#because it literally CONFIRMS that his dad is a killer

[crumbleclub]

I'm not sure if I'll use this for Blips, but there's this scenario in my head for William trying and failing spectacularly at being kind that's too good not to share.

William, in childhood, was never taught to hide that he was being mistreated. The fact that no one ever stepped in– a few helped, but none prevented anything– was a failure of every adult in his life.

As a result of this, even as terrible as he is to children, he's unlikely to ignore something that meets his own definitions of wrong.

(These definitions are narrow, often hypocritical, and many times come down to possessiveness over people or things he sees as his.)

In addition, William struggles to feel things with any intensity. This leads to only the most extreme experiences evoking much attachment from him, and, as a result, he sees these things as special.

His ability to give life and take it away is a gift, in his eyes.

When William returns home after being declared innocent in a court of law, he knows something is wrong with his remaining son; and it's not his wrong. He can tell that somebody else did this.

He pries the knowledge out of Michael. He doesn't care if it hurts or if Michael begs him to just leave the topic alone; he has to know.

It works. Michael breaks. William is made aware of something that happened while Michael was in foster care; something he wasn't even close to ready to tell him about.

William's not as angry as he wants to be, but he acts on principle. Firstly, nobody should be messing with his things. Secondly, this has clearly caused Michael great upset, and maybe, just maybe, a grand show of affection could win him over to William's side again.

After all, he'll be needing some help soon.

So, in a great display of "care," he kills the one who did it. He kills the one who hurt his son while he was away, and he leaves the news article open on the table like a cat dragging in a dead bird.

[stop-talking]

Honestly? I'm not surprised the FNAF movie is delayed.

They're DEFINETLY struggling to come up with a plot for the next movie. They planned to make three movies if the first went well, but they didn't really leave themselves much room for a sequel.

What do I mean by that? Well...

• The driving conflict of the first movie, that got Mike to work at Freddy's in the first place, was the custody battle with aunt Jane. But they fucking killed her off. (In the movie, it seems like it's possible she still may be alive, but in the book it's pretty much confirmed she's dead.) Abby sees her "lying in a puddle of ketchup" or something when golden freddy comes to get her. And I have a direct quote from Mike.

"You know," he said, "I think my aunt has finally decided to move on." I mean... she kind of did, Mike thought. (Pg 317)

• Oh, and also in the book, it's said Mike gets a nice new job as a contractor after the events at Freddy's, so it's not like they can pull the "Mike can't find a job so he HAS to work at another Freddy's location!" thing again.

• AND, they resolved his storyline with Garrett. He's found the killer, and watched him die. (Even if we know he's not dead). Mike realized Abby is much more important than his dead brother and he no longer torments himself with thoughts of Garrett... so I don't think he'd go poking around in another Freddy's location to "figure out what happened". He knows what happened. And he's finally over it.

• It seems like they TRIED to give themselves something to work with in the end credits. You know, the "C O M E F I N D M E". But honestly? It's not all that helpful. There's no clear way to tell who it's addressed to or who it's from. Everyone seems to agree it's Garrett speaking to Mike as the puppett, but honestly? That doesn't make sense to me.

• I've already explained that I don't think Mike is interested in learning more about his brother's death. He knows who killed him, and watched that man die. Mike is as "at peace" as he's ever going to get. Besides, I don't think Garrett is the puppett!! At all!!

• In the movie, Mike says he feels closer to Garrett at Freddy's. I think that means his soul is LITERALLY there, in THAT Freddy's location. Why else would he say that? Just because there are ghosts there killed by the same man? Also, in the novel, Mike literally sees Garrett's ghost in the pizzeria and it leads him to Springtrap. Finally, the "It's me" messages that keep appearing near Mike. Who else would be writing that shit? It's not just a little Easter egg for the audience. It has to be someone Mike knows. Garrett. (Also I think there's a strong argument to be made that Garrett is co-posessing Golden Freddy with the little blonde boy)

• SO THEN, WHO IS SAYING "COME FIND ME," AND WHO ARE THEY TALKING TO?

Honestly? No clue. But I think there are a few interesting directions they could take things.

1) From Mike's dad, to Mike.

In the movie they sort of imply Mike's dad offed himself, but in the book they reveal he just walked out on them. So he's still out there somewhere, and they could totally reveal he had some kind of connection to Freddy's and William, and it would explain why William drove all the way to goddamn Nebraska to kidnap some random ass kid.

2) From springtrap, to some unfortunate soul dumb enough to set him free

In the games, he was locked away in a bricked off room for like 30 years before being set free, but I don't think these movies are going to have that big of a time skip. Probably a year at most. So I could see the next movie starting with some idiot freeing springtrap.

3) Okay yeah I cant think of anything else.

And I know I'm not a professional screenplay writer but those bitches are anxiously struggling too!! In every interview where Josh Hutcherson (Mike) has been asked about a sequel, he says they're still trying to figure out the story. No shit!! They didn't give themselves anything to work with.

• So basically, Mike has absolutely no reason to go back to another Freddy's location, and the little secret message at the end is almost too vague to be useful.

So, what DID they leave themselves to work with in the next movie? What plot points remain unresolved?

• For one thing, they didn't even give William a fucking motive for killing kids. Or for luring security guards to their deaths. This version of him seems to have a much better understanding of remnant and possession that his game counterpart, but there's no reason given for that either. In the game, he does it all for his dead son. He wants to "fix" him. But they didn't set up any hints to that in the first movie. Mike talked to Vanessa about HIS dead brother, so I feel like if the whole "dead son" thing was the case, she would have mentioned she lost a sibling too.

• Or maybe William would have brought it up at the end when he was getting mad at Vanessa. The "mess YOU created!!" scene. He probably would have said something like, "You know why we have to do this, Vanessa." But he didn't. There's literally no known motive, and it'll be kind of hard to set one up without any breadcrumbs left in the previous movie.

• Mike was TOTALLY falling for Vanessa in the books. Yeah, I know, a lot of people feel FNAF isn't a place for romance, and SCHMELLY isn't a very popular ship... but that doesn't change the face he almost kissed her in the novel. (Also in the book she threw his EMPTY PILL BOTTLE into the river, didn't actually toss bro's meds! So she's a little more likeable!)

"Vanessa and Mike grinned at each other, and Mike felt something zing inside of him. It was a palpable 'wow' feeling that was much more intense than his casual appreciation of her beauty. And the zing felt like it was going both ways. The look Vanessa was giving Mike was one he hadn't ever seen before... not directed at him anyway. Her reciprocation of his feelings was so strong that he felt himself leaning toward her." (pg 186)

(They didn't kiss though, Vanessa blushed and looked away and changed the subject.) Still... now they have to address their little romantic subplot in the next movie as well.

• Vanessa. Just as a character. There's a lot to work with there. Personally, I think it would be interesting to use her coma to tell a story. You know, have her flashback to there's childhood with William and at Freddy's. (Honestly if they don't do that they're dumb and missing a huge opportunity. Why else put her in the goddamn coma?)

• Also, in the novel, they heavily implied she's... a robot? Apparently, her eyes drastically change color and Mike notes she flips from "girl mode" to "cop mode" on a dime. In the movie she just looked bipolar.

"Yeah Abby, let's use the tables for the fort! 😄"

"Mike if you bring her here again I will SHOOT YOU. 🤬"

• But yeah apparently she's a robot. A robot so convincing that even hospital nurses and doctors can't tell. With no explanation for how William could have built that. Or why there's a photo of her and William where she's clearly a child. Did he build a child robot that grew up into an adult woman robot? Or did he build two robots? Or did child Vanessa die and he replaced her with a robot? Who knows!

"Mike watched, mesmerized, as Vanessa's irises deepened noticeably in hue. They went from their usual soft, almost greyish-blue to a deeper indigo. The shift was so pronounced it almost looked computer-generated. It was also enormously disquieting. Mike felt like he was watching a human turn into..." (pg 184)

• So for the next move, Mike has no motive to go visit Freddy's, William has no motive in general, and Vanessa is a robot. The script practically writes itself, am I right??

And then there's the way Scott Cawthon likes to incorporate fan feedback into all of his projects.

(Ex: People complained FNAF 3 wasn't scary, so he made FNAF 4 horrifying)

• I have no doubt he's going to incorporate the fanbase's favorite characters into the next movie. (Ness, Doug, Maxine, Jeremy) Which honestly just complicates the plot further, adding more stipulations to the script.

• Bringing Ness back would be easy? Mike and Abby could have a scene in the diner, I guess, but it's also sort of unnecessary, and I'm not sure MatPat would agree to another cameo. He's retired.

• Bringing Doug back would be more complicated. He's aunt Jane's lawyer... but they fuckin' killed her off. So. Doug is not needed.

• Jeremy could come back? Maybe? He's really a background character... It's not stated whether or not Mike was friends with him outside work, or kept in touch with him after being fired.

• Maxine is a lot more complicated. The actress who plays her, Kathryn Sterling, said herself that she was originally supposed to have a bigger role in the film but it got trimmed down. And THEN there's the way she was stuffed into a purple Freddy suit, which a lot of fans theorize is supposed to be Shadow Freddy. On her TikTok, she basically confirms this, hinting to her character coming back in the next movie and being more important.

So in the next movie...

1) Mike has to somehow have to end up tangled back into Freddy Fazbullshit even though he has NO desire to... (Remember the way he looked at Abby when she asked if they could visit them??)

2) They have to reveal or at least hint towards Vanessa being a robot

3) Mike & Vanessa romance subplot??

4) William needs a fucking motive for killing people

5) The audience needs to be able to tell who "come find me" was said by AND who it was directed towards

6) Bonus points if they can cram in more youtuber cameos & beloved characters from the last movie like Jeremy and Doug

--------------------------------------------------

So yeah. It's a lot to consider when writing. And the clock is ticking, because kids, especially little kids like Garrett's actor, grow up FAST. And ghost kids aren't supposed to grow up. Ghost kids are supposed to be dead.

I do want to say though, that despite the plot holes, I LOVE the FNAF movie. I've watched it 20+ times. It's genuinely one of my comfort movies. I'm excited for the next movie, but I'm also sort of expecting it to be late 2025 before we get to see it.

Scott is notoriously picky. He turned down, like, 8 scripts for the first movie before settling on the Mike storyline. I don't mind waiting, especially considering how difficult this next movie is gonna be to write. Also if you read this whole rant?? Damn?? Kiss me on the mouth rn.

[venus-is-thinking]

DRDT Chapter 2 Episode 13: Initial Thoughts

We're back again! I'm probably just gonna do one of these for every new episode this chapter at least, just because there's so much to talk about in all of them!

Basically, I'm going to run through my not-live-but-sort-of-live-thoughts of the episode, then at the end I'll give my thoughts on any more overarching theories/conversations that are relevant.

SPOILER WARNING FOR DRDT CH 2 PART 2!

T/W: Murder, suicide, hanging

The Reactions

Knowing where Levi's explanation is going now that I'm rewatching, it makes sense that this is the first thing he'd think of in regards to the secret. It's not about the lives lost or his status of being a "murderer," it's the real, concrete consequences of his actions-- AKA, the law.

Just, like, 'cause, or...?

Honestly, this adds a really interesting flavor to when Levi does threaten Ace. He's like, "do you think I don't have limits to my patience?" The fact that there was any amount of patience in the first place is honestly pretty cool for Ace.

Also, I don't really have a good place to screenshot this, so I'll just mention it: the clock motif in the backing track is really cool!! Has that been there before and I haven't noticed, or is it new? I also definitely find it personally suspicious that we're getting clock sound effects while Levi is talking about murder (Eden killer/Levi accomplice moment??) but that's probably just my confirmation bias talking. It could also definitely be something about wasting time in the Trial, which a point is definitely made out of. It takes them a long time to start talking about the method, and Levi even mentions that he's sidetracking before he starts on this monologue.

Extremely funny reaction from Eden if they ARE in on this together btw. "Wait... you've killed, like, more people?? This isn't soul-crushingly deviating from the norm for you?????"

I get that this is the point, but lmao, Levi's really just saying these things like they're normal. Forget the murder charges, did you get in legal trouble for any of this stuff???

Oh Hope's Peak, always the shadiest people with absolutely terrible priorities. I feel like you could tell me Hope's Peak did, like, literally anything morally dubious in a fangan and I'd be like, "yeah, checks."

Shoutout to this anon for slam dunking it! The phrasing Levi used in the other scene makes more sense to me now that we know how Levi feels about all of this. The dialogue didn't imply any different feelings to Levi's father than the other members of his family because the fact that Levi killed him means, like, nothing to him.

Still, I wonder what actually prompted Levi killing his dad. Like, I feel like he must've been provoked, at least. Hopefully we'll learn why someday.

This episode had more of J being more vocally anti-murder than most. I still don't know if that's just because she's one of few characters who's both loud and has morals, or if it ties into some specific aspect of her character.

"I can't forget about the fact that Felicity died because of me under any circumstances ever!"

I hope Arturo and Levi talk more about their secrets in depth at some point. Totally get why they're opposites on the narrative foils thing.

"I mean, we all know why I tried to kill Ace."

Unlike Arei lmao /j /lh

(To be honest, though, I think David at minimum is upset about Arei dying though. More on that later. Eden too, possibly even if she did kill her.)

This is such an interesting thing to learn as a Levi accomplice theory truther. 'Cause like, on the one hand, it makes it more believable that Levi would do some thing that wild; if the other people don't really matter, it's easier to justify killing all of them. But, at the same time, if he doesn't care about Eden, either, why the hell is he helping her?

I'm gonna need to rewatch this episode once I know who this Trial's culprit is, because I am incapable of reading the Levi/Eden interactions as anything BUT horribly suspicious.

(Also, god, the good person jumpscare counter this episode was wilding.)

Nice to get a confirmation that Levi is still trying to be a good person, even if he doesn't understand what that means.

Wow. Didn't realize Ace was gonna throw some emotional vulnerability (???) into his fuck you Levi speech. Or that he actually genuinely believed they had more of a connection than he let on! Like I said to Accirax, he's such a tsundere that I didn't even realize he was a tsundere.

me believing you

*squints in Ace is canonically gay*

I hope we'll get to learn more about this guy at some point. I'd expect we will, if nothing else in the bonus episode that correlates with Ace's death (or in the main story, if he lives long enough to be a survivor). "His memory" definitely makes it sound like he's dead, though. Sad.

Shoutout to the AceVi shippers, though. This episode must've been a WILD ride for you.

Thanks for clarifying, Veronika! It's nice to have a character who likes to psychoanalyze the cast so that the writer can basically use her to clarify what other people are thinking. Useful writing tip.

This does provide some interesting context to that early scene where Arei manipulates and kinda makes fun of Levi, though. He really could've just decked her ass if he wanted to.

Oh my god. Has no one actually said that David isn't behaving like a good person anymore? Is Levi still following David's example???

If so, it's a really good example of how little Levi understands about other people. Like, damn. You can't even tell with David??

To be fair, maybe all the stuff about ending the killing game confused him. Teruko and David are arguing about whether or not Xander was a good person. If everyone else can't even decide, how is Levi supposed to know?

Ban her? I'm not a forum moderator, dude. Also, I hardly even know her.

(Idk if that was meant to be a reference or not but. Whit brainrot go brrrrr)

Thanks for the confirmation, queen!

okay I'm Running Out of Images so from here on out I'm including stuff as indented text and only doing pictures when I think the picture itself is relevant

Veronika: After all, my own so-called secret isn't even the worst thing I've done. Isn't that so utterly disappointing of the motive?

What have you done. Tell me.

I do wonder if this is somehow character commentary on Veronika. Like, let's say Veronika has also murdered somebody or something. Would this imply that this is something she'd be more concerned with others knowing, possibly because it's more personal?

I'm not really sure. It could just be that Veronika doesn't really have any secret she fears at all, so they were at kind of a loss.

