server) is a safety and maintenance robot that Aiden and Jace have encountered at the Pizzaplex before. Happs' job is to systematically crawl through the plastic climbing tubes, checking for structural damage, cleaning the tubes, and helping any kids who have gotten stuck, lost, or simply scared.

Aiden is neglected at home, largely ignored by his parents. Jace lives with an abusive father, and talks about locking his father out of the house for his own safety. (What the text actually says is that Jace's father is "mean." And really? We're allowed to use words like "jackass" and "pissed" but we're not allowed to say "abusive?")

"The Pizzaplex was shaped like a pizza."

There's like… a long section describing the inside of the Pizzaplex.

The tubes are called "Freddy's Fortress" by the way. There are also decorative illusions throughout the tubes. These tubes are also soundproof, a fact that I'm sure won't cause any bad situations later in this story.

"How unsafe can it be?" In Fazbear's? Very.

The boys crawl around in the tubes, and they come across a section that's closed off. Aiden tries to break into the section, curious to see what's behind it, but he gets in trouble when Happs comes across them. The robot seems to understand that the boys are messing with the structure, but proclaims that the boys must be lost, and tries to forcibly guide them to an entrance point. Aiden and Jace get mad and assault the robot, beating and kicking Happs, breaking the robot into pieces. Their actions also cause the segment of pipe they're in to come loose, and the whole thing crashes down into a secluded part of the Pizzaplex.

The boys have the wind knocked out of them when they fall. When they come to, they find themselves in the dark, but in the hidden segment of the maze they had been trying to get into. Happs is nowhere to be seen.

A mechanism inserts a pipe partition behind the boys, blocking them into this section of the maze. Aiden realizes that the partitions are made of two-way mirrors, allowing him and Jace to see out but preventing anyone else from seeing in.

(I… don't understand this story. The pipe they were in broke off and fell, due to their roughhousing in it, but there's now a whole section of pipe maze to explore??? I don't understand how that happened.)

The boys explore this section of pipe for a bit, but slowly begin to realize that they may be trapped in here with no way to call for help. They start to get hungry and thirsty, and they have injuries from their fall. It's also pretty clear that Aiden and Jace can see through the pipes, watching people outside the sections, but no one else seems able to see them.

The boys try to break out of their new prison. They're interrupted by the arrival of the broken Happs. Happs' face and arms are broken, making the robot look like it's sneering and leaving the robot with sharp, metal limbs. He keeps stabbing and scraping with the dangerous remains of his arms.

"Happs appeared… And he did not look happy." I'm pretty sure the name 'Happs' was selected for the sole purpose of using this sentence.

(I think it's funny that "jackass" was acceptable dialogue earlier, but this section of the story insists on referring to the boys sitting "on their butts." "Ass" is no longer an appropriate word.)

Afraid of being stabbed by the robot, the boys run away from Happs. They just end up cornering themselves, becoming trapped deeper in the maze.

The boys end up forced into a physical confrontation with the broken Happs. They get injured, but don't succeed in damaging the robot any more than they already have.

… Back into a ballpit? So soon?

Happs catches up with them. He tries to grab Jace by the ankle, but, with no proper hands, the robot ends up slicing Jace's right foot clean off. While Jace screams in pain, Aiden grabs his friend and tries to carry him away.

Between the two boys, Happs keeps focusing on Jace. We were told earlier in the story that Aiden is further along in puberty than Jace is, and that Aiden looks a bit like an adult while Jace looks a bit like a little kid. A human could recognize that they're both teenagers in that weird, awkward stage of puberty, but I wonder if that's why Happs keeps focusing on Jace so much.

Aiden tries desperately to save his friend, but is unable to. Jace ends up impaled when Happs tries to pick him up, and Aiden both feels and watches while his best and only friend dies in his arms. Aiden tries to carry his friend's body with him while he tries to escape, but ends up unable to, and is forced to leave Jace's body behind.

