#I wanted 2 do an amv with little dark age but when i try to thumbnail it i just cant get it right

[yarboyandy]

Sometimes It's Better To Grow.

[scooperkin]

I've seen someone draw the puppet with muscles (I have the picture on my phone)

Sorry I got a bit carried away with my insight on this and the fnaf characters, style and designs in the form of horror media so it’s long and under readmore

Forgive me for any writing errors, this was written on impulse and I probably won’t look into fleshing it out:

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with art or portrayals of the Puppet with more human-based anatomy features but it’s tiring to see this non-stereotypical gendered entity/child’s toy that isn’t supposed to be presented as anything near human both for the in-universe creative of the children’s imaginations, but also as a horror character that is importantly keep vague because a as a horror character, the unknown of what it could be and it’s odd undefined behavior coupled with this vague humanoid but, UNhuman frame makes it scary to in-universe adults, as well as real fans.

So seeing it so commonly characterized as a shapely-human just ruins the original intent and just takes away my interest in whatever story or fanart is being presented to me. And while this is a personal opinion and really doesn’t matter in what content people should do as if it disinterests me I’ll move on but those who enjoy it will still enjoy it. And there also fan content I’ll still occasionally remain interested that present not just the Puppet but other fnaf characters in campier and, stylistic content; any more serious, spooky, horror or more faithful fan media that has both the Puppet and other FNAF characters portrayed more comfortably artistic light, such as the Puppet having a “motherly” body shape (most likely thanks to Living Tombstone’s FNAF 2 song), as well as Toy Chica’s already feminine body pushed further with more defined features about her body (*ahem* boobies). And notice again how a lot of this is more aimed at the more “feminine” of the cast.

Circus Baby, along with Ballora, are the only animatronics that ends up being drawn straight up as organic entities even when in the presence of their fellow Funtimes, still depicted as their more horrific, robot designs. It’s fine if they’re drawn as regular furries and Baby and Ballora as human women (or little girl), its a chosen style someone chose, and again this isn’t wrong just because I don’t find it interesting enough, it’s not my cup of tea and I move on. But, several times I’ve come to accounter, more organically designed characters often are reduced to basic human features in their design. The Puppet gets curvy, Ballora and Baby get real hair that fluffies and moves organically, Baby herself often made into a tiny cute friendly young girl. The (fixed) Mangle, and Funtime Foxy getting more curves and floof. And don’t even get me started on people who sexualize these characters to the point they’re just human bodies with cartoon heads to just be more comfortable with consuming not safe for work content of them, proving as well these character’s designs, in the long run, don’t matter in this nsfw work, but that’s a different subject on a different type of content for a different day. (And notice how all these characters are feminine? While Scrap Baby can be portrayed as a cute girl in fan content but Molten Freddy is still what he is in the game in his fan content.)

Circus Baby is highlighted by the fact she is a massive robot towering over even the tallest of men, a single eye of her’s can fit two if not four pairs of human eyes in it’s size. Her fingers, thicker than most children’s arms. Is TERRIFYING. And she’s supposed to be. She’s a horror game character. Her scale towers over adults, their parents, the protectors of their children. Her movements are jerky and uncanny, her stare to an older audience member or child can give them the creeps. But ultimately her design–safe, safe for children to run up to, and safe for a child to trust. While her existence and design as a whole in-universe and above the surface is so supposed to be a large child, an older sister, still young enough to play with you but old enough to trust to be alone with. But behind the stage, back underground, that’s not who she really is. I’ve never seen Circus Baby as a giant child as she is seen to the outside world, no because underground, in the darkness she’s kept, we’re shown the real her, the true her. She isn’t some dumb playful child, she is a discerning actor. And her “real” mental age can be debated and discussed among fans, but it’s clear she isn’t an arrogant child. And more specifically for me, I see her depicted as an actress. An actress who’s been conformed to take on this child role both on and off stage. She purposely has a voice higher, she purposely choices her innocent-word structuring. She’s acting, she’s Pretending for the sake of her own safety against this Location she’s in. When even being off character for a moment such as taking a rest off your stage gives you a painful shock. It’s not too unusual as several stars and actors, usually young and more impressionable ones are told to act a certain way even with off-screen. A good example of this is several child stars on the work of Disney Channel original series. They tell their actresses to dress a certain way, to speak in a higher voice, don’t be serious, always smile. Because it earns the trust and love from children viewers better than just, Bella Thorne or Miley Cyrus being her honest self off set to their younger fans. Too risky, keep your voice pitched up. And even though you’re 19 please, please don’t act like it, act younger, the kids won’t ever relate to you if you sound too old, if you act to old. So while Baby and the other Funtimes’ situation is a very exaggerated version of this (no don’t worry no disney stars are getting shocked when they don’t act hard enough) to the point that it’s a horror genre story about it makes sense why this is unsettling as a player and in the Funtimes’ shoes.