David: Achoo! Ah-- Bless me!

what is he so funny for

David: Teruko. Own up to your goddamn secret already. You are the last person to do so.

I so think David knows Teruko's real secret. Like, there's no way.

Interestingly, though, I read Teruko's hesitation towards answering David as her trying to figure out which secret belongs to Min. It's easier for everyone involved if Teruko and Xander's are backwards rather than it being a triangle scenario.

Yay!!! Even if I still think it's partially wrong!

Eden: W... wait! Before we move on! I have to know. David... What happened between you and Arei?

I'm still inclined to read this as Eden having not believed Arei back when she declared she wanted to be friends. Eden is still trying to get at the truth of the matter, because she can't just have killed Arei without knowing how badly she fucked up.

There's definitely still an innocent reading out there, too, though.

Arei: If even a perfect inspirational speaker like you turns out to be an asshole, then there's no such thing as a "good person."

This was a really interesting direction to take this conversation, for both Arei and David's characters. It's true that they both lie about their personality often to get their way; Arei's lie is just WAY easier to see through. It makes sense that it's something they could bond over.

However, the INSANE thing is that this means that David probably actually cares about Arei. Like, to a meaningful extent. Maybe it's just the Kazui vibes, but I feel like if anyone actually understands David enough to see through him, that would be really impactful to him.

Also, the vibes on this scene were wild. The Arvid (????????) shippers sure could have a field day with this one.

But, of course, we can't forget:

...WHAT????

Okay, so first of all, I have no idea if David actually knows/remembers this or if it's just meant for the audience. But, either way, this thing is crazy.

The first thing I noticed was definitely the fork; is that the same fork that we see in the opening sequence?? The one commonly thought to be of when Xander lost his eye?

I know there's some LGI stuff with the fork too, but I'm not going to dive into that right now. I think Accirax is touching on this more strongly in hers.

The other thing is, I have NO idea what this says about Eden culprit theory. I definitely still think it's possible that this is a level of lore that's gonna follow Eden to her death and give her a reason to haunt the narrative, but this could also be something that we're going to explore later.

The main reason why I think this could lead into her death is because as far as we know, Eden doesn't remember anything included in this flashback. If Eden doesn't know about the lore, it's sort of weird if we, the audience, have this vague piece of knowledge about her that she doesn't. It's not a death sentence or anything, but I think it could still be in line.

I'll leave the speculation as to what exactly this means for another post/another theorist. Right now, my guess is that there might've been some kind of other killing game with this class before, or something. But, I'm DEFINITELY both alarmed and intrigued.

Arei: Even she must've made a mistake she couldn't take back.

The inclusion of "mistake" in this section is really interesting to me. Is that referring to whatever we see here? Was it a mistake she later came to regret?

Or, I also think this could actually be a reference to Arei. Not the image itself, but the mistake. If Eden genuinely believed Arei wouldn't change and killed her, only to realize Arei was being sincere, that's a mistake she couldn't take back.

I wonder if this is going to be Arei's last voice line (in the main series, I'd expect she'll talk in the bonus episodes).

If so, I think it's a nice way to end her character arc. Not only is she trying to be friends with Eden to be better, she's also able to reach out to someone like her and help them, too.

David: ...Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I didn't say anything to her, and she didn't have much to say to me either.

This was CRAZY. I was expecting we were all gonna have to play the "to what extent is David lying" game again, but instead, it seems like it all MUST'VE been real, because it came straight from his mind because he didn't even say it!!

It's funny to me that he says he didn't say anything to her, because from what we saw, that was... accurate, maybe?? Was David really just standing there bluescreening that entire time? Like, man loves his elipses, but goddamn, don't leave her hanging! /j /ref

It's also interesting that David is keeping this from the class, and more specifically, from Eden, who Arei clearly liked. Is it because the moment is personal, and he doesn't want to share it? Or, does he have suspicions about who her killer might be or how to catch him that would interfere with him sharing?

Anyways. Wild.

David: One hundred and one percent, I promise. Ace overheard everything, and what he told you all was the entire truth. Does that satisfy you?

I wonder if Ace stopped listening for real, or if there's a chance he heard all of this. If so, I wonder why he's not calling David out. Is he still coping too hard over the Levi thing?

Whit: Dang, we really got hung up on those secrets, didn't we? I thought you all would be on those for years. MonoTV: Years indeed. Some people had to wait one year and five months for you to get this far.

I KNEW MonoTV and/or Whit would make a joke about the time gap! Hope that one doesn't get lost in translation for the people who join the fandom after the hiatus, lol.

Teruko: They filled those jugs up with water and used them to increase Arei's weight.

Oh hell yeah.

Veronika: I'm not an expert, of course, but my intuition tells me that jumping off the top of the swing set isn't enough to break Arei's neck.

Whit: The way hanging normally works is that the victim is put in a noose with enough slack in the rope that they're unharmed. It's only when the victim falls from a high location to a low location that the rope becomes tight, and the noose strangles them.

Very interesting to have Veronika call attention to the fact that she's not an expert shortly before Whit goes into a long explanation of the mechanics of hanging, including with bolded words for emphasis/added ethos. I definitely think we're supposed to notice that he knows this for... some reason.

I know Accirax's theory is that Whit's mom might have hung herself, which is... dark, if true. Like, that means that after the fact, Whit probably hyper-researched how hanging works. Yikes.

Also, I honestly didn't get why people were saying Whit was so sus before the hiatus, but I feel like it's been cranked up afterwards??? Whit are you the mastermind I thought you were chill??????

Whit: It's not like you can grab the rope when she's falling to stop it at the right time. If she's moving at a speed fast enough to snap her neck, I'm sure trying to stop it would shred your hands.

Caught between "yeah that's why they used the stopper rope" and "IS THE USING THE GLOVE TO STOP THE THING STILL REAL???"

YEAHHHHH

Tape truthers rise up!

Teruko joins the murder diagram contingent!!!

Incredibly real though. You simply can't figure out what the hell happens in this thing and how it works without being able to See It.

Teruko: Now that we've actually discussed the mechanism of murder, I realize that I've seen this murder method before. Eden: You have? Teruko: That's right. And so have you.

Funny you remind us of that, Teruko.

YES! GYM MURDER METHOD ANSWERS! PLEASE TELL US WHAT HAPPENED THERE!

Wow. What an episode. We truly learned so much.

Theory Update/Analysis

Okay, so I already yapped about most of the character stuff for a while in here. Similarly, I don't think all too much changed for my murder theory.

I'm still tentatively on Levi accomplice, but firmly on Eden culprit. The way I see this going is towards a Nico bait that goes nowhere because they have an alibi, then eventually causing the class to realize the culprit has to be one of the people who saw Nico's original murder method (who doesn't have an alibi)-- Eden, Ace or Teruko.

From there, they can discuss the Arei murder method more thoroughly, eventually circling back to the fish. That confuses the time of death more than anything.

Eventually, the tape can be the damning evidence. Or that could happen before the fish, not sure.

In summary, I liked this episode a lot! It's exciting that we're finally starting to get answers to the murder method that we all went so insane over.

This was. A short theory update section. If you have any questions please feel free to send in an ask! I like talking to people :)

[mightbeorphanedidk]

how did the four die??? is it the same as canon, undecided, or different????

I'm assuming you mean Alastor, Vox, Valentino, and Velvette. If so,Oooo, idk. From what I know (correct me if im wrong) Vox, Val, and Vel's deaths haven't been confirmed. And I THINK that Alastor was like, shot in the forehead???

I'd normally follow the canon but.. Al's death just seems... stupid??

Apparently he died because while hiding a body in a hunting ground, he was confused for a deer and shot in the head???

Those??? Do not??? Look the same??? How did someone confuse those?? It doesnt really explain how Alastor died to DOGS, either. I was thinking about it a few days back and came up with an okay-theory.

The way you look in Hell represents how you died, so I don't necessarily disagree with the notion that he was shot like a deer. But I don't think he was CONFUSED for a deer, to me, that's just stupid.

My theory is literally just:

Hi im alastor the serial killer (and cannibal???). Oh no i got caught killing someone here i go running through a hunting ground aaaahhhh

Oh no they sent dogs running after me ahhh i can't outrun police dogs

Ahhhh they got me they're mauling my arms and legs to stop me from moving ahhh ohhh the pain

Oh hello sherrif of the town conduct your funky lil speech as my arms and legs get chewed up by your dogs

Oh hes shot me in the head :( Im dead now in the middle of the deer hunting grounds, and because i died being TREATED like a deer, im a deer in hell

Yeah thats my theory.

As for Vox, Valentino, and Velvette, my stories are very.... out there??

Valentino:

Hello my name is valentino i am a university student who has been treated well by hjs parents all his life and has gotten good grades and stuff

Oh whats this my friends want me to party with them

Look at me now im addicted to partying my grades are going down my parents are disappointed in me oh well lets keep partying

Im super drunk and just commit a pretty bad crime i need to get out of here

Drunk and driving? Only one outcome

Im dead now womp womp

Velvette:

Hi im velvette i want to start a fashion career but my parents said no

My sister is the only one to support me, she sacrificed everything to get my career going. Oh no she died im so sad ill keep fashioning to live for her

Oh my fashion career failed. Guess I'll die

And thus she killed herself

Vox:

Hello my name is <definitely not vox> and i live in a household where my parents thoroughly believe in this weird religion that is definitely not legal or ethical. My dad watches weird messages on the TV and phone and stuff that the world is going to end and we all need to submit to death on a specific date

When i grew up i began preaching the same thing because it was all i knew and when the day came i led the mass self-offing (does tumblr have filters??). Yeah oopsies

[befuddledcinnamonroll]

Dead Friend Forever - final thoughts

I say final thoughts, knowing I will likely have many more thoughts to come on this series. Because this is definitely one of those shows that gets its hooks into you.

I file this one under "super memorable and engaging watch that I will never watch again" because I really enjoyed it, but also struggle with such dark material (and I can't stop crying over sweet baby White).

First though, major props to BOC for doing something different in the BL genre. This is the kind of creativity that I love to see, similarly to The Sign or Playboyy. It doesn't always work, and I know there are wildly different feelings about all three of these shows, but that's the point - if no one takes creative risks, no one cares about the outcome.

In this case, the ending actually worked for me. I was expecting something ambiguous, because a) horror genre, and b) there was such a huge difference in interpretations throughout the entire series that it seemed clear they were planting a lot of things that could be seen in vastly different ways. And I think the ending stays consistent with that.

I also don't mind ambiguity if it gives me a lot to chew on in metaphorical meaning, and wow was this show a juicy one.

That said, it definitely wasn't perfect, and there were plenty of loose threads that could have been tightened. But I still found so much that worked for me.

My interpretations

So here's my thoughts on the ending, speaking for myself, within my lens and my cultural context.

I see this as a story about purgatory. Not in the sense of any religious system, but in the sense of being a human, and dealing with human emotions. It's a story about the ripple effects of our own selfishness, of how lack of empathy and caring creates a cost for ourselves as well as others, of holding on to guilt, of what happens when we refuse to reckon with the harm we've done.

I don't see anything that happened on this current day visit to the house as a literal, real life, experience.

A few reasons why (and note, I'm aware there are people who will prescribe the below to bad writing/editing, I'm interpreting these as conscious choices made by production):

The road seemed quite well maintained and straight forward on the way in on the truck (and well used enough that Por's dad put a sign up there), yet when anyone tried to leave, they ended up on small forest paths or there was damage to the road.

Similarly, Top & New rode out on the bike for a while, but then New was able to get back to the house really quickly. It had a feeling of "you can check out any time you like but you can never leave" for me.

The Janta temple. This random big building with a ton of fresh blood and lit candles, yet no one else ever being around, and Phee & Jin getting locked in.

The drugs don't explain how all the hallucinations matched so well, or that they all focused exclusively on Non. You telling me Por and Top never did any other sketchy shit in their life? Tee worked for his uncle for years, but didn't have a single other regret? No glimpse of his father, of White being hurt? Fluke didn't get any visions of his parents asking when he was going to finally be a doctor and worthy of their love? White, the one stuck in purgatory because of his love for Tee, was the only one to have a non-Non hallucination.

It's also not really well explained how New could have physically done everything here - such as set up the trap for Por while hanging out with the other guys. Maybe he did, but he never confirmed Phee's explanation for everything that happened.

But my biggest reason for feeling this way is what happens to each character.

Por was used to being the center of the group, due to his wealth and status. But he gets immobilized and silenced.

Top made Non take the fall for him, and then becomes the puppet of the killer in this scenario.

Fluke always did his best to stay on the outskirts and not be seen, but everyone here sees his paranoia and selfishness.

Tee had regrets, but he was still responsible for a huge part of what led directly to Non's death, and he ends up losing what he loves the most through his own actions (he was the one who convinced White to come, like he convinced Non to work for his uncle).

Jin knew that he was violating Non by recording and releasing the video, hence his experiencing the same violation in his hallucinations. But the crux of his situation is that he had a selfish love for Non, and therefore regardless of how much he wants to believe that Phee's love will protect him, it's not enough to save him in the end.

And then of course we have Phee, New, and White. Three people not involved in the initial course of actions, but caught up in them all the same.

White is truly innocent, but sometimes when we love those who have caused harm, we pay a cost. That's the injustice of life. He was a good boy, and learning what Tee did hurt him.

Phee couldn't let go of his guilt for what he said the last time he saw Non, and for not reaching out to him in time. He knew how much Non struggled, he came in during a self-harm attempt before, but his pride wouldn't let him help Non. He also moved on with Jin, but won't acknowledge that there are genuine feelings involved. He says this weekend is all about learning the truth, but he doesn't even care that Jin released the tape. He wants to believe he knows Non better than anyone, but he doesn't really. He wants to heroically save Jin, but he is not the romantic hero in any of this. There's a disconnect between who he wants to believe himself to be, and who he actually is. And it's why he's not really free at the end.

And New. New is so fascinating to me, because like Phee, he was trapped in his guilt. But unlike Phee, through his choices at the house (despite regretting the innocent loss of White & Dang), through his passionate commitment to doing whatever he can for Non, even if it is far too late, he is able to finally let go of his guilt. He is at peace with his choices, and so he sees Non forgiving him. And I think New is able to move on.

Because in the end, I don't see this as these boys being punished by some cosmic moral authority, but rather their own choices and own feelings of guilt/refusal to admit to said guilt.

Reminder - I make no claims of "the truth", this is just my truth.

Relatedly, they did nothing to prove that Non did not fake his death, so you can't make me think he's not having a much better life somewhere with a really good therapist and a hot boyfriend (perhaps Perth).

Last note - the acting in this show was so goddamn good. Mio and Barcode were the standouts for me, but there was a lot of talent on display. I hope they all get a nice career bump from this.

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 9, MAG 9, A Father's Love

Julia Montork.

That's it end of post.

Jk jk this is my MAG 9 analysis. Spoilers ahead!

Facts: Statement of Julia Montauk (not Montork) regarding the actions of her father, serial killer Robert Montauk (not Montork). Statement given December 3rd, 2002.

Statement Notes: This episode utilizes two horror tropes that are rather common, but not often seen together. This is a Serial Killer horror story, but also a "Discovering A Family Member" story. Serial Killer stories are self-explanatory, following the vicious actions of a single killer, drawing fear from the nature of their deeds and the fear that anyone could be next. "Discovering A Family Member" is the name I use for horror stories in which someone discovers that someone in their family is a monster, literally or figuratively. Think Mom and Dad or We Need To Talk About Kevin. The combination of these two tropes makes it so the audience witnesses a serial killer story from the inside out. We aren't afraid of who the killer is going to get next because we don't need the other characters. Rather, the fear we feel isn't that of attacked townspeople, but of a child. We are not afraid because we might be attacked, but because the person who's always protected us might be the thing we need protection from.