"Jace was in the ballpit. Jace's blood was in the ballpit." … Sorry, I'm having thoughts about Eleanor's ballpit from the previous series. Y'know, the one filled with old blood and Remnant? Like a body (or multiple bodies?) was stored there? Yeah, I'm just… I'm just thinking.

I do not appreciate that moment of victim blaming. It's not the fault of Aiden and Jace that their classmates bullied them. A kid being "weird" or "a loner" shouldn't give the bullies clearance to harass them. While this moment of victim blaming happens inside Aiden's head, and he's a teenager who doesn't know any better than to blame himself in the moment, I just worry about including moments like that in a book series for teenagers. The younger members of the audience might get the wrong idea.

But, at the beginning of this story, I also wondered (and worried!) about Aiden's violent feelings being presented so openly. He literally suggests gutting a classmate like a fish as an appropriate way of handling the bully, and he fantasizes about shooting a classmate. He means shooting him with the Fazer Blaster gun in the game, but the point still stands. While I personally think it's important to present dark topics in fiction, and while I recognize this book series as a horror series about torture and child murder, I can't help but worry a little bit about these kinds of characters. These aren't side characters, or even just characters who happen to exist -- these are the main characters of these stories, built into a narrative that actively encourages the reader to relate to them. Aiden isn't the first protag of these books to fantasize about harming a classmate, and I'm sure he won't be the last, but I have some concerns about using them as pov characters in a book series for teens, many of whom are a certain level of impressionable.

"Aiden had been essentially herded like an animal into a killing zone. And now he had nowhere to go."

This story is so long, and most of it is just prolonging this kid's death. He doesn't even actually die during the story! The story ends before he actually dies. Presumably he ends up going out the same way Jace did, but… *shrugging.*

"B-7"

This story opens on a happy family enjoying an evening in front of the television: a mother, a father, and a little boy named Billy. Billy watches "Freddy and Friends," enraptured.

Billy is a miniature copy of his father in a lot of ways, both in appearance and in personality. Billy and his father have matching brown hair, brown eyes, and similar facial features, and Billy doesn't think he looks anything like his mother, who has blonde hair and different facial features.

Billy has previously been a very sickly child. He's too young still to know exactly what was wrong with him, but he knows he's spent a substantial amount of time at the hospital as a patient, and that he's "had his back stuck full of needles."

Billy's father is away at work most of the time, and has some sort of office job. Billy's mother works from home as an investor and financial advisor.

Billy's father (Dan) doesn't like "Freddy and Friends," and tries to switch the TV to a sports game… y'know, while his preteen son watches his favorite show. Parent of the year right there.

On screen, the Fazbear characters sing, dance, eat pizza, and point to a security camera mounted on the wall above them. The characters ask each other "Who do you think is watching us?" and decide to go find the person watching them through the camera.

Freddy is Billy's favorite character. Billy decides he wants to be like Freddy, pretends to be an animatronic for the rest of the evening and into the next morning. He walks stiffly and speaks robotically. He likes the idea of being big and strong. He also believes that animatronics don't feel pain, and likes the idea of not feeling any pain.

Billy's dad spends three seconds with his son at breakfast and then decides to go get breakfast at the office. (My god, dude, could you at least try to be a decent parent? Would it kill you?)

At kindergarten, some of Billy's friends play robot with him, while others don't. He gets in trouble with his teacher for singing loudly all through class.

… This kid's inner monologue actually gets more robotic over time. It's meant to be a game, this little boy playing pretend and acting like a robot, but he's referencing how robots are designed and programmed in ways he shouldn't understand, and it using big words (like "visual processor") that I wouldn't expect out of a kindergartner. Sure, we could assume that he just really, really likes robots and has absorbed a lot of information about them, but he started playing this game last night. He hasn't had time to gain knowledge like this yet, has he?

At dinner, Billy regales his parents by listing off all the contents of his "memory banks," reciting everything he saw throughout the day. His parents are surprised by his memory recall, but don't think much of it.