So while Baby does everything to keep pretending, this is something Ballora can’t do. Ballora can’t pretend, she refuses. She refuses to pretend when under the surface away from the crowds and people, where she’s alone and can be herself. But she doesn’t get that, she gets shocked and ends up being scooped to “fix” her. Too much free will. Foxy isn’t explored as much but I feel goes through the same trouble as Ballora. And the only one who is seemingly left unpunished is Funtime Freddy, not even getting his own room, just stored somewhere until it’s time for a show. It’s implied he’s either the least sentient out of the cast or the one who acts closest to his original programmed personality. But either reason leaves him unpunished, not locked away for safety and disobedience. He’s unpunished but left alone in a single storage room. But whoops maybe having him follow his programming better than the others wasn’t the best idea. As he gets confused to when he’s on or off stage, when he should be sleeping, forgetting this hug is too tight for a child, or that said child is actually an employee that happened to go into the Breaker Room and is in fact not a birthday boy.

So Baby is unsettling both by design, in context, as well as her history, being created by the infamous William Afton making her again, do things she didn’t want to. So when I see her turned down into cutesy little teen girl or small child, and portrayed as such, I can’t help but again lose interest. And once again this is more of a personal preference, that isn’t how I understood Baby to be, or that she needed to be fixed from a large scary robot to cutesy bab. But it’s how others want it and I step away.

And I know this sounds like I’m going everywhere with this, and barely has to do with your ask, but I fear my post may have been mistaken as I feel this ask is talking about a way people shouldn’t draw or portray the Puppet when I wasn’t trying to say and I’m sorry if it came across that way.

As it stands a muscular portrayal of the Puppet is harmless, and a rarity in re-contributing fan media when compared to the more favored “curvy” puppet design trend. And of course these portrayals are no big deals in the end, and it’s just a preference but, I see more and more young artists following these trends because they seem more normalized. And no it’s not the original artists, of the young artist’s lack of understanding but, the fact that a lot of the fnaf fandom doesn’t treat fnaf like the horror media it is. Which is fine on it’s own, but when it’s brought up, I can’t help but look at a large side of fans like I’m looking at a Happy Tree Friends AMV with a song like this. Yeah Happy Tree Friends is a disturbing creation on it’s own but it’s not because it’s done in seriousness and the fact it’s cutesy IS what makes it disturbing, not any relevance it has to a subject or stories its trying to tell. So paired with a song as intestine and serious in tone as this one just seems…. silly. The editor wanted it to be horrific and scary but with the content at hand… it’s nearly impossible to do and takes a lot of figuring out to make work and only a few horror media can pull it off. And once again maybe this is just a me problem and how I intake content, for me FNAF is a horror story, a tragedy, it keeps you up at night not because the fiction itself is scary, but the contents implied and the contents hinted. Freddy Krueger was a sadistic child murderer in life because it was the evilest and scariest human conduct he could think of. And it’s why it’s so disturbing in FNAF that this ominous purple figure for the first few games was clouded in mystery and terrifying because while Krueger he killed innocent children, the purple figure was scarier over the fact he worked with these children, and he might still have worked with said children and he was Never caught and we didn’t even know his name back then. But we, the player saw him. Then we’re given just his vague actions of not only killing innocent children for no rhyme or reason (and any reasons at the time being just as horrifying )he then“Stuffed the victims in the animatronics” makes you think about how utterly disturbing that is. How did he even manage to do that, how did they not find him, that’s so horrible? And if the Puppet did that, why? The Puppet is vaguely sympathetic or is it? Because why would it do something so disturbing and as horrible as stuffing children into metal suits to the point their blood and organs leaked out, even in the name of “saving” them. It’s still horrible! It’s still tragic!

So when I see attempts at acknowledging in the horror in FNAF I want to give reminders that despite everything, Baby was HORRIFYINGLY big, looked had a cuteness that leaves people with the uncanny feeling of a porcelain doll’s stare. (as well as Ballora’s horrific treats being based off that).

That the Puppet despite everything it’s not a human, and has never been shown to bend in the same way a human can, and when it does move its arms and legs are still stretched out in space as it jumps in to kill you.

And to keep aspects like this when creating fan horror content or original horror content. The simplest of choices are usually the best ones, the feeling of being unable to move while your vague unknown attacker's inch closer and closer, to walk blindly in the dark with dangerous creatures. And in the end of this scary tragedy, or wanting things to be happy again, trying to solve the mystery, trying to make the horrible less horrible, only death awaited. For all of us.

[ginnyzero]

The Power of FANDOM

Yes, FANDOM must be in all caps in that title.

Back when I started this blog as an author I came out as someone who is pro-fanfiction. In fact, I've been plenty honest about the fact that I've written fanfiction in the past, still write fanfiction and no doubt will continue to do so in the future.

Fandom is a lot more than simply fanfiction. It's fan art, it's AMVs, it's parody, it's meta. It's simply talking about a show with you co-workers/friends. Fandom isn't just about going to conventions or buying merchandise or posting gifsets on Tumblr. Though those are all good fannish things! Fandom is the power of the people putting their time and money and emotions into a piece of media and comes at all levels of commitment. And fandom can be powerful.

Exhibit A: Dragon Ball (Z, GT, F, Kai and Super and every non canon movie ever, etc.)