Something that really stood out to me in this episode is how much Julia expects of her childhood self, repeatedly pointing out things that should have bothered her or made her realize what was happening. Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty and it's easy to see all the clues after the mystery's been solved, but there was no way for her to know back then. Especially because she was a literal child. This is a very real feeling though. It's common for people to hate or blame their childhood selves for doing things wrong or not knowing enough, even though there's no way for a child be as intelligent or mature as an adult. Julia expresses a very genuine feeling, if not an entirely rational one.

The heartbeat audio at the end of the statement was so incredible. Such a gradual and effective sound. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time an outside noise was used to create effect in the series.

Entity Alignment: This is the first Peoples' Church of the Divine Host Mention, and a pretty solid Dark episode, but there's some stuff that doesn't make sense to me.

(Unrelated, but one of these things is the Church's name. We have "The Cult of The LIGHTLESS Flame" and the " Peoples' Church of the DIVINE HOST." One of these groups worships darkness and one of them has a person acting as a spiritual host for all their desires and it's not the ones you think.)

The shed glows when Robert Montauk performs his ritual. For a Dark ceremony, this doesn't really make a lot of sense. The only explanation I can really think of is that this glowing area is somehow "stealing" the light from others. But I don't fully understand how the murders and heart collection truly fuels the Dark. There's probably another aspect that occurs during the tortures Julia sees in the photographs, but I guess we'll never really know.

It's never confirmed that Montauk is a member of the Church, but it is confirmed that at least some of his victims are. Additionally, the light goes out in his cell when he is murdered. I theorize that even if Montauk was a member of the Church, he wasn't killing for the Dark, but rather targeting its members to get revenge for his wife and to protect his daughter. The ritual may offer protective forces against the Dark, which is why the shed glows.

The line that really stuck with me in this episode was "The Darkness was inside." The idea that the darkness isn't an absence of light, but a presence of something else. In a weird, poetic way, Julia foreshadows that the lights going out isn't something that just happens, but fear entering a room.

I also love the use of the Dark as a childhood fear throughout the series. Even in episodes where it attacks adults, many of them still cite feeling like a child again. This is because fear of the Dark is a very primal, instinctual thing engrained in our psyches from the moment we are born. It also makes the stories so relatable. When Julia says she "did as I was told" and went straight to bed, only wandering out to get a drink of water, when the fear crept in, that's something every kid has gone through. It keeps with the recurring fear of the mundane in the Magnus Archives. It's not during the big moments that the fear will get you, but the during the little, everyday ones.

Character Notes: I love Julia. I love her. I think about her all the time. That's it end of post.

[angst-is-love-angst-is-life]

☕️the most egregious problem The Flash has is that it literally NEVER ADDRESSES ANY of the trauma it consistently puts Barry and co through, like it has other problems but I think that's the worst lol

1000000% and I will die mad about it.

Since it’s (always) on my mind, let’s take season 2 for example shall we?

If I had a nickel for everytime Post-Zoom-trauma just disappeared at the drop of a hat, I’d have four nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s fucking INFURIATING THAT IT HAPPENED F O U R TIMES

The four (for lack of a better word) victims in question: Caitlin, Barry, Jesse, and Jay.

Caitlin: kidnapped and held against her will for (I believe) two weeks (that’s putting it simply but we’ve all seen the show so🤷‍♀️). The show gives her one single episode to deal with it, during which she shows very real symptoms of PTSD— solved and therefore ignored and glossed over entirely with a single pep talk. I would also like to add that she showed NO fear of him in the season finale which makes no fucking sense with what the show established only an episode earlier. But tbh, this is the best one because at least the show ACKNOWLEDGED that trauma; if only for one episode.

Barry: Back broken during first encounter (among other severe injuries), humiliated by being dragged around the city to show he wasn’t strong enough to stop Zoom, confidence shattered from the experience. Like Caitlin, we got one episode to deal with this trauma and in that episode, Barry also showed signs and symptoms of PTSD (the entire season is evidence tbh). But of course, one pep talk from his dad and everything’s magically ok :-D !!!!!! I’m going to eat glass (also I will definitely make a post on that fucking episode because I hate it). As mentioned; he continues to have PTSD symptoms throughout the season but it’s glossed over so much and attributed to generic-superhero-stuff™️ that it really doesn’t matter. Gods, I could go on all day about Barry’s post-Zoom AND post-Thawne trauma. (Oh, he was also kidnapped, threatened, and {borderline} tortured by Zoom in the Earth-2 episodes; but that’s all normal superhero stuff ofc so it doesn’t matter right :-D !!! gnawing at the bars of my enclosure)

Jesse: Good gods where do I even start. Kidnapped by a known serial killer, tortured by said serial killer, repeatedly and (probably) constantly threatened with death, and held captive for around 9-10 months. Mm also, she was clearly terrified of Zoom every time he showed up prior to her rescue. Sounds like an extremely traumatic experience with multiple opportunities and instances to develop PTSD right? WRONG! According to the lovely writers; people are completely fine after a traumatic experience is over! What’s PTSD??? chewing glass chewing glass chewing glass. They didn’t even TRY with her, at least with Barry and Caitlin they pretended to give a shit about what they went through but Jesse makes two things crystal clear. 1) The writers don’t care about your trauma unless you’re an MC. 2) The writers put minimal effort into trauma if any; MC or not. It’s like they said ‘Ooo, we should have Caitlin kidnapped by Zoom!’ ‘Won’t that have some sort of effect on her? Being kidnapped is a terrifying experience’ ‘Ah fuck you’re right… eh, we’ll give her one episode ig’ ‘What about Jesse?’ ‘Who?’

Jay: Fucking. Hell. I ordered this in what I consider best handled to worst. Jay is by far— handled worst. Let’s see here *checks notes* Ah yes. Kidnapped and taken to a completely different Earth, an attempted theft of his powers, imprisoned and put in a mask so he can’t speak, {not confirmed but very likely with Zoom’s track record and somewhat implied} tortured, had his identity stolen and {likely} mocked and tormented about the subject, and the ~delightful~ cherry on top— held captive in this situation for at least one year. Fuck I’m so tired. Anyways; there’s not much to say. He got rescued (off-screen ofc), was able to access his powers instantly with no problems, and left to go back to his Earth. Trauma? What trauma? *gestures wildly at said trauma posted above* That’s not traumatic at all! *screams* I don’t care how much experience you have as a superhero— that doesn’t just GO AWAY! PTSD, FLASH WRITERS. LOOK INTO IT P L E A S E fuck I just remembered the show is over now ALL YOUR MC’S HAVE IT! EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. Sigh. In the end of *gestures at said trauma* all that, Jay was just used to cause Barry more greif from his father’s death. Obviously he gets roles in later seasons but (as far as I can remember) this whole thing was never brought up again. Sigh.

I COULD GO ON

I COULD GO ON FOR DAYS

but I won’t cause dear gods I’ve been typing forever now

[anonymous-dentist]

At some point breaking dawn bobby asks cellbit how to kill someone, like, literally on their way home from school because roier needed a babysitter last minute and cellbit almost crashes the car like “??? What??? I’ve never killed anyone? On purpose? Do I need to call your dad?” and all Bobby has to say is “what do you MEAN ‘on purpose’??” all steven universe starry eyed because this basically confirms that his future dad is a werewolf hunter, which means that they can have some good old future father-future son bonding and kill tío spreen. Meanwhile Cellbit is in the front seat like “Oh my god roier’s son is a freaking serial killer wannabe. This is really awkward. I hope he doesn’t listen to any podcasts, I don’t want him hearing anything too bad about me, he’d tell his dad!” because THAT’s the thing to be worried about in this scenario!!!

[that-darn-clown]

the MCI in the au had a Lot of controversy, fun fact. minus the obvious (Jesus Fuck That's A Lot Of Dead Kids), the controversy surrounding it included:

how/why the kids were lured (this was done to find some semblance of a possible motive, and then work from there. it didn't work out entirely, but they tried)

the...MULTIPLE people falsely accused and convicted of the murders (one guy they quite literally pretended to put in jail and then immediately released to be put in Witness Protection because they only pretended to arrest him to put the public's mind at ease)

the '87 Massacre PROVING that the police sucked at their jobs and that the killer hadn't been caught.

William and the fact that this man SUCKS at trying to prove his innocence, and yet STILL didn't have more suspicion put on him. his alibi's shaky as fuck!! he's literally the only person big enough to safely fit inside the suit used for the murders!!

whether Andrew actually was an MCI victim or not

whether Charlie was a "failed" MCI victim or not

in order:

the motives that the public came up with due to the camera footage: Bea was lured using the promise that the killer would help her find her dog (correct, right on the nose), Junior was lured during his meltdown after not getting to see Foxy, with the killer promising to help him calm down (technically right; William was specifically taking him to see Foxy, who was undergoing maintenance), Gabi was lured with the promise of a birthday surprise and Isaac went with them to keep an eye on his sister (technically also right but it took them Fucking Ages to get this one), and Andrew had seen something he wasn't supposed to see (very incorrect. Andrew didn't witness anything, he just got into an argument with William).

William just pointed the finger at multiple Fredbear's employees, mostly ones closer to him in height (reminder that this man's 6 foot fucking seven). the guy that got put in Witness Protection that i mentioned earlier, that they only pretended to arrest to put people's minds at ease? was 6'4".

like. for the kids murdered in '87, think about it: the O'Hare suit was used, it was in fucking June, and there were five kids. if that wouldn't be a sign that the police got the wrong fucking guy and sucked Really Bad at their jobs, i dunno what would.

William's alibis were literally just "I was at home that night/I was working at Fredbear's/I was at the bar" and no one could fully disprove it, and William stated that, if his O'Hare suit just had to be used by a different employee, that they had stilts that those people could use to fit better in the suit. so, ""technically speaking"", someone else could've used the suit, especially if they were close to Will's height. but you can see why this technically "proved his innocence" in the eyes of most of the town (except for the families mostly affected by his bullshit. there's a reason why about a fourth of town hates this guy, either quietly or vocally).

a lot of factors go into why Andrew is theorized to potentially just be a runaway and not a part of the MCI: his horrible home life, the fact he wasn't technically lured, the fact that almost no one who was there saw where he went after he left Cassidy alone at the table, the lack of evidence in general, his tendency to run away from home and stay with friends for weeks on end, and, most notably, the fact that no body was found in 1985 like the others were. the town's split on what to believe. Andy's dad just didn't really care, and thought they did run away; "Maybe he finally decided to stop being a pussy and leave town like he said he would a hundred fucking times. Took 'im long enough." this would come back to bite him in the ass in '87, however. William didn't confirm nor deny anything, obviously. for the record, Andy's body was dumped in the lake.

Charlie was theorized to be a "failed" MCI victim due to her death only being a month prior to the other victims and the fact that someone clearly seemed to have booked it out of there really quickly. the belief was that whoever had killed him had meant to take her body somewhere else and dump it there, but had heard someone approaching (Marionn, most likely, who had come out of the building to look for Charlie) and decided not to risk it. others simply went along with what police said happened: some "crazed drunk motherfucker" had snapped and beat Charlie up using a beer bottle before leaving him for dead.

other "fun" facts:

so...while i try not to focus too much on racism in the Fnaf universe that would've like. very likely existed, let's be real here, i do try to think about how it would've affected things that happened in the timeline. after Gabi and Isaac went missing, and it became clear that the police were...not focusing as hard on those two's case as much as the others', Henry held a gun to their head legally (aka Threatened To Sue Their Asses) and went You better start investigating that shit or So Help Me God. there are two men in Hurricane that you just don't fuck with legally: William and Henry. the difference is that William used his powers for evil (getting away with So Much Bad Shit, Especially Murder), and Henry used his for good.

Benson Douglas (Andy's dad) was the guy that William pinned the murders on in '87, since he worked there. why? These Two Hate Each Other. plus, Benny over here didn't do himself any favors with how he reacted to Andrew's disappearance. spent ten years in jail before they realized that he had no idea how Springlock Suits worked, meaning he couldn't have done either the MCI or the '87 Massacre.

1987 was just William being the boss of several people who hated his guts for various reasons. Jeremiah "Jeremy" Fitzgerald-Hernandez, Fritz Smith Sr., Shawn Scottson (Phone Guy, who came to hate him after...certain events), and Benson Douglas. an older brother, two fathers of dead boys, and someone who would eventually open Michael's eyes. don't ask how William managed this, he doesn't even fucking know either.

I've been watching a shitton of forensic files lately, and this feels so real. I love the inclusion of a fake arrest of a guy who was then put in witness protection, very acab of your writing, and very accurate. I'm actually obsessed with the realistic inclusion of racism and how henry shut that shit down, we stan a king, truly.

[thewitchunderyourbed]

YOU RUN

Johnny Silverhand x Female V

Warning for violence, torture and language

.

.

.

You have always been accustomed to your intrusive thoughts.

Being a mercenary is stressful, you have to live second by second, because who knows if some cyber psychopath is ready to kill you behind a corner or if a gang member is waiting for you on your way home.

You said once that you would never reach your thirties and with the last developments, that was now the truth.

"Shit" you cursed as the image of Jakie in a pool of his blood on the backseat of Delamain's taxi infested your head.

Your brain was a haunted house, full of ghosts, full of dead people.

"I prefer roller coasters, more vomit but the rush of adrenaline is way better" Jhonny materialized on the sofa of your apartment, legs on the table and arms crossed.

"Speaking of the devil" you pondered.

"What are we going to do, eh? Looking for solving troubles or causing them? I won't say no to a JoyToy either..." he smiled from his spot, casually flipping through the pages of a magazine.

"I'm tired Jhonny, I'm going to bed" you responded, messaging your temples, feeling the beginning of a headache.

"Agh, you're no fun, girl! Stop acting like you never lose someone before, you kill people for a living!" he huffed.

Anger boiled in your veins making your blood rush to your head.

"Maybe because I'm not a terrorist like you! Did you ever think FOR REAL about what you've done? That tower was filled with people who were just making their jobs. Clerks, secretaries, technicians, the pizza guy there for a fucking delivery? A kid at work with his dad? Huh? Do you ever think about it?" you shouted out.

"That's what you think of me? That I'm just a mindless bloodthirsty killer?" he asked too calmly for your tastes.

"I can't tell you what I think about you, Silverhand " you said storming to your room where you let your body fall on the bed.

The sleep came quickly, you were exhausted, but you were equally restless.

Your dreams were filled with blood, the blood of people you once loved and of the people you killed.

There was Jhonny too at some point, just images flashing in your mind, a different dream, and you didn't know why but it happens frequently.

You woke up to the big eyes of Nibbles calling for food, that little creature was always hungry.

You padded barefoot to the kitchenette when Jhonny glitched in front of you, sitting by the sink.

"You still look like shit" he commented.

"Yeah, at least I'm not dead" you answered, earning a middle finger from the rocker.

Nibbles got his food and you made a nice cup of coffee, perfect for you but too sweet and hot for Jhonny, who complained about your tastes.

Your phone rang, and a message from Dakota about a new gig popped on the screen.

"What's this time?" Johnny asked, but you ignored him so he had to peek from behind your shoulder.

"Shit, this is sick" the man commented.

Johnny watched you calling Dakota back for confirming you accepted the job, still barefoot and walking around the room until you ended the call and entered the bathroom.

"I'm going to take a shower, try to not be a fucking creep" you screamed from under the water spray.

There was no need anymore to cover yourself in front of Jhonny, you've been in his head and he was literally in yours, it was the closest type of relationship ever existed.

Not even two hours later you were on the track of Maelstrom, the trail of blood they left behind was hard to ignore.

You left the bike at the corner of a large building filled with rusty containers and trash, you disabled the two large turrets that were about to point in your direction and sneaked inside by an open window.

"This fucker won't stay still! How am I supposed to cut his fucking arm? " the voice of a screaming gang member reached your ears.