Billy continues to pretend he's an animatronic the next day. His parents and kindergarten teacher are already fed up with it, and express concern to each other about how long his game will go on. (Which is ridiculous, because it's only been two days. Plenty of kids will quit a game like this within minutes, while others will continue with it for weeks or longer. Kids are just… like that.)

Billy decides he's a much more advanced animatronic, deciding that now he's one that's been designed and programmed to behave like a little boy. He "updates his programming" during the night, and the next day he behaves like an ideal child.

… Most of this story is the inner monologue of a robot child narrating its actions and processing the new information it's given. It's really not particularly interesting for story material.

In grade school, Billy learns that robots need oil. He gets some oil that his dad has in the garage and drinks it, convinced that it's something he needs. It makes both his head and stomach hurt, but he drinks more of it anyway. One day, Billy wakes up extremely sick. His mother ends up taking him to the hospital. The doctor tells Billy that the best oil for him is olive oil.

Billy is unable to keep track of the passage of time. Summer vacation from school and holidays take him by surprise.

Billy overhears a lot of whispered conversations throughout the story.

Billy has pretended to be a robot for four years now. Billy is so devoted to this game of make-believe that he genuinely believes himself to be a robot, and acts as one, carrying out tasks in a simple, joyless manner.

His parents, Dan and Vera, have a fight about Billy's mental state one evening. It's implied that Billy almost died as a toddler, and because of that Vera is willing to accept any oddity of her son's personality, so long as she knows he's nearby and healthy. Dan, on the other hand, expresses that Billy should be institutionalized, and seems to believe that having a potentially special needs child is "hell on earth." (Have I made it clear yet that I find Dan insufferable? Because I do.)

Billy overhears the argument. He has no emotional response at all - as a robot, he doesn't care if his father likes him or not.

Dan blames Billy's behavior on the "Freddy and Friends" cartoon. (Which would have been such an interesting idea! Like if Fazbear's put subliminal messages in their cartoons, and any audience member who picked up on it started behaving robotically, their minds and bodies hijacked. That would have been neat. But this is just a throwaway line that goes nowhere.)

A day later, Billy watches impassively as his father leaves them and his mother cries.

"It is not possible for a thing not to be the thing it is. The thing is the thing."

"Have you ever heard of an animatronic growing before?" "No, I have not heard of a growing animatronic." (Oh, oh! I have! I have!)

More time passes. Billy should now be starting 7th grade, but he decides not to go to school anymore, finding it too restrictive and frustrating. He decides to educate himself by reading books from the library.

Billy has had his mother replace his bed with a steel table, deeming it more suitable for his "recharging" schedule.

(I'm listening to the audiobook, and the narrator is still reading Billy's lines of dialogue in the voice of a little kid, despite him presumably being about 12-ish at this point.)

At this point in his life, Billy thinks he looks more and more like his absent father with each passing day. Meanwhile, he recognizes that his mother looks more and more tired with each passing day, but he doesn't know what to do about this.

Billy has been seeing a therapist the entire time he's been acting as a robot. The therapist clearly hasn't exactly helped him much. Mainly, she seems to encourage his belief that he is a robot, but she also shows him ways to "behave like a human," so as not to scare strangers.

"Animatronics do not efficiently digest color." (Please save this kid from his self-enforced all-white diet!)

Billy is now 18-years-old. If anything, he is even more robotic than he has been before. He refers to his birthdays as "his creation day," as robots are created instead of born. He lives exclusively in the (unfinished) basement of his mother's house, and eschews all personal possessions and effects.

One day, Billy finds his mother dead in the bathroom. It's implied that she tried to overdose herself, but then ultimately drowned in the bathtub.

His mother left a computer file for him to read, instructing him in detail how to "upgrade his programming from an 'animatronic son' to an 'animatronic adult.'" And, because of something his late mother said, Billy can't tell anyone that he's an animatronic. It "goes against his programming."