Dragon Ball started in Japan back in 1984 as a Shonen Jump manga about a genius scientist and a boy with a tail on quest for the mythical dragon balls. (So she could wish for an endless supply of strawberries or a perfect boyfriend. She was 16, cut her some slack.) It started making traction in the US in the mid to late 90s as Toonami started importing more Japanese anime across the pond. And here we are in 2018, Dragon Ball Super is on it's fifth season in the Universe Survival Saga. That is over 20 years of Goku vs. the next big bad shenanigans.

The only way this happened was through a huge and still in some spaces thriving fandom. Dragon Ball became the bar and the standard for a Shonen (boy focused) fighting manga and inspired another huge fan favorite, Naruto. There is an entire group called Team Four Star that have created a parody of Dragon Ball Z called Dragon Ball Abridged where they cut down the drawn out fights and crank the character's personalities up to eleven for the humor factor. (Given that Akira Toriyama is a humor writer at heart, this can be entertaining since many of his character are already parodies.) And the success of Dragon Ball Abridged is considered part of the reason that Dragon Ball GT has been replaced with Dragon Ball Super. (Or Super has gone in the middle of Z and GT or something.)

So, boys (and girls) of every age can still debate who is better, Vegeta or Goku, 19 years after Vegeta's introduction! Thanks to video parody and the fact that DBZ merchandise still sells and sells and sells.

A lot of these super fandoms have a major thing in common, fandom world building.

Exhibit B: Harry Potter

When Harry Potter first came out, my mother bought the first book because she wanted to see what the divisive fuss in Christian circles was all about. By the time I finished college, we ended up having all seven books. Harry Potter still has a huge following, the books are still on the tops of every fantasy book search. There are new movies coming out. JK Rowling created Pottermore and tweets facts about the universe still. There is still a great deal of interest in Harry Potter.

One of the reasons of this, and it happened in Dragon Ball as well, is that the author became so focused on telling their adventure story that the world building was closer to broad outlines than actual sketches. And this left a lot of wiggle room for fans to fill in the blanks with their own ideas and own rules and thoughts. Sure, a lot of it a pre-teen and teenage Harry Potter didn't actually need to know in the books. (But did we really have to spend half of the seventh book running around the forest either, no.)

In fact, in Exhibit A, Vegeta is an alien that hasn't been raised on Earth like Piccolo or Goku has and this fact is blatantly ignored throughout the entire series and Vegeta's inability to integrate with the other warriors is more often portrayed as him being an aloof jerk rather than him just not getting Earth society and not being able to set aside his pride and ask. In Harry Potter, Harry did ask a lot of questions. Whether or not he asked the correct questions is up for debate. But in Harry Potter, given that muggles came into Wizard Society on a semi-regular basis, the wizards had a slight understanding of how to deal with it.

The unanswered questions and the fun that the fans had in creating their own answers to them really prolonged the longevity of the series. (In trying to answer some of the questions, JK Rowling created more questions!)

Of course, there is also the mega-cross over fandoms.

Exhibit C: Supernatural

I'll admit. Even after 12 seasons, I haven't managed to sit down and watch one episode of Supernatural even though 2 good looking guys, a classic car and hunting monsters should be my jam. But nothing about that premise (even well done) should have given Supernatural the legs it's had. And the fandom is or at least was rather rabid in my wide eyed let's skirt about the edges of this lurking. And nothing would account of that except the rise of the super crossover fandom.

Think Supernatural plus Doctor Who plus Sherlock all in the same universe and the characters playing off each other even if the different story's rules are completely different and why would Sherlock leave Britain? But, it kept people interested in all three of those shows. It kept people going back and watching for more hints and clues and ideas to put into their stories. It kept Supernatural in the minds of FANDOM.

(And after mega crossovers came the revival of the coffee shop AU and the invention of the florist, tattoo shop AU, then the ABO stuff, and I'm not sure where we've gone from there. Fandom, you be crazy and I love you.)

But, as it is, most the intellectual property right holders of these huge mega-fandoms have a love/hate relationship with their fans. While they love the attention that fandom can bring to their works, they want fans to only react in certain ways. It's rumored the animation company behind Dragon Ball hates Dragon Ball Z Abridged, even though the current writers and animators on the ground are also rumored to love it. (So much that it might have influenced the characterizations of the characters in Super.) Granted, not all fans have interacted with the principals (actors, writers etc) appropriately. It still makes very little sense to bite the hand that buys your merchandise and keeps up your television ratings. Especially over works that 99% of the time, the fan makes no money off of. The fandoms that embrace their fans (Buffy, AtlA, I'm looking at you) deserve all the credit in the world.

Fandom has even managed several times to have movies made for cancelled television shows. Now, the quality of these movies is up for debate. (Personally, I loved the cinematography in Serenity and the way it opened the universe a bit more, a lot of the story was simply meh and would have played out better over a long television show.) Fandom interest has gotten producers interested in continuing that franchise even when the studios have decided not to do more with it.

Now, fandom definitely has it's dark and ugly sides. However, I'm still going to lean that there are more positive sides to having fan art and fan fic and parody and meta in free publicity than downsides. We, as creators, can always hope to have a fandom no matter how big or how small.

Viva La Fandom! Squeee!