"Agh just kill this bastard already" another answered.

A moment after the sound of a shot resounded off the concrete walls.

"V you have to hurry," Jhonny told you from inside your head.

You used ping to scan the area, highlighting their tech and bodies to your eyes.

"Just 6 of them, sound easy enough," you thought.

When you were right at the back of a Maelstrom, ready to snap his neck, your vision started to blur, glitch and blood ran down your nose"

You dropped to the ground senseless.

You slowly came back to your senses and for a moment you believed you could no longer see.

The room in which you were was pitch black and cold as ice, you tried to move your arms and legs but you were been tied to something, a stretcher probably.

Your breath came quick and ragged, hyperventilating from the fear, your head felt foggy, your nude body icy cold.

"Did they... Did they drug me?" you asked yourself.

When the metal sound of doors being opened filled your head, echoing like in a bad trip, you saw that they kept you in a container, waiting for the moment to slaughter you.

"Well well well, what do we have here? Some nice Corpo implants, pricy aren't they?" a light-skinned guy entered your visual field.

He pushed the stretcher into an area that reminded a surgery room, but dirtier and with various body parts hanging by hooks.

"Hehehe, just wait here, little slut. The doctor will receive you soon" he chucked darkly.

You started to panic, even more, you knew they would cut you to pieces and sell your parts to the black market, your head tried to react but the drugs made you feel like the body wasn't your own, like when Johnny...

You cried, trying to trash from side to side, screaming at the top of your lungs.

"JHONNY!" you cried.

The man gave no response.

"JHONNY PLEASE!" you tried again.

"Don't leave me alone, please don't leave me" hot tears run down your cheeks as you sobbed.

You knew that if you died he would have died too.

Another Maelstrom entered the room, followed by five more fellows.

"LET ME GO, YOU SON OF A FUCKING WHORE" you shouted.

He ignored you, continuing his task of choosing the right tool to cut your body.

Closing your eyes as you felt something touching your face, gasping in fear you opened them again, finding Jhonny looking down at you.

"V," he said "it's going to be fine"

"Johnny I don't want to die here" you whispered.

He cupped her cheeks with his hands, stroking the cold flesh with his thumbs and you swear you could have felt it.

"You will not die here, Samurai" he reassured you " I won't let that happen"

His eyes softened when you shivered and sobbed furthermore.

"Fry their chrome, V" he told you.

"What?" you asked back.

"I know you can do it. If you can reboot their optics you can overload their implants too!"

"What if I damage the Relic too?"

At that moment the big Maelstrom approached you with a saw in his hands.

"FRY THEM, NOW!" Johnny shouted.

You let out a loud and inhuman cry as you forced all your systems and hacking implants to their limits.

Maelstrom convulsed like they were electrocuted and dropped on the ground their head smoking like lit cigarettes.

"Well well well I don't remember having ordered fried shit" Jhonny commented, crouched down near a dead body.

You took the saw the man let fall on your body while dying and used it to cut the ropes.

"Thank you." you said softly" Sorry for what I said yesterday, I didn't mean it... "

"I know. I know everything that passes through your mind, you little dickhead" he chuckled.

You searched for your clothes but opted to steal them from the bodies, at least you were not nude anymore.

"I know what you think about me, for real" Jhonny said as you tuck your feet in some old booths.

"You know it?" you asked still unstable, feeling your legs like jelly.

"Yeah... That's why I fight all your nightmares away" he said lighting a cigarette.

"Johnny I-" you begin but the man interrupted your words.

"You don't need to voice your thoughts, V" a puff of smoke escaped his lips.

"Are you just telling me this to get in my panties, right? " you joked.

"Girl, right now, you are not even wearing them" he grinned.

[juniperhillpatient]

thank you for tagging me @kiki-strike !! <33

10 characters 10 fandoms 10 (ish) tags!

1. Azula ATLA - she's a girlboss. she's a pathetic poor little meow meow. she's a manipulative mastermind. she's a socially awkward wreck. she's a child soldier whose mother left her & who's father treated her like a weapon. she's the most formidable villain the heroes have ever faced. i love her

2. Ashley Graves TCOAAL - a controversial pick MAYBE but I love to see a demon-worshipping cannibal queen winning (committing unspeakable acts but it's ok because her mom didn't love her & also she is baby have u considered that?) i think ashley should be allowed to commit all the atrocities she wants as a treat on the grounds that her parents were so awful they left her to starve to death & before that, pretended not to notice when she & her brother accidentally killed a girl in middle school

3. Natalie Scatorcio, Yellowjackets - 2 cannibal queens in a row I must have a type <3 I love a tragic hero who is also a violent, dangerous & unstable individual. forgiveness is a nice idea but my poor doomed antler queen will never live to see it... she was a gentle soul (ignore the atrocities) who never got to see a single moment of peace or gentleness in her life

4. Sam Carpenter, Scream - it was nearly impossible for me to pick between my best girls Sidney, Emma, & Sam for this list but I have to go Sam. she's the daughter of a serial killer. she enjoys stabbing people. she sees visions of her dead dad telling her to kill but she loves her friends & her sister more than anything. i adore my dangerous & violent but also oh so sweet babygirl

5. Faith Lehane Buffy the Vampire Slayer - listen, Buffy is the obvious choice for the best character in Buffy OFC. but have you considered. faith is broken & hurt & a little crazy with jealousy & obsession with buffy. she's the dark slayer. she has a dynamic with the wacky evil demonic town mayor that mirrors buffy's relationship with her wholesome (mostly. sometimes demon rebelly) librarian mentor as the dark side of the coin. she's never had anyone pick her first & it kills her but she pretends she doesn't care. i'd die for her

6. Baby Firefly - this time not a confirmed cannibal but my girl is into corpse desecration & necrophilia so I think this is a great list that proves I have excellent taste in fictional characters. "there is no wrong. if someone needs to be killed you kill 'em! that's the way :)"

7. Beth Salinger, Hostel 2 - fave final girl my bestie had a hot lesbian enemies to almost lovers to beheading you & playing soccer with the head dynamic with an evil secret society member who tried to lure her to her death. she also cut off the penis of the man who dared to fuck with her & fed it to a dog so like what more can you even want from a character <3

8. Dennis Reynolds IASIP - having dennis as my fave is soo embarrassing he's such a basic fave but genuinely he's SO fucking pathetic & sad beneath the layers of fake manipulative suave cool rich kid that he thinks he conveys (he doesn't). he's literally just a sad little girl who falls apart & curls up on he ground crying when things get overwhelming. everyone who doesn't understand him thinks he's a mastermind serial killer but they are FALLING FOR HIS ACT

9. Katherine Pierce TVD - THEY HATE TO SEE A GIRLBOSS WINNINGGGGGGG (I don't know Scarlet Witch but I think it's funny to steal the description for #9 for Katherine from the person who tagged me in this hehe) anyway it's funny for me to pick Katherine when I named my cat damon & I have a ginormous shirtless poster of ian somerhalder literally over my bed I'm looking at it right now BUT hear me out. Katherine is my real fave. unforgivable villain who always chooses herself first & also mirrors the protagonist & also she was just a girl once too, a pregnant, scared young girl. if the writers cared about me specifically at all we would've gotten a spin off of Katherine & her daughter instead of what we got

10. Annie Edison Community - much like with buffy the vampire slayer & buffy summers, there is a correct answer to which community character is objectively the best & it's obviously abed. BUT my subjective fave that I latch onto is annie. she's just so babygirl. she had a nervous breakdown in high school because she was always too perfect. she's just out of rehab for adderall when we meet her but it's mostly only referenced or flashed back to as a joke. we never meet her parents but the quotes she references from them are deeply disturbing if you turn off the laugh track & pay attention. she has a fucked up relationship with her good older male friend because #daddy issues. she is obsessed with true crime. there's a monkey named after her boobs. she's the ONLY member of the study group who could've EVER lived with troy & abed & incorporated herself into their dynamic the way she does in episodes like foosball & nocturnal vigilantism. my girl is so silly & a little crazy <3

anyway

thank u for the tag i love rambling about my fave characters!!

I tag: @missjessefantastico, @theowritesfiction @dont-leafmealone, @peony-pearl, @stalker-among-the-stars @bearsandbeansart @chasingfictions @hello-nichya-here, @lunaintheskyforever, @gathering0gloom, @jctko, @jet-apologistmybadhomies, @745voiceofthepeople, @prodogg, @matchamarshmallow

ok if you wanted to be tagged please just say I tagged you also no pressure to the people I tagged it's just for fun if u want :)

[valleyfthdolls]

talk to me about fnaf. tell me your headcanons

Okay, let’s see.

I do and will continue to until explicitly disproven believe that Cassidy was the victim of the bite of ‘83. This theory isn’t one I like to debate because people are SO awful about me not taking MatPat’s word as law but if you’re curious about why I believe the tag where I keep my fnaf interpretations is #story interpretation. I briefly went over the theory in that post, though certain parts of it are outdated nowadays as it’s been confirmed by the character guide that it was the crying child having nightmares, not the older brother/Michael Afton as I’d theorized. I guess I’ll have to file that away under theories that I can’t really believe anymore but still like to think and talk about along with my 2021 “Gregory and Vanny will be revealed to be brother and sister” theory which I still use for canon divergent AU fics. Also, if you’re interested in the Cassidy theory I could talk a little bit more about it, or if you’d like to share your interpretation of the crying child’s fate and identity I would be free to listen.

I imagine that the trauma the crying child witnessed was likely Elizabeth’s death. I think I touched on this in my fnaf 4 interpretation post, but it makes a lot about the family dynamic fall into place. Seeing Baby brutally kill his sister would be enough to traumatize him severely enough that he spends his days in mourning, emotionally overwhelmed and hurt enough to be reduced to tears at the slightest provocation. It explains the constant fear he holds as well, especially of the animatronics- again, he watched one of them violently grab his sister, pull her inside it, and crush her to death. He wouldn’t then be scared of the characters, but just the robots, which is a perfect 1:1 for his behavior in game. At the same time, Michael has just lost his sister, and his brother has become an emotional wreck. Having learned shitty behaviors from their abusive father, Michael projects his grief into frustration with his brother, and channels that frustration into bullying him. It’s absolutely not okay, but at the same time there’s a clear way to track how he became so mean. It went completely unchecked as well because their dad literally does not pay attention to them (????? What is his deal) so it just kept getting worse.

I imagine Elizabeth died in 1983, and this is relevant because I think that if she died in ‘83 and was reported missing, Sister Location could then be 1990. Seven years after Elizabeth went missing without any trace she would be declared dead, and that would be the perfect way to lead into Michael being sent to find her.

As for simpler headcanons:

I believe that the pigtail girl from FNaF 4 was one of the missing children. Does this make a lot of sense? Not really, no. But I somehow ended up thinking of her as the spirit of Foxy. (Again, doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand how this happened.) I suppose given she makes up rumors about the animatronics being haunted killers and deaths being covered up, rumors which would eventually turn out to be far more real than she could have imagined, I feel like that foreshadowing her eventual death at the restaurant would work really well.

I don’t think the animatronics were ever actually capable of walking. If you look at animatronics like the Rock-afire Explosion, Chuck E. Cheese and Mr. Munch’s Make-Believe Band or the Circus World Jamboree, really any of those types of bands (forgive me for being a fucking dweeb with a special interest in these things)? They… well, they can’t walk. Mobility ends at the waist. So here’s what I propose. The full bodied animatronics never had functional legs, and only could “walk” when worn as springlock suits. However, after the missing children disappeared, the animatronics became more mobile, specifically in the legs. The company just lied about it, the same way it’s been theorized since FNaF 2 that they lied about the animatronics having facial recognition software.

Vanny isn’t actually possessed or mind controlled. Glitchtrap isn’t in her head, rather an outside force manipulating her. The suit is a cover up, a mask that simply distances her from what she’s doing. It’s not me, it’s Vanny. It’s Glitchtrap. I am not myself. She absolutely is. She just does it to protect her mental state from her own actions.

But y’know who is possessed? Glamrock Freddy.

By Michael Afton specifically.

I imagine that each animatronic character has a different personality. Usually the shows and songs hinge on the characters interacting with each other, so I figure each character has their own personality. Freddy is kind but very easily driven to annoyance by his band’s absurdity, Chica is always energetic and coming up with some new idea, Bonnie is just happy to be there and goes along with all of Chica’s bad ideas while Freddy tries to reel them in, and Foxy is elusive, arrogant, brash and outlandish.

Although, these core personalities are switched around during different eras of the band. In 1987, Toy Foxy was kinder, taking on the role of a pirate captain who was always looking for more recruits. She encouraged her bandmates’ antics on account of it being what a true pirate would do, and Toy Freddy would have to talk sense into everyone, but was much more sarcastic about it- think 1970s-early 80s Chuck E. Cheese. Over time, the edge was softened on each character, leading to the Glamrocks. Glamrock Freddy is friendly and kind, looking out for his bandmates and having to remind them what’s important every time they start something new and ultimately stupid. Roxy, derived from Foxy’s personality, is competitive, brash and loud, but a good sport and always cheering her friends on. Glamrock Chica is really only interested in food, and tends to laugh off her friends’ antics. Monty is excitable and loves to compete and work with Roxy, but just like Bonnie, is just happy to be there.

The Puppet is a Jack-in-the-box, and stays dormant until she is manually turned on by turning a hand crank on her gift box that plays pop goes the weasel until she comes out. Then a child can select a prize and she gives it to them. Originally, the music box was a “warning” of sorts for her security checks, and she was designed to be scary enough to deter kids from trying to leave before they were supposed to, but not necessarily disturbing.

Golden Freddy doesn’t physically exist. I don’t know how to elaborate on this headcanon.

Elizabeth Afton has what would best be described as developing BPD. This is a headcanon I can’t really explain aside from that I have BPD and she reminds me of my young self. In the fan comic BlueyCapsules, which I haven’t checked in on in a while now, it’s actually a common headcanon to my knowledge that she (age 13) has BPD as she shows very realistic symptoms of it as a result of her trauma. Which is generally how BPD forms, especially through childhood abuse or neglect, which is also, kinda perfect for Lizzie who grew up emotionally neglected and abused by her dad.

Charlie being initially referred to as male (the minigame telling you to “S A V E H I M”) and then being switched to female (Henry calling her “my daughter”) is likely a retcon and probably the retcon that Scott Cawthon was talking about when he said he’s only ever retconned one thing in FNaF lore. I doubt that’s true, but this is probably the only one he’ll acknowledge. However, I think Charlie is a trans girl.

Shadow Freddy has been said to have been born out of William’s malice. In that case, I think Shadow Bonnie was probably born from the children’s agony. This is why Shadow Freddy leads the children to William and Shadow Bonnie helps save their souls. William wants them to confront him, and the kids want to move on.

I do not believe Vanny and Vanessa are the same person. I don’t think Steel Wool and Scott Cawthon know what the fuck they’re doing with that, to be completely honest as they’ve backed themselves into a corner with contradicting evidence and any solution would either be absolutely awful or retconning something. I think the best way around it is that Vanny is committing identity theft and framing Vanessa, or to go deeper, Vanessa is directly tied to Glitchtrap’s plans and being manipulated by Vanny by his orders, but she herself has no malicious intent and doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

This is going to sound stupid to say but Michael Afton strikes me as goth. I stand by my post where I said he listens to gothic rock. It just fits him really well.

[dreamswapafterdark]

Took a break from writing around 10 pm, it's now almost 5 am. I spent 7 hours reading manga and finding out my two favourite characters died. I know I'm adding that into my febwhump because writing is the only way I feel emotions beside rage, happiness and panic. Can confirm I don't feel grief from the funeral I went to back before covid, people I was related to and cared about for years were gone, and I just was watching people cry, and no getting it. Think I'm going into sleep deprived rambles. But, I'm so adding Finch breaking the magic suppressants so Killer can break free and fend off Angel, even while in a weakened and traumatized state. He can still resist, so despite being broken, he still does the only thing he can to fight.