"In other words, Billy was a robot, but his physical systems were like those of a human."

Now in his early 20s, Billy starts to get the feeling that he's human after all, but obviously that's incorrect; he's been a robot for the past decade and a half of his life, so obviously he can't be human. This leads to him seeking out and finding an unlicensed doctor who is willing to perform illegal surgeries on him, removing Billy's limbs and replacing them with robotic prosthetics.

"As an animatronic, Billy did not experience pain. He did, however, have tactile senses that reported pain-like awareness from time to time. … Billy had not chosen any of these reactions [of bleeding and crying in pain]. He had to assume they were programmed. The blood and tears were not welcome."

Sentence: ends with the word "agony." Me: Oooh, they said one of the secret words!

Again, Billy has his arms and legs removed and replaced with metal prosthetics. He doesn't think he needs physical therapy or any time to heal, as he doesn't believe he's an organic creature. This entire process goes about as well as you might imagine.

Billy starts hanging out on internet forums. He befriends a woman named Maliah who expresses that she isn't happy with her body, a sentiment he shares even though her reasons are different. They talk, and she tells him about her abusive father (Oh! So now that word is appropriate??), her daddy issues, and the abusive men she's dated in the past who picked up on and took advantage of her daddy issues. Billy learns a lot about interpersonal relationships from her.

Maliah flirts with him. Billy doesn't know how to respond.

Maliah talks about not liking her face, and tells Billy that she wants to get a nose job. This gives Billy the idea that, now that his limbs reflective his robotic nature, he could get his face and even other body parts changed as well.

(While Billy and Maliah are talking, Billy tells her he "wants to change his outer self to match his inner self," and otherwise expresses that he wants to change his body to match how he perceives himself. On the whole, Billy gives off very autistic and trans vibes.)

Maliah agrees to meet him in person. She arrives at his house and, strangely, despite his appearance and behavior, they hit it off at first.

"If he kills you, it'll save you money in surgeries. You won't have to try to look good for someone other than a serial killer." (In love with this woman, actually.)

"This was why Billy liked Maliah. She made him think in ways his processors had not thought in before." (… Why is that cute and wholesome? "She makes think differently!" It's weirdly sweet.)

Billy and Maliah start dating. (Not a turn I expected this story to take.) Billy learns that he likes having a girlfriend, and that he likes kissing.

Billy goes back to the unlicensed surgeon, this time to change his face. He has metal plates inserted into his face, making his face look more square and robotic-looking. Maliah is a little concerned about this.

Next, Billy has the whites of his eyes dyed black. He can still see, but now his eyeballs look completely black. Interestingly, Maliah actually likes this modification.

Then Billy decides to have his tongue removed, and a synthesizer placed in his throat. He also decides to have his ears removed. Maliah is decidedly not into these modifications. She doesn't understand these changes Billy is making to himself, and Billy, still acting under his mother's "programming," doesn't tell her that he believes himself to be a robot. Maliah still tries to be a supportive girlfriend to Billy, but it's an obvious struggle for her.

Billy changes his name to "B-7," feeling that that's a better name for an animatronic. This seems to be the final straw for Maliah, as she stops interacting with him at all.

"B-7" goes to admire his new body in a full-length mirror, and it's seeing his reflection that breaks the spell, as it were. He's frightened by his own reflection, and realizes that he's only human after all, not an animatronic, and that his mind and body were never originally built to be an animatronic. He realizes that his pursuit of becoming a robot was doomed from the beginning, and that, in that pursuit, he's also ruined any change he could have ever had of being a normal man.

(Weird that this story is titled for the name Billy calls himself for about 2 paragraphs.)

Billy dresses himself in his father's clothing, then sits and thinks for a few hours. Late that night, Billy leaves the house, shambling into the night. He goes to a junkyard, thinking it's the only place where a freak like him belongs, and he climbs into the backseat of an old car, where he falls asleep.