*leans in reeeeeal close*

hey wiggity woogity buddy chum friend pal want a new year confession 'cause it's gonna get pretty dark but I figure that stuff is up yo alley. so uh hi traumadumping for ideas for febwhump! no seriously a lot of traumadumping. feast to your soul's delight

Sometimes I wrote angst fics of dreamswap characters killing or harming themselves to that I wouldn't do the same. And also being able to comfort other characters, because I can't comfort other people for the life of me and there was nobody to comfort me, either irl or online.

Writing literally kept me from killing myself when I had no one and nothing but a box opener that gradually sliced me up and a bottle of pills that could have killed me. some people think my old writing is cringey and tbh I can see why but also. it's MY cringe that kept ME from dying so fuck what they think.

This latest fic I'm roleplaying with Silver along with a few roleplays with my friends kept me fuckin' sane when Disgraced Fox was rampaging with his bullshit about me being a pedophile (in the same fandom that called a 15 year old a "reverse pedophile" a few years ago... oooh funny how the tables turn) as well as sending what is basically underage revenge porn of me, a minor at the time, talking about nsfw shit abt ib//vs nsfw, to other minors. also when mxrtified, someone i found out was an old friend when i was 16, blocked me for ...some??? reason which hurt a lot back then (i also suspect the above ib//vs bullshit but at this point it's harder to care. tho back when that happened I was seriously lucky I didn't fuck myself up or worse thanks to my headmate intervening)

also fun fun funny fun fun fact! you know the people, Cottonwood and Sedona, two characters Dream talked about in Chapter 15 for TUSOUD? yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh see, my mom murdered my dad and that was me being like "hmm I wonder what life would be like if I stayed with my mom" and that was what I came up with for why Dream decided to create a governmental/law sort of system! seriously, that fucking murder was a whole ass thing and I STILL can't believe she got away with it like she did. i mean. i was kinda still a kid and afraid of what would happen if my mom found out I talked to police because ACAB (still applies + our justice system is fucked + who the FUCK do I even begin calling + good fucking luck on them finding my mom because I fucking can't) but like. wow you wanna put that shit in a fic or something I can hook you up. also do you want ways in which I was pretty sure she could have murdered me because that was a very real reality for me a while back.

also your fic is amazing and I will kiss you (platonically bc im a trans guy n i don't think you're into that OR into me so NFERGIR) anyway I need to go to sleepytimes

[uncpanda]

The Ties that Bind: Details

Synopsis of series: Being the older sister of a literal genius? It’s not easy. Raising said genius from childhood on? An act of love. Uprooting your life again when he gets in over his head? A no brainer. Finding a new family and support system for yourself? Well, you suppose that’s just luck.

Master List

AN: We are continuing on with what I’m calling their dating/ fluffy phase. 

The knock on your door is a surprise. Spencer and Aaron are away on a case. And at seven o’clock on a Friday all of your teacher friends are all at home. You look over at Jack, who is staying with you until Aaron gets back since Jess is helping her brother with something. “Did you invite somebody over?” 

He giggles and shakes his head. You push yourself off your couch and head to the door. You check the peephole, and then roll your eyes. You open the door and then lean against the door frame, “Aren’t you supposed to be catching serial killers and protecting the fine people of DC?” 

Penny holds up a bottle of wine, “We finished the case, they’ll be back tomorrow.” 

Will  shrugs, “I’m on dad duty.”  That’s when you notice Henry at his side. The little boy smiles at you and you smile back. 

“Well that works out great. I have Jack.” You sweep your hand forward and welcome them in. Henry races ahead and you hear Jack happily cheer. You walk in to find them both on the couch. You give Jack the choice, “Do you boys want to hang out in my room or out here?” 

Jack’s answer is immediate, “Your room! We can build a fort.” You laugh because Jack had informed you that your comforter and furniture made an ideal fort placement. 

“Go for it. And let us know if you need help.” 

They’re gone before you finish speaking. You pull out your wine glasses as Penny and Will settle at the bar. You study them as you get the cork out. “So, we’re not waiting for Jess for this interrogation?” 

Penny laughs, “We promised to fill her in. She apparently has first hand information from Haley anyways.” 

You know this. Jess has pestered you with whispered questions looking for confirmation. Some of them had made you blush. Who are you kidding? All of her questions had made you blush. 

“When have I ever shared that part of my life with you?” 

“Never. And I’m grateful for it.” Will’s answer makes you laugh, and you hand him his glass first. He takes a gulp. “If we do dive into that area I’m going to need something stronger.” 

“No gory details. Got it.” 

Penny whines a bit, “But I like the gory details.” 

“Yeah. My boyfriend is also your boss, and I don’t think he’d appreciate it. Plus I can see you torturing Spencer with it.” 

She shrugs, and takes her glass from you. “Okay. We’ll keep it vague. When it comes to sex, is he better than Joel?” 

Will groans, but you go ahead and answer. “Much. He’s more . . .” You search your head for the right word, “Giving.” 

Penny leans forward, “How much has he given you in one night,” 

“Lord help me.” 

You take pity on Will, “Too personal.” Will shoots you a look and when he looks away you simply mouth, “a lot.” At her. She grins. 

“What’s domestic Hotch like?” 

You pause at that, and Will turns back to the conversation, “I think I’d like to know this one too. Hotch is always serious. The few times I’ve seen the man smile, it’s usually about you or Jack. Sometimes Spencer.” 

Penny points at you, “We actually haven't seen the two of you together since you’ve gotten together.” 

You think for a moment, “Aaron likes to have his hands on me. IF we’re cooking or standing somewhere, he’ll stand behind me and either have his hands on my hips or have his arms wrapped around me. When we walk he likes to hold my hand, or pull a Mr. Darcy and have my hand in the crook of his arm. He likes to tuck me into his chest along with Jack when we cuddle on the couch. He likes having personal contact. I like it. It makes me feel loved.” 

They both smile at that. There’s quiet for a second before she asks, “Is he a good kisser? Hotch looks like he’d be a good kisser.” 

“He’s a very good kisser. He has different types of kisses though. When he’s happy, he’ll cup my face and kiss me and smile into it. I think that one is my favorite. I feel like I put that smile there.” 

Surprisingly it’s Will who answers this time, “You did.” You both stare at him, and he shrugs, “I do the same thing with JJ. And when I do it, it’s usually because I realize how happy I am.” 

You and Penny exchange a look before you both go, “Awww.” 

“Evil witches. Dragging me into this conversation.” 

You reach over and pat his arm, “It’s sweet Will.” 

“Okay. Big question now. Have the two of you talked about the future at all? I know it’s only been a couple of months. And only a couple of days since we’ve found out.” There’s judgement in the last part of that sentence. You know there is. If penny had had her way, you would have called her the second after Aaron had kissed you for the first time. 

“Penny.” 

“Ok. We can move on. I am going to order pizza.” She stands up and moves towards your room to talk with Jack and Henry about the kind of pizza they want. You listen as she gushes over their fort. You feel Will nudge you. You look at him. 

“You happy?” 

You smile. “I’m very happy.” 

“Good. JJ likes Hotch and something tells me I wouldn’t stop hearing about it, if I had to kill him for hurting you.” 

You reach over and pinch his cheek, “Such a good big brother.” 

He laughs, swats your hand away and picks up his wine. “I try.” 

The three of you and the boys eat pizza on your bedroom floor in the boys fort. The entirety of dinner is spent coming up with rules for entering the fort, coming up with a password, deciding on a mascot for the fort, and then abandoning the pizza in order to design a flag for it. 

They sprint out of the fort. Jack knows where you keep the art supplies for when he comes over. The three of you watch them go, still munching on your food. You look over at Will, “I’m not leaving the fort. It’s cool.” Penny nods in agreement.

It’s nearly nine o’clock by the time Will and Penny want to call it a night. You offer to keep Henry who is begging to stay. With tomorrow being Saturday, you don’t mind.

Penny leans forward, “Can I stay too?” 

You laugh, “Of course!” You turn to Will, “You want to stay?” 

He smiles, “I’ll stay in the fort with the boys. You girls take the bed.” 

You do just that. You take one side of your queen size bed and Penny takes the others. For a long time you lay there with your eyes closed and try to fall asleep. Usually the boys giggling or teasing Will wouldn’t keep you up. But even after they’ve fallen asleep you’re still wide awake. 

In the end you realize it’s because someone else is in the bed with you. You quietly slip out from the sheets and head to your couch. In the years since you’d left California you’d gotten used to sleeping alone. Even when you had been with Joel, you’d had to have a king size bed because you hated sleeping next to someone else. Sure enough, the moment you settle on the couch, you’re out like a light. 

You wake up when the sun starts streaming through the windows. That means you’re up a lot earlier than anyone else. You go ahead and start the coffee pot, write a note, and then grab your keys and head out to get bagels and donuts. 

The fall weather makes for nice walking weather. You take your time picking up the breakfast food. You make it back right as a familiar SUV pulls into a spot in front of your building. You smile as Aaron, JJ, and your baby brother climb out. 

Aaron smiles at the sight of you and makes a bee-line towards you. He swoops down to kiss you, while stealing the bagel bag out of your hands. You smile, that giddy feeling settling in your stomach. “Welcome home! I’m glad I got extra food.” 

Spencer slips in-between you and Aaron, and hugs you before stealing the donuts away, “Did you get chocolate sprinkle donuts?” 

“A full dozen.” 

“Yes!” 

Spencer speeds ahead and you greet JJ. She smiles at you. “Were my boys well behaved?” 

“Extremely. Will slept in the fort with the boys.” 

She beams, “I know. He sent pictures of it to me. Along with pictures of the flag, the password, and the fact that the mascot is a hippo.” 

You look up at Aaron, who has slipped an arm around your waist, “That was Jack’s idea by the way.” 

“He did his first paper in school last week. It was all about Hippos and now he’s obsessed.” 

“I know. He got an A! I didn’t even realize they gave out letter grades in first grade.” 

“Just for this I think.” 

Your little group heads up the stairs. Spencer reaches the door first and bounces impatiently. Your brother craved sugar. 

You open the door, and he charges in towards the kitchen while JJ heads towards your bedroom. Aaron pauses next to your couch. “Did you sleep out here?” 

You go to him and wrap your arms around his middle, “Yeah. I’m not good at sleeping next to people. Even with Joel,” he scowls at the mention of your ex, “we had to get a king size bed.” 

He hesitates before quietly saying, “You sleep next to me okay.” And he would know. Aaron is the lightest sleeper you’ve ever met. You think about the statement for a moment. And then your brow furrows, because he’s right. You have never once snuck out of Aaron’s bed. You sleep almost on top of him, or with him wrapped around you, or snuggled into his side. And you wake up like that too. With no problem. 

You reach up and cup his face before kissing him. When he smiles into the kiss you smile too. You pull back, and tell him, “You’re special. You don’t make me feel smothered. Just loved.” 

He kisses you again. Jack comes running out a moment later and jumps into his fathers’ arms and as you watch them together you’re reassured, yet again, that you’ve found your person. 

[cartoonus-maximus]

My observations on the "Fazbear Frights" books, now streamlined and without all of my ramblings.

I like to keep notes while reading these books, but most of my notes end up being unnecessary, or I focus too much on theorizing and going off on tangents. So I tried to simplify them, and focus only on the important things to take away from each story (or at least the points that I think are important).

And, since some people seemed interested in my rambly notes, I thought I'd post my streamlined ones as well.

Some points are listed as “speculations,” and this is because, while context clues lead me to believe them, they aren’t confirmed canon facts.

An asterisk (*) next to the story title means that the story is one of my personal favorites out of the series.

Book 1

"Into the Pit" *

Basic plot: A boy (Oswald) finds a ball pit that allows him to travel through time, and he is temporarily adopted antagonized by a yellow rabbit man.

Lore bits:

Speculation: Oswald describes his town as "dead," "dying," and "a ghost town." Everyone has either moved away or, like Oswald's family, are trying to scrape together the means to move away. It's possible that this is Hurricane, Utah (now called Westbrook, Utah), and that, 30 years after William Afton's killing spree, people still can't get away fast enough. Oswald and the other kids his age know something has happened to their town, but the adults don't talk about it.

Speculation: It's suggested, via the timeline, that Oswald's parents were probably friends/classmates of some of Afton's victims, and that this may be part of why Oswald's dad tries to avoid actually going into the pizzeria himself.

We're shown the aftermath of the Missing Children's Incident. It took place in early or mid summer, 1985. Dressed as Spring Bonnie, Afton locked five children into the pizzeria with him overnight and killed them all, then set their bodies up on display to look like they were celebrating a private birthday party in the storage room. There are actually six children's bodies seen here, so possibly the sixth one is either Charlie (another of Afton's victims) or Afton's youngest son (the Bite Victim / the Crying Child), or possibly Andrew, a character we’ll meet later.

The pizzeria has been sold and renovated many times over, but the spirits of the dead children still linger in that same spot where Afton displayed their bodies. Oswald sits in a booth, right in that very spot, and is constantly urged to draw pictures of strange mechanical, robotic animals. He doesn't know why.

Currently, the pizzeria is run by a man simply known as Jeff, who runs it under the name "Jeff's Pizza." Something seems to happen to Jeff in the following year, and the pizzeria is once again bought and sold many times over, with some of the sales happening outside of conventional means and going unrecorded. It is eventually bought by Dr. Talbert, a scientist who studies Remnant, but is then left to rot. The ball pit remains untouched throughout all of this.

Speculation: Spring Bonnie's fatherly behavior toward Oswald shows us a glimpse into Afton's double life as both a serial killer and a father.

We will later learn that the ball pit transport certain people to different specific times/location because Eleanor has bled Agony into it. Eleanor exists in the present (the late 2010s, early 2020s) but is attached to the past (the 1980s), and her blood can transport people through time. The people that she can transport are only those who have already come into contact with her or Fazbear's directly. In this story, Oswald's connection to the spirits of Afton's victims allows him to travel through time using the ball pit.

Similarly, we will also learn that this ball pit is where Eleanor dumps the Agony of her victims. Since Agony resembles black blood, it gives the impression that Eleanor is constantly returning to the ball pit and bleeding into it.

Speculation: Most likely, the ball pit doesn’t literally time travel, but rather shows visions of the past to people who touch it, similar to other hauntings in this series.

"To Be Beautiful"

Basic plot: A girl (Sarah) finds and rescues a robotic clown doll (Eleanor) from a junkyard. In return, Eleanor offers to make Sarah "beautiful," only to end up killing Sarah and temporarily stealing her identity.

Lore bits:

As we'll learn in later stories, the junkyard where Sarah found Eleanor is right outside the main entrance to Circus Baby's Service and Rental facility. It is heavily implied that Eleanor is a different model of Circus Baby, or she may be Scrap Baby.

Similarly, it is heavily implied that "Eleanor" may actually be Elizabeth Afton having assumed a new identity. This is implied, but is never confirmed.

Eleanor wears a necklace with an Illusion Disk on it, allowing her to change her appearance as she sees fit.

Eleanor pretends to be Sarah's friend, and nothing more than a friendly robot doll, for almost the entire story. The only times she seems to break character are: 1) When Sarah unexpectedly wakes up in the middle of the night to find Eleanor watching her with a creepy grin, 2) When Eleanor warns Sarah that "it can be scary to look in the mirror one day and suddenly not be able to recognize yourself," and 3) When Sarah bemoans her mother not understanding her need to be pretty, and Eleanor very quietly says that "parents always think their children are perfect, even when they're monsters."

We'll later learn that Eleanor has done this exact thing before, pretending to be nothing more than a toy, befriending the person who brings her home, and then killing the person and taking their identities for a time. She does this every two years.

"Count the Ways"

Basic plot: A girl (Millie Fitzsimmons) climbs into Funtime Freddy's stomach hatch and becomes his prisoner. He forces her to choose how he kills her, and then mocks her until she dies. She dies in his stomach cavity when he slides a metal panel inside, decapitating her.

Lore bits:

Like Eleanor in the previous story, Funtime Freddy was found in a junkyard. It's very likely the same junkyard, right outside the hidden entrance to Circus Baby's Service and Rentals.

Confirmation that the Funtime Animatronics were built as killing machines. Also the reveal about how Funtime Freddy's stomach hatch works, with some detail about all the different killing apparatus he has built into him.

Speculation: The implication (which is implied again in "Prankster") that Funtime Freddy's speaking patterns and cruel sense of humor are based off of how William Afton talks to his victims.

Speculation: Because Millie's soul ends up in the ball pit, along with all of Eleanor's other victims, it's possible that Eleanor may have had a hand in Millie's death, and that Funtime Freddy wasn't acting alone.

Book 2

"Fetch"

Basic plot: A boy (Greg) is drawn to a rundown pizzeria by supernatural forces, where he finds and activates a robotic dog called 'Fetch.' The robo-dog connects with him and reads his mind, and starts fetching things, animals, and even human body parts as Greg thinks of them.

Lore bits:

This story takes place in a tourist city somewhere along the East Coast of the US, nowhere near Hurricane.

Speculation: It’s revealed in a later story that the Fetch robo-dog is possessed by the spirit of a boy named Andrew, who was one of William Afton’s victims. It’s also suggested that, because the spirits of Andrew and William are joined together, that William Afton is also inside the robo-dog, and that neither Andrew nor Afton rightly remember who they are or who the other is.

Speculation: It's implied that Greg looks like one of Afton's sons, and, driven by this vague sense of familiarity, the Fetch animatronic attaches itself to Greg and tries to be Greg's faithful friend.

Speculation: Similarly, it's implied that Greg's mother resembles an adult version of Elizabeth Afton, and that his uncle resembles Michael Afton. The resemblances are very minor and superficial, but may be enough to confuse the haunted robo-dog.

We get some description of the inside layout of the pizzeria, and it becomes pretty clear that Greg is exploring the FNAF1 location, or at least a similarly constructed location. The sign outside the pizzeria has been scrubbed out, and none of the adults in town can see the pizzeria, leading to them forgetting it's there at all, even though the kids can see the eyesore of an abandoned pizza place in the middle of bustling downtown.

Greg finds the Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy animatronics, and is immediately overcome with the need to run away. Any time he or his friends are in the same room as the animatronics, the kids are overwhelmed with the need to escape, even if they don't know what they're escaping or where they're escaping to.

Greg and his friends try to look up information about the pizzeria online, only to find that every mention of it or the franchise it's attached to has been scrubbed from the internet.

Greg has nightmares about the pizzeria, and dreams that the animatronics are chasing him through it, accompanied by Fetch, his neighbor's dog, and a strange man he doesn't recognize. (Speculation: The strange man is likely either William Afton in spirit form, or it could be Eleanor, who in later stories projects herself as a spirit that resembles a man. It could also be Det. Larson, who we know travels through several of the other stories at random.)

The Fetch animatronic is old, most likely having been built in the 1970s or '80s, but has no trouble syncing up to Greg's smartphone or navigating the modern internet. This seems to indicate that Fazbear's has always had technology much more advanced than it should, and that their tech can adapt as need be.

Greg beats the dog animatronic with a baseball bat, tearing the robot to shreds, and then buries it in the backyard. He continues to receive messages from Fetch, and later sees that the hole he threw it in is empty, implying that Fetch pulled himself back together and got back up again.

The story ends with Fetch having fetched a person to Greg, delivering him a dead body. We are not told who this person was.

"Lonely Freddy"

Basic plot: An older brother (Alec) is angry that his parents openly love his sister (Hazel) more than him, and he takes it out on her. He ruins her birthday but then feels bad, since he actually wants to hurt their parents, not his sister, and runs away. He's drawn to a robot toy version of Freddy Fazbear, and the robot switches consciousness with him, leading to Alec becoming trapped inside a robot body and then getting thrown into the trash.

Lore bits:

A robotics engineer at Fazbear's has specially designed a robot teddy bear that targets children (and sometimes teens and adults) that are alone and takes control of their bodies. The employees at Fazbear's don't know the true nature of this toy, and inadvertently help cover up kidnappings/murders.

Speculation: The siblings, Alec and Hazel, seem to represent the Afton kids on some level or other. The siblings are constantly being compared by their parents, who pick favorites and portray the children as one being "good" and the other being "bad," and it leads the kids to act out in various attempts to get their parents attention/approval. The kids also join forces for a time, both hellbent on making their parents as miserable as their parents make them. Through this lense, the interactions of the Afton siblings start to make sense.

Speculation: Hazel (who seems to represent a young Elizabeth Afton + Crying Child Afton combo) has a friend her age named Charlotte. This may imply that Charlie and the younger two Afton kids are around the same age.

"Out of Stock"

Basic plot: A boy (Oscar) steals a Plushtrap toy, only to realize belatedly that the toy has human body parts grafted onto it. The Plushtrap comes to life and tries to eat Oscar and his friends.

Lore bits:

Confirmation that Plushtrap is a toy, and that he's designed to only move in the dark; flashlights shined into his face, sunlight, or lights being turned on all cause him to freeze up. It's implied that he can only see in the dark, and is blind in the light.

Plushtrap can chew through any material, given enough time. It also has a voice box that allows to both to mimic voices and throw its voice, tricking Oscar into thinking that his mom has come home early or that his friend is calling him from another room.

Speculation: Left to its own devices, Plushtrap talks in that same evil joke-y manner that Funtime Freddy, Glitchtrap, and William Afton do. We later learn that this particular Plushtrap was manipulated by Eleanor, so it’s possible that this is how Eleanor speaks.

Plushtrap can stick itself to the floor, making it impossible to lift or budge.

It's later revealed that Eleanor is the one who grafted human body parts (eyeballs and teeth) onto the Plushtrap.

Book 3

"1:35 AM" *

Basic plot: A woman (Delilah) buys a doll (Ella) at a garage sale, not realizing the doll is haunted. After throwing the doll away in a moment of anger, Delilah is haunted by the doll, and suffers night terrors.

Lore bits:

Ella comes with a little instruction booklet, which says that she's a "helper doll" made by Fazbear Entertainment in the 1980s. She's meant to perform a variety of tasks, including taking phone messages, keeping track of her owner's personal calender, acting as an alarm clock, and both walking and carrying small objects. She can walk with such steady precision that she can deliver drinks without spilling.

We're also told that there was supposed to be a line of Ella dolls released to the public, but that production of the doll stopped very suddenly for some reason, and they were never officially released. A few Ella dolls have made it onto Ebay over the years, and the particular Ella doll that Delilah picks up is revealed to be one that gets bought and sold a lot; former owners believe her to be haunted and don't want to keep her, and one listing for her refers to her carrying "special energy."

Ella looks very much like a real little girl in the face, and Delilah immediately feels maternal toward the doll, and wants to take her home and take care of her.

Ella's behavior goes back and forth between being some sort of demonic entity and just being a little girl. Sometimes she acts like a monstrous thing, scrabbling along the walls and ceiling, and sometimes she acts like a normal child, playing with spinning chairs and simply walking up to Delilah to look for attention. She's coded heavily as both a monster and someone's daughter. (Presumably a reference to her role in the original novel trilogy of temporarily housing Charlie.)

We later learn that "Ella" was Eleanor for much of the story. Delilah really did buy a haunted Ella doll at the beginning of the story, which she ended up throwing away, and then Eleanor found the Ella doll in the trash and started haunting Delilah herself.

"Room For One More"

Basic plot: A night security guard (Stanley) gets a new job working at Circus Baby's Service and Rentals. He gets attacked by the Minireenas, which climb inside him and use his body as a meat puppet, allowing them to escape the facility.

Lore bits:

It's implied that Stanley is hired during the week after the events of the "Sister Location" game. He's the only human employed on the premises, and is given clear instructions to "prevent anything from getting out." The body parts of the dead technicians are still being cleaned out, and are rotting in a biohazard bin next to the employee entrance.

The main employee entrance to Circus Baby's Service and Rentals is hidden in a junkyard, kept out of sight from the road or any nearby buildings. Only approved employees know where it is, and they still have to go through two ID-screening doors to get in.

Stanley doesn't know who his employer is. His interview is performed by another employee, who seems nervous the entire time. Stanley gets the impression that their employer doesn't actually care who takes the job, so long as a living person of some kind is manning the security office.

The person who interviews Stanley resembles a human-sized version of the “Little Joe” figure.

The Minireenas force Stanley to sleep on the job, and crawl in through his mouth while he's asleep. He also suffers a variety of nightmares while asleep, plagued with images of the Funtime Animatronics (noticeably sans Circus Baby or Ennard), as well as consumed with thoughts about how his father died recently.

Stanley's fate directly mirrors the fate of Michael in "Sister Location," as the story opens with him starting a new job working nights at the Circus Baby facility, leads to him reconnecting with his sister, and ends with his dead body being puppeteered around by robots. Unlike Michael though, Stanley only makes it to Night 4.

"The New Kid" *

Basic plot: Two boys (Devon and Mick) befriend the new kid at their school (Kelsey). Devon gets jealous of all the attention that Kelsey is getting, and tricks him into climbing into the Golden Fredbear suit, which ends up killing him. Devon suffers the same fate when he double checks to make sure Kelsey is dead.

Lore bits:

An abandoned Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria is located out in the middle of the woods. It's suggested that this may be the original Fredbear's Family Diner, given the out-of-town location and the inclusion of the actual Fredbear animatronic suit (instead of just the vague ghost of Golden Freddy that is seen throughout most of the games).

Speculation: Kelsey is implied to be a ghost, and is likely a former victim of the springlock Fredbear suit, who keeps re-enacting his own death.

Speculation: Kelsey is portrayed as something akin to a combination between Cassidy "the Vengeful Spirit" and "Crying Child" Afton as the fanbase understands them, as though the two have merged together into a single ghost boy. He references having an interest in judging people, talks about having a father who has worked on animatronics in the past, and regards the Freddy’s animatronics as old friends. He's also described as looking like a human version of the Fredbear animatronic, with the same blue eyes, golden hair, and cheery grin.

Also, given that Kelsey pops up at another school in another town at the end of the story, clearly intending to lead more victims to die by the Fredbear animatronic, it's further implied that he has the ability to teleport his victims to the Fredbear's Family Diner location, and that Devon and Mick were never near it in the first place.

A body is seen inside the Fredbear animatronic suit. The body is described as that of a small child with curly black hair, and it doesn't belong to any of the characters in the story. Popular theories as to who this body could belong to include Andrew (the angry spirit of a little boy with curly black hair), Cassidy "the Vengeful Spirit" (who is also usually depicted with black hair and a small body), a withered version of Kelsey's body, or an entirely new, unknown character altogether.

Speculation: Devon's behavior and actions seem like they're meant to be reminiscent of William Afton, to some degree. He can be very gentle and caring toward Mick, who he cares about, but has violent mood swings that scare his friend. He kills Kelsey by accident and feels no remorse for doing so. Ultimately, he ends up dying by the springlocks as well.

Speculation: Similarly, Mick is probably meant to be a version of Henry or Michael to Devon’s William. Mick fears what Devon can do, but is more afraid of losing his friend, and willingly lies to cover up Devon’s actions.

Book 4

"Step Closer" *

Basic plot: Two brothers (Pete and Chuck Dinglewood) are at odds with each other in the wake of their parents divorce, and have to contend with their mother becoming a helicopter parent overnight. Pete bullies his brother and tries to scare him with the Foxy animatronic, but ends up suffering from nightmares and near death experiences, ultimately leading to his own death.

Lore bits:

There is evidence of a ritual of some kind having been performed on or near the Foxy animatronic. This is not brought up again. However, the only other time in this series where we see a ritual performed it's by a spiritualist who's trying to expel an evil spirit from a hospital room, so it's possible that someone was trying to expel a spirit.

Foxy dances and sings a song about how anyone can become a pirate, but first they have to lose an eye and an arm! These are the body parts Pete ends up losing upon his death.

Speculation: Pete's entire purpose as a character is to help the audience connect the dots about which characters in the game franchise are really Michael Afton in disguise. His bully-ish behavior toward his brother and his love of Foxy connect him to the "Foxy Bro" character in FNAF4, while his obsessively chewing gum and drinking soda when stressed connects him to the night guards and technicians across FNAF1, FNAF2, FNAF3, and Pizzeria Simulator, and references to his skin turning purple and him feeling his organs being torn out connect him back to the technician "Eggs Benedict" in Sister Location. He's also coerced into playing RPG video games with his brother, which was the original story intent behind FNAFWorld, and connects him to the unseen player character of that game as well.

Speculation: Possibly, Pete's relationship with his father (Bill Dinglewood) could also shed some light on the nature of Michael's relationship with his father, William. Pete resents his father for allowing his mother to take custody of the boys after the divorce, and feels abandoned by his father. We're also told that Bill works a lot, including overnight shifts, and isn't available very often. But, when Pete gets badly hurt, Bill makes the time to come be with him, and tries to help his son as best he can.

"Dance With Me" *

Basic plot: A pickpocket (Kasey) steals a pair of toy glasses that show her an image of Ballora dancing nearby. As time passes and Ballora gets closer and closer, Kasey begins to fear for her life.

Lore bits:

The glasses originally come from Circus Baby's Pizza World, and it's suggested that they may have an illusion disk or something similar attached to them, allowing the wearer to see and play with an animatronic (in this case, Ballora).

The Ballora that Kasey is seeing is something other than an illusion, though. The ballerina robot can affect the physical world around her, and she has the same affects on the world that the ghosts have in these stories, implying that she may be a ghost or something similar. Ballora is also aware of Kasey, and judges the woman's criminal actions.

The first time Kasey sees Ballora, she's suddenly overcome with a longing for a happy home and a loving mother. As Ballora begins to treat her judgementally, like a daughter who has disappointed her, Kasey starts to fear Ballora more and more. Kasey becomes sure that Ballora is going to climb into her body and possess her, but this is never substantiated.

Only Kasey and the little girl she stole the glasses from can see Ballora. No one else can.

Ballora stops antagonizing Kasey when Kasey returns the glasses to the little girl.

Speculation: Throughout the story, Ballora is associated with concepts of motherhood, including some very specific images of mothers raising two sons and a daughter. She's also associated with the colors blue and pink (both present in her design) and purple and gold (not as present). The implication seems to be that Ballora represents Mrs. Afton, but how her children remember her, not necessarily how she really was. (This isn't to say that Ballora is Mrs. Afton, just that she represents her in some way.)

This story directly parallels the events of the VR game, “Help Wanted,” with the toy glasses representing the VR helmet and Ballora representing Glitchtrap.

"Coming Home" *

Basic plot: Susie (the child's spirit that inhabits the Chica animatronic) haunts her family during the day, only to return to the pizzeria at night. Her younger sister, Samantha, tries to keep the family together and tries to help Susie pass on.

Lore bits:

This story takes place two years after the Missing Children's Incident, so probably 1987. The victim's bodies were found and ID'ed some time ago, and the families notified.

Susie was 7-years-old when she was killed. She was wearing a hand-knitted sweater (a gift from her aunt) and carrying a baby doll when William Afton took her. This image is brought up a lot, forcing the audience to recognize what kind of sick monster William Afton is.

Susie often seems to forget that she's dead, and gets annoyed when her mother and sister "ignore her." She also smells rotting meat everywhere she goes, and doesn't realize that it's the scent of her own corpse.