He's awoken the next day by the sounds and sensations of the car being put into a trash compactor. Understanding what's happening, Billy stays out of sight, eagerly awaiting his own death. Fully human once more, Billy feels himself being crushed, watches himself bleed, and otherwise accepts his own death.

… Really? Really, Andrea? Really?

Okay, listen… Billy/B-7 gives off such strong trans vibes, even though he's not supposed to be. Like, on the surface, he's a human who perceives himself as a robot, and that's fine. But you could read him as an analogy for the feelings and experiences of a transperson - he perceives himself as a different identity than the one he was assigned at birth. I genuinely couldn't tell you how intentional that aspect of his portrayal is.

But, if he's supposed to feel like a trans character… it's extremely frustrating that his choice of identity and lifestyle causes his family to fall apart, and ultimately causes him to off himself!? Especially when there are so many queer and queer-questioning kids in the FNAF fanbase… I don't think they should be presented with a story that really feels like it's trying to portray a trans character who believes themselves to be a freak that's better off dead. Like, whether intentional or not, the text is very much telling any 12-year-old reading this who is questioning their gender identity that they're better off killing themselves, which sucks for obvious reasons.

Also, to me, Billy/B-7 gives off very strong autistic vibes, another thing I'm not sure was intentional or not. He's genuinely a kind and intelligent person, but he lacks knowledge about social etiquette, causing him to come across as weird and awkward and even self-centered at times. He doesn't emote the way others do, and doesn't make facial expressions. He only wears certain kinds of clothes and only eats certain kinds of food (very much like a texture-sensitive person would do), and he gets easily overstimulated by hearing too many noises at once.

And again, we're in the same boat of "is the author/writing team saying that autistic children are too much work to care for? Or that there's no place in our society for autistic adults? Do they know that that's how the text comes across?" Because, again, and I cannot stress this enough, Billy commits voluntary suicide. And not only is that how the story ends, but the text very overtly tells us that his parents would have been better off if he'd died as a child. What kind of message is this sending to the autistic kids (and adults) in the audience?

And I don't mean to dump all the blame on Andrea Waggener. She's just the convenient scapegoat. Even if she's the sole writer on this story, she'd still only be partially responsible for it: the story would have been greenlit by (presumably) Scott or someone else in charge of the FNAF brand, and it would have had to go through multiple people at Scholastic before being published. Multiple people looked at this story as said "yeah, this is fine" and didn't give any thought to the textual implications.

This one just… AGH! I haven't been this angry at one of these stories since "Blackbird!"

Epilogue:

(The audiobook didn't make it clear that this was a different section, and, at first, I was confused about why we were spending so much time with a large group of random teenagers and what they were doing in Billy's story.)

We're introduced to some teens who are having fun (or trying to) at a local carnival in the late evening.

Soooo much teen drama… -rolls eyes-

This new cast of teens decide to go check out the new, half-built Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaplex. The main focal girl, Lucia, has heard rumors that the new building is being built over top of an old Freddy's, one where supposedly crimes took place. The new building is under construction, and the kids are interested in crawling around the unbuilt place.

Too many teens, can't keep track of them all. -_-

Their high school colors are purple and gold. (Which makes sense, those are pretty common high school colors, but given what those colors are generally used for in this franchise, I just found that vaguely amusing.)

This does kind of have a similar vibe to that of Charlie and her friends urban exploring in Freddy's in "the Silver Eyes."

The kids go looking for animatronics, knowing that the Pizzaplex received a shipment of them, despite the building not being finished. They go poking around in the basement, only to accidentally trap themselves. They find the remains of several dead construction workers.

They hear a metallic creak and a hiss. Believing this to be coming from a vent, the kids go looking for the source of the sound, thinking it might lead to a way out. They then hear footsteps approaching, and run to hide, assuming that anything down here isn't something they want to tangle with.

And that's where we leave them: scared and hiding from (presumably) the Mimic.

#five nights at freddy's #tales from the pizzaplex #a brief analysis #my thoughts and theory noodles #my tftp analysis

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