At midnight, Susie returns to the pizzeria every night. She doesn't say why, just that she has to. In the hour leading up to midnight, Susie gets very scared and jumpy, getting spooked by every shadow or noise she hears, even though she's not a skittish child by nature; this changes at midnight every night, when she rejoins with Chica, sad and angry, and returns to her place at the pizzeria.

As a ghost, Susie can separate herself from Chica for a certain amount of time, and can explore the world with some freedom. Because of her attachment to her family's house, her favorite tree, and her sister, Susie can travel back to her home and her tree, and can follow and haunt her sister. She can also affect the world around her to some degree, and can pick up crayons from her sister's desk to draw images of herself and Chica, letting her sister know where she is.

Book 5

"Bunny Call"

Basic plot: A man (Bob Mackenzie) goes to a camping resort with his wife and kids. He didn't want to go on this trip and considers playing a prank on his family, but ultimately decides against it. This somehow leads to him fighting an evil rabbit monster that's determined to hurt his family.

Lore bits:

Speculation: Bob and his family seem to resemble the Afton family for reasons that are unclear. Conversely, Bob's battle with Ralpho the Rabbit is reminiscent of how Scott has described his own night terrors and waking dreams of Bonnie the Bunny.

The camp resort the Mackenzie family is staying at is run by a people-pleasing manager named Evan. Aside from the usual family summer camp activities, the resort also has a character mascot (Ralpho the Rabbit), which is really a resort employee in a costume, and the mascot is used to pull pranks on children in the camp. These 'pranks' can be very scary and traumatic for small children, something that the camp employees find humorous.

Many of the camp employees almost seem to revel in stressing out the customers as much as possible. It's unclear if the employees are genuinely trying to cause undue stress in their customers or if that's just how it feels to Bob.

Speculation: Bob encounters a man that seems to resemble an adult Michael Afton. This man (Philip) comments that his mother died when he was young, and that his father was a bad man, and that Philip is currently afraid that he's becoming like his father.

A monstrous version of Ralpho attacks the cabin where Bob's family is sleeping, and Bob is forced to play a complex game of defense, alternating between locking the creature out and fighting it off in physical confrontation. The eyes of the Ralpho costume are blue, but this monster Ralpho has pink eyes, and it bleeds when injured. It is later implied that this version of Ralpho is really Eleanor disguised as Ralpho.

The monster version of Ralpho vanishes at 6 AM.

"In the Flesh" *

Basic plot: A game developer (Matt) is working on programming a maze game for a VR horror game called "Five Nights at Freddy's: Springtrap's Revenge," and is specifically in charge of coding the AI for Springtrap. After acting like a sexist jerk to his own wife (and making a mockery of her desire to get pregnant), he pours all of his negative feelings into Springtrap… which results in the AI "impregnating" him, forcing him to give birth to a live infant version of Springtrap.

Lore bits:

It's implied that the game "FNAF: Springtrap's Revenge" is being created as a way of covering up the murderous history (and present) of Fazbear Entertainment, making fun of the rumors to prevent the general public from looking too closely. Despite the title, it's never said who or what Springtrap is supposed to be getting revenge on.

Matt designs Springtrap after a creepy man in an Easter Bunny costume that traumatized him as a child.

Springtrap is described as cunning, and "opens his victim's jugular with all of the same joy as a kid opening their birthday presents." Springtrap also carries a butcher knife, which he uses to attack the player, and cuts body part trophies from the player's in-game corpse.

Matt programs Springtrap's AI to learn each time it kills the player.

Matt accidentally glitches the program, causing lots of Springtraps to spawn in at once. The killer rabbits all start killing each other. With each self-kill, the Springtrap AI continues to learn, and they start to kill each other faster, and in smarter, more violent ways. Eventually, the program glitches so bad that Springtrap spawns in already dead on the ground, and then disintegrates into code. The code infects Matt.

The code changes its name to "its_a_boy.exe" after infecting Matt.

Matt's body undergoes several changes, and he gains weight fast, his skin turns yellow, his hair starts to fall out, and it seems like rabbit ears try to grow out of his head. He also develops an appetite for blood and gore that he didn't have before. After a few days, a severe pain strikes Matt in his abdominal area, and, in a state of panic, he grabs a butcher knife from the kitchen to "cut it out." After performing an impromptu C-section on himself, a baby organic creature version of Springtrap pops out from his stomach, and affectionately christens Matt as "Daddy." It then seems to sit nearby and tries to comfort Matt as Matt dies.

Speculation: This story seems to partially parallel the presence of Glitchtrap in "FNAF: Help Wanted," as it portrayed a game tester getting infected and then killed by a glitchy rabbit AI, which uses the tester's body as a portal into reality. It also mirrors how many of the humans that Glitchtrap tries to possess just end up killing/mutilating themselves, a topic that is explored further in a later story.

"The Man in Room 1280"

Basic plot: A priest (Arthur) is called to a hospital to give a man his last rites, but the man won't actually die. The entire staff of nurses in the hospital wing try to either kill or exorcise the man, believing him to be demon-possessed, only to get attacked by the two spirits that dwell in the man's body. The man refuses to die until he is brought to a Fazbear's Entertainment warehouse; upon arrival at the warehouse, the man dies, and the spirits inside go on to possess animatronics.

Lore bits:

The man is revealed later to be William Afton, although his true identity was apparently kept secret from the hospital staff.

By this point, the man is a ward of the state, and no longer has any living relatives that anyone knows about. Given that Larson, a police officer, knows the man's identity, presumably the state does as well, but keeps that a secret from the hospital staff for some reason, and the staff regard the man as a John Doe. It's possible that someone at Fazbear's (most likely Michael) arranged for Afton to be cared for, but hid all of his personal information from the hospital he was sent to.

The man/Afton looks like rotting skin vaguely wrapped around a charred skeleton, with a few organs somehow still pumping inside him. He emanates heat, and smells like sulphur, smoke, burnt plastic, and rotting flesh.

There are two spirits attached to the man/Afton. One is Andrew, the ghost of one of Afton's victims, who has attached himself to Afton and tortures the man in his mind; brain scans performed on the man show Afton and Andrew aggressively fighting with one another. Other people in the hospital can see Andrew, and often feel cold and scared when he's nearby, but they don't think much about him as he just looks like a little boy, and most of the hospital staff tend to assume he's visiting a patient relative or something.

The other spirit attached to the man/Afton is Eleanor. She's only present in spirit form, and isn't physically here.

There is also a shadow that defends the man's/Afton's body. It is unclear if the shadow is Eleanor's spirit form, or if it's Afton projecting himself out of his body.

The hospital has a large statue of Cerberus overlooking the entrance; both priest and nurses alike find it strange that the hospital is being watched a statue of the Underworld's guard dog.

The nurses make several attempts to either kill the man or exorcise the spirits within. Each attempt backfires, and results in the nurses falling sick, getting attacking by the shadow, or suffering horrible nightmares. One nurse is directly attacked by Andrew, who forces her to relive the pain and agony of her son's death, turning the woman into a sobbing mess on the floor.

After Afton's body dies in the Fazbear's warehouse, Andrew leaves and goes on to possess the Fetch animatronic. Since they're attached, it's likely that Afton ended up in Fetch with him.

Book 6

"Blackbird"

Basic plot: Two college students (Sam and Nole) are making an amateur horror film for a class, involving a large blackbird monster that judges a man for his wrongdoings. Things take a turn when Sam goes missing, and Nole is forced to face his past as a school bully.

Lore bits:

Sam narrowly avoids being hit by a train, and ends up passed out in the woods for a day. We later learn that he accidentally walked through a battle between Det. Larson and Eleanor; Eleanor grabbed the young man and threw him in front of an oncoming train, and Larson pushed him to safety, but lost track of Eleanor in the process.

With Sam out of the picture, Eleanor then takes on the appearance of the student's Blackbird character, and haunts Nole for several hours, reducing him to an anxiety-ridden, guilt-ridden mess by the next morning.

Because the Blackbird makes a lot of high-pitched whining and static sounds while it's following Nole, and because it's presence tends to make Nole feel nauseous, it's likely that Eleanor is using her Illusion Disk during this story.

"The Real Jake"

Basic plot: The backstory for Jake, one of the child's spirits in the Stitchwraith, and an explanation of how he lived and died. Jake is cared for by his live-in nanny, his military father, and his businessman uncle. Regardless of their care and support, a cancer spreads through Jake's body, making his childhood miserable and ultimately killing him.

Lore bits:

Jake's primary caregiver is his live-in nanny, who is a woman named Margie. Margie was seen earlier in the series, answering questions for Det. Larson.

Jake's father is a widower named Evan, who is in the military and posted on another continent. Evan is eventually killed in the line of duty.

Jake's uncle is a man named Michael, who runs a business of some kind. He seems to have trouble connecting with people, or emoting like most people do, and comes across as cruel, callous, and cold. He drops everything when his family needs him though, and he provides financially for any needs his brother, his nephew, and the nanny may have. Jake describes his uncle as being something akin to a mis-programmed robot that doesn't quite behave like a person.

Margie and Evan create a doll for Jake, which is meant to represent Jake's active mind and all the adventures he'll have when he gets better. It's meant as a way to keep the family from focusing on Jake's dying body. Sadly, Jake still dies, and his spirit ends up inhabiting this doll. The doll eventually becomes a part of the Stitchwraith.

After the deaths of Jake and Evan, the house is given to Margie. It's implied that Michael continues to take care of her financially, even though he doesn't take care of her personally.

Similarly, it's suggested that the doll, being haunted by Jake, comes to life and scares Margie, leading to her sending it to Dr. Phineas Taggart.

A lot of attention is given to the house that Jake lives in. We're told that the previous owner had a lot of very specific remodels done on the house, leading to the house having a myriad of built-in cabinets, closets, and storage spaces. There are also pieces of custom-made furniture scattered throughout the house and set up in odd, specific places. We're also told that Margie sometimes hears what sounds like voices talking from some of these spaces. While this information is called out with some regularity, it's never explained within the story and is never brought up again.

"Hide and Seek" *

Basic plot: A boy (Toby Billings) is tired of feeling like he always comes second after his older brother, and becomes determined to win at something. He cheats in a game at Fazbear's, and ends up being haunted by Shadow Bonnie. The shadow eventually forces Toby to take his own life.

Lore bits:

Toby lives with his father and brother. We're told that Toby's mother just walked out on the family years ago, and that's when his father became distant and neglectful of the boys, his brother became angry and abusive, and when Toby himself became closed-off and depressed.

Speculation: The family may act as stand-ins for the male members of the Afton family, representing William as a neglectful father, Michael as an abusive brother, and the Crying Child as a depressed kid who isolates himself.

Toby works at Fazbear's as a main staff member. His older brother (Conner) works as a mechanic or technician of some kind, and their father works night shifts at a warehouse. It's possible that all three family members work for Fazbear's, as Toby never feels the need to comment on his father's and brother's place/s of employment, but isn't stated as such.

Toby cheats at a game at the pizzeria, and ends up with Shadow Bonnie attached to his body, the creepy shadow rabbit following him everywhere and taunting him. The shadow's presence alternates between scaring Toby and making him angry.

Its presence leads to Toby harming himself over and over in an attempt to detach it, and he cuts his skin, hits himself against walls, burns himself with hot water, nearly drowns, and considers burning himself with a lighter. The effects of his attempts reach a point of such obvious injury that his brother expresses deep concern for his physical and mental wellbeing, and a classmate tries to get him to go see a counselor.

It's later revealed that this "Shadow Bonnie" is actually Eleanor's spirit, having taken on the appearance of the shadow rabbit and attached herself to Toby, allowing her to feed off of his pain and misery.

When Toby's suffering mental health reaches its breaking point, he kills himself via impalement in an off-limits room at the Freddy's pizzeria he works at. Det. Larson enters the room, searching for Eleanor, and sees the boy die like this.

Strangely enough, Toby sees Eleanor as herself while he's dying, and the two exchange smiles with each other. Eleanor is happy because she thrives off of the pain of other people, and Toby is happy because he feels like he "won" against a world that abuses him, shuts him out, and takes him for granted.

Book 7

"The Cliffs"

Basic plot: A single dad (Robert Stanton) buys a nanny cam Freddy Fazbear plushie for his toddler son (Tyler). When his son wanders off, the Freddy plush tries to tell Robert where the boy is. After some misunderstandings between Robert and the Freddy plush, Robert is finally able to find and rescue his son.

Lore bits:

The story introduces us to "Tag-Along Freddy," an in-universe plushie from Fazbear Entertainment. The plushie resembles a normal Freddy Fazbear stuffed toy, but has many sensors inside it, allowing it to "see" and "hear" (re., intake visual and audio, and then process those intakes) what's going on around it. The plush sends signals to a wristwatch that's intended for the parent to wear, letting them know the whereabouts of their child.

The "Tag-Along Freddy" toy's tech is advanced enough that it can tell the parent if their child is awake or asleep, if the child is feeling sick, and where exactly the child is at all times.

"Tag-Along Freddy" is initially portrayed as an antagonist throughout the story, but it really is just a nanny cam toy. The toy doesn't carry any sentience, and doesn't express any true AI beyond its understanding of human body language and facial expressions, and seems to solely function under its prime directive of watching its assigned child and making sure the child is safe and happy.

Speculation: Some readers interpret the story’s end as Robert not actually finding and rescuing his son, but rather being led to believe that the Freddy toy is his son, since the toy mysteriously vanishes from sight just as Robert miraculously finds Tyler. If this is the case, then Tyler Stanton goes missing entirely, and is replaced by a Fazbear’s toy that has the ability to perfectly mimic him.

Speculation: This story may be a parallel to that of the Mimic (endoskeleton form), as it includes a father who loses his son and a robotic toy that the father blames.

"The Breaking Wheel"

Basic plot: A boy (Reed) gets sick of being harassed by the class bully (Julius) and locks the other boy into a robotic apparatus, intending to trap him there overnight. Things take a grisly turn when the robotic apparatus begins accepting commands from an unrelated remote control, and the apparatus forces the bully's body to bend and break in a lot of horrific ways, leading to the boy's agonizing death. The bully's spirit then haunts the apparatus and hunts Reed down, seeking revenge.

Lore bits:

This story is meant to show the audience what Agony means in this world. Julius the bully dies in severe pain, after being forced to suffer with extreme fear and pain for several hours. As a result, the Agony of his death takes on a physical form, and fuels his body, allowing his corpse to seek its revenge against the one responsible for his death.

Julius' Agony-fueled corpse is mindless, and doesn't contain any traces of Julius' mind or personality. Instead, his body is overcome by his Agony, and it becomes a monster that runs on rage and a desire to inflict pain.

Being fueled by Agony also gives Julius' body abilities that it never possessed while he was alive. His body is stronger, and can jump incredible distances, and can run much faster than he ever could as a living person. His body can also climb up walls and along ceilings, seemingly moving too fast for gravity to pull him down. It also makes him much more violent than he ever was in life, and he hunts Reed down, filled with an insatiable need to make the other boy suffer the same way he suffered.

While not mentioned in this story, Agony is the emotion of a person that takes on a physical form after the person dies (and is a separate thing from Remnant). Agony generally appears as black, blood-like liquid, generally seen leaking from a dead person's eyes like tears.

"He Told Me Everything"

Basic plot: A boy (Chris Watson) enters an AP Science class in his school, where he's told that almost all students who pass through the class go on to do great things. He participates in a strange experiment, and he and his classmates all end up dying and being replaced by perfect replicas of themselves, sculpted from a mysterious substance called "Fazgoo."

Lore bits:

"Fazgoo" is a strange, pink slime that Fazbear Entertainment produces and sells in children's science kits. While it seems to be advertised largely as a child-friendly slime kit, the Fazgoo is capable of attaching itself to the nearest organic creature, and drains them dry of all their blood, organs, bones, and muscle tissue. After this process completes, the original organism dies, and the newly born replica is free to take their place and identity.

Fazgoo replicas are good as assimilating into human society, disguising themselves as their stolen identity with little effort. They seem to be significantly smarter, more athletic, and more socially motivated than the humans they replaced, as we're told that they often go on to become great scientists, political leaders, and wealthy business tycoons.

It's implied that the class teacher is either the creator of Fazgoo, or is a Fazgoo replica himself. He does this experiment with his class every year, making him responsible for the deaths of several teenagers every year.

It's unclear how Fazbear's is creating Fazgoo, or what it's originally made from. It's also unclear why they manufacture it, or what purpose it serves them.

Book 8

"Gumdrop Angel"

Basic plot: A young woman (Angel) goes to Freddy's Pizzeria for her stepsister's birthday party. After getting into a fight with her mother and stepfather, Angel lashes out at her stepsister, eating a "special candy" that she received from her birthday party at Freddy's. Over the course of the next few hours, Angel's body slowly turns into gummy candy, and she is ultimately served as a birthday treat to a horde of hungry children.

Lore bits:

We learn that children are stolen, and subsequently killed, from birthday parties at Freddy's with an alarming frequency.

From Angel's interaction with an employee (Dominic), it also seems that at least some of the employees are aware of the evil nature of the company they work for, but do nothing / can do nothing to stop it.

Dominic seems to work as a daytime staff member, a nighttime security guard, and as the person who answers the phone. He says he's at Freddy's "basically all the time." He's also said to have a soothing voice that compels people to follow him and listen to his every word. Not only is he aware of the kidnapping and subsequent murder, but he actually assists with it, although he's clearly not happy about it, and he admits to Angel that he plans to quit working at Freddy's as soon as he can. It's unclear if Dominic is meant to represent a pre-existing character or not, but his presence paints an interesting picture of what the Fazbear employees are like.

After turning into a candy person, Angel is placed into a box for a few hours. Angel is losing her mental faculties and can't remember who she is at this point, and the only things she seems capable of remembering are "Dominic is trustworthy" (he's not) and "it's nice in the box, the box is safe" (it's probably not).

"Sergio's Lucky Day"

Basic plot: A down-on-his-luck architect (Sergio) finds a discarded Balloon Boy toy, which starts giving him advice on how to turn his luck around and improve his life. As Sergio becomes more and more dependent on the toy's words, its suggestions become more and more alarming, ultimately driving Sergio to self-isolation, bankruptcy, and self-mutilation.

Lore bits:

The story takes place in 1995. Sergio graduated high school in 1985. This is the second time that year has been given significance in this series.

This Balloon Boy toy sounds like a toy you'd get out of a Happy Meal or something, and is very small. He's called "Lucky Boy" in the story, and seems to act like a Magic 8-ball toy, and is able to give "yes," "no," "maybe," and "ask again later" answers in response to questions about the future.

The "Lucky" Balloon Boy that Sergio finds is specifically able to walk and make vocal observations, such as whether a woman is pretty or how impressive a truck is.

Sergio behaves more and more like a robot as he interacts with Lucky Boy, and seems to completely dissociate from his own identity entirely. He also loses the ability to feel pain, and cuts off his own limbs and removes his own intestines without reaction.

It's unclear if the Balloon Boy toy is sentient or not. It's capable of human speech, but it's unclear if it really understands what it's saying or not.

"What We Found" *

Basic plot: A security guard (Hudson) works overnight at a newly constructed horror attraction called "Fazbear's Fright," an amusement park ride built to look like the old Freddy Fazbear's restaurants and intended to both educate the public about the series of serial killings that took place at the restaurant, as well as make a mockery of the crimes and the victims. An old rabbit animatronic of some kind is added to the attraction, and Hudson begins suffering from horrible hallucinations, panic attacks, and memories of his every childhood trauma resurfacing.

Lore bits:

Unlike the location of the same name in FNAF3, which resembles a walk-through haunted house attraction, this version of "Fazbear's Fright" is a ride attraction at a local amusement park, with a tram that runs through the building. There are many animatronics all over the building - replicas of the original animatronic characters from Fazbear's, as well as animatronics to represent the killer, the kidnapped children, and oblivious parents and night guards.

This location also has an attached kitchen, which is used to serve real pizza and birthday cake to the attraction's customers.

We're told that there are two security offices in this location. The first one sounds like the one that the player is set up in during FNAF3, and we're told that this one isn't real, but is rather part of the ride; the "security guard" in this room is an animatronic, and it's meant to showcase how the original restaurant security and staff did nothing to prevent the murders that happened. Hudson works in the real security office, which is hidden from the customers, and has lots of monitors for checking the cameras and has a locking door.

It's interesting that Hudson is hired as a security officer by Fazbear's, as he has a criminal record (arson) and is the suspect of two murders (his mother and his stepfather). Everyone who knows him believes him to be a killer, and we're told that he can't get work anywhere else. He's also not physically or mentally well, and has a bad back, suffers panic attacks, and is very skittish and easily scared. It's also implied that he's a high school dropout. None of this makes him sound a good candidate for a security job, but he's been apparently working for Fazbear's in this position for a while now. That probably tells us something about the kind of people Fazbear's hires.

The animatronic that gets added is Springtrap, who they found hidden in a closed-off room at an old Freddy's location. Springtrap is put on display by being hung up on a wall. After staring at the rabbit for some time, Hudson notices that there's a dead body inside the animatronic. He’s the only one to notice this.

Hudson begins video and audio hallucinating after he touches Springtrap. He loses all sense of what's real and what's not, and begins scrambling around, looking for places to hide, or acting out his traumatic memories and hurting himself. He does very severe damage to himself, even going to far as cutting his arm with a kitchen knife, all while imagining that Springtrap is the one hurting him.

Speculation: The phrase "heat purges, fire heals" is repeated throughout this story. This seems to imply that, in the FNAF universe, Remnant and Agony can only be destroyed by fire.

Speculation: It's unclear why touching Springtrap causes Hudson to spiral and hallucinate so violently, as many of his coworkers were physically handling Springtrap and none of them experience any ill effects. We are told that Hudson already suffers from severe PTSD, and that he's the only one to touch the actual corpse of William Afton inside Springtrap, so it's likely that one of those is the cause of his horrific episode.

Speculation: Possible confirmation that physical contact with Agony may cause hallucinations.

Speculation: Possible confirmation that Springtrap doesn't actually pose a threat to the night guard personally, but the night guard assumes he does.

Speculation: Confirmation (or at least heavily implied) that the night guard sets the fire at the end of FNAF3.

Book 9

"The Puppet Carver"

Basic plot: A manager (Jack) of a Freddy's restaurant struggles to keep his business afloat, and takes his anger out on his employees. He gets a new lease on life after getting trapped inside a machine that builds animatronic endoskeletons, wherein he is literally turned into a new man. A subplot follows one of the employees, who is writing a novel (actually called "The Puppet Carver") about a wooden automaton who seeks to become human.

Lore bits:

Speculation: While it's never outright explained, the story seems to imply that Jack is ground to a pulp by the machine, but that one of the endoskeletons in the machine absorbs his Remnant, which causes his consciousness to transfer into the endoskeleton. The transference is so quick, Jack doesn't even notice his own death. The remains of his body and his Agony mix together, creating a slimy humanoid creature that chases Jack into the night. When the slimy creature catches up with Jack, it seems like they merge together again, once more becoming a whole person (albeit one without any proper internal organs or nervous system, as those are seen discarded later in the story).

Speculation: Given the physical appearance of the slime creature sounding similar to how the Fazgoo replicas are described looking during their assimilation process, it's possible that this is showing us how Fazgoo is made: ground up human bodies soaked with Agony.

The subplot of Sage's novel "The Puppet Carver" tells us a story about a machine man (Sylvester) that seeks to become human. He learns that he can only become human if he undergoes a process of being forced through extreme pain and agony for a period of time. He takes the deal and is immediately overcome with agonizing pain. However, this seems to work, as the story ends with Sylvester, now fully human, laughing and playing with his newborn daughter.

"Jump For Tickets"

Basic plot: A boy (Colton) wants to earn more tickets from the Freddy's arcade games, and tampers with one, trying to rig it to give him more tickets than anyone else. He gets trapped inside the game machine by a clown animatronic, and is ironically crushed to death by the other game players.

Lore bits:

The clown animatronic is "Coils the Birthday Clown," a robot with long, spring-like arms. Its face sounds similar to the clown faceplate that Ennard wears.

The Coils animatronic seems to be either sentient or possessed, and tries to prevent Colton from tampering with the game machine. After trapping the boy inside, the robotic clown grows concerned, and panics when it's unable to let the boy out, and gets even more upset when it's unable to alert any of the employees to the danger the boy is in. The animatronic rearranges its entire faceplate after Colton's death, allowing it to frown and cry.

The implication seems to be that Colton's spirit possesses Coils after Colton's death but, given that Coils behaves intelligently and emotes throughout the entire story, including before Colton's death, it's possible that another spirit was already possessing Coils, or that the animatronic was built with a strangely robust AI installed.

A Freddy's employee thinks Coils' behavior is strange, and remarks that the clown robot wasn't programmed to behave the way it does. Ultimately though, the employee views this as a normal occurrence at Freddy's, and doesn't give it another thought.

"Pizza Kit"

Basic plot: Two high school girls (Payton and Marley) go on a tour of a Freddy Fazbear's pizza factory with their class. Marley goes missing during the tour, and Payton becomes convinced that her friend has died and been cooked into a pizza, and that she has unwittingly eaten her friend.

Lore bits:

Nothing horrific actually happens in this story until the very last paragraph. As disturbing and gruesome as some sequences are, they're all in Payton's mind, as she suffers horrible stress-induced nightmares after she thinks she sees her best friend die.

Fazbear's has found a market with high schoolers by producing "pizza kits," which are grocery store items allowing the customer to design and build their own pizza using the ingredients from Freddy's. Lots of teens and young adults like them because it makes them feel nostalgic.

Speculation: Payton and Marley could be viewed as stand-ins for Henry's daughter Charlie and Elizabeth Afton. Payton is described as looking similar to how Charlie is often depicted, with dark brown hair and an association with the color green, and seems to be a very smart and well-behaved kid, albeit jumpy at times. Marley is described as looking similar to how Elizabeth is often depicted, with blonde hair and an association with the color pink, and she's described as being friendly, bossy, self-centered, and frequently ignores the rules she's given by authority figures. Marley also appears to die a violent death after ignoring a specific rule she's given for safety, which is something she and Elizabeth Afton share in common.

A lot of attention is given to Chica in this story. She's the mascot character for the pizza kits, and is Payton's favorite Freddy's character. Aside from Freddy himself, Chica is the only animatronic character specifically called out, and she is called out repeatedly throughout the story.

Book 10

"Friendly Face"

Basic plot: Two boys (Edward and Jack) adopt a stray kitten they find. Their happy little corner of suburbia takes a drastic turn when the cat runs into the road, and both it and Jack are killed when they're hit by a car after Jack runs after the cat. Miserable and lonely, Edward buys a "Friendly Face" toy from Fazbear's, only to have it made with a human hair sample instead of the cat's hair sample, resulting in a robotic pet with a horrifying visage.

Lore bits:

The "Friendly Face" is part of a special line of animatronic toys that Fazbear's is advertising. The line consists of small robotic dogs and cats, which are custom built to look like any deceased pet that the customer wants to memorialize.

Interestingly, instead of hand-building the Friendly Faces and modeling them after a photo of the real-life animal, the Friendly Faces are built by machines after obtaining a hair sample of the real-life animal. Speculation: Because of this, some readers have hypothesized that the Friendly Faces are partially made using Fazgoo, or that Fazbear's is experimenting with cloning.

There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of quality control for the Friendly Face line, as the Friendly Face Edward buys very distinctly has a human face, not a cat face, and no one at Fazbear's seems to have found that strange.

The Friendly Face chases Edward everywhere, seemingly at all hours of the day and night, and makes Edward feel like he's being hunted. It's revealed to the audience that the Friendly Face thinks like a cat, and only wants Edward to play with it.

"Sea Bonnies"

Basic plot: A boy (Rory) wins a tank full of Sea Bonnies (genetically altered sea monkeys) from a Freddy's arcade game. His older brother (Mott) is then psychically bullied and haunted by the Sea Bonnies and is eventually eaten alive by them and replaced by a replica.

Lore bits:

Pizza is served to customers at this Freddy's by waitresses wearing ponytails and roller skates. This appearance brings to mind restaurants from the 1950s-'60s, but is also reminiscent of Scrap Baby's design.

The Sea Bonnies are apparently sea monkeys that have been specially bred and genetically modified to resemble Bonnie the Bunny, giving them blue-purple bodies and fins that resemble rabbit ears. There are strange ingredients mixed in with their egg and food packets, including borax, blue food dye, and soda.

Rory keeps the Sea Bonnies in the same fish tank as his pet goldfish, Fritz. Unseen by Rory, the Sea Bonnies eat Fritz the fish, and then cluster themselves together to form a vague shape of the goldfish, making it look like Fritz is still there. Speculation: While this is largely foreshadowing for Mott's fate, it's also a nod to FNAF2, where you play as "Fritz Smith," the technician, who is very likely a disguised purple and rotting Michael Afton.

The Sea Bonnies express both intelligence and violent behaviors, and threaten Mott for most of the story. They eventually make good on their threats, and they eat him alive from the inside out. His body is eventually replaced by a mass of Sea Bonnies, the tiny shrimp holding themselves in a human-shaped formation. They look passably like a person from a distance, and can even open and close their "mouth" and can "speak" in something akin to Mott's voice.

While Mott is being replaced by Sea Bonnies, he is still aware of his surroundings, but comes across as a half-programed robot. He can no longer remember things for longer than a few minutes, and forgets what his family members look like when not looking at them. He can also only focus on one thought at a time, and wanders almost blindly through the middle of the night, only knowing that he has to talk to someone and tell them something.

"Together Forever"

Basic plot: Two high school girls (Jessica and Brittney) perform maintenance work on a springlock suit animatronic for a school project, studying the inner workings of it and writing programming code for it. Things take a turn when the animatronic is activated by mistake, and it pulls the girls inside its torso one by one, springtrapping each of them in turn.

Lore bits:

An explanation for how the springlock suit animatronics work. They have a collapsible endoskeleton inside, made of many small, interlocking pieces. A switch on the side of the animatronic can be toggled between animatronic-mode and suit-mode. When the switch is on suit-mode, the endoskeleton parts are pulled to the side and locked in place, allowing an adult's body to fit inside. When the switch is in animatronic-mode, the endoskeleton parts spring back into place.

Being inside the suit when the switch goes back to animatronic mode leads to the girls' bodies being ripped apart and shattered into fragments of pieces. Their faces remain intact, and their consciousness' become attached to the suit.

The suit is programmed to follow people based on the sound of a person's voice. Its default is to approach children's voices. The girls change this by mistake, and accidentally reprogram the animatronic to attack adults.

After dying, the girls are still attached to the animatronic, but have no control over it. The animatronic speaks with Jessica's voice, but Jessica isn’t the one talking. It’s unclear why the animatronic is able to speak in Jessica’s voice.

While not a recognizable animatronic, this springlock suit (Rosie Porkchop, a pig character dressed as a waitress) is implied to be from either Fazbear Entertainment or Afton Robotics. We later learn that she's an old model, that isn't in use anymore, and that the line she was a part of was discontinued due to how often they malfunctioned and injured the wearers.

By that token, this tells us that there were probably other springlock suit characters aside from Spring Bonnie and Fredbear.

Book 11

"Prankster" *

Basic plot: A video game developer (Jeremiah, who accidentally gets called "Jeremy" by strangers) is working with a team of beta testers on a VR game from Fazbear Entertainment. Things go awry when Jeremiah's teammates go missing, and a strange glitchy voice leads Jeremiah through a complex game of riddles and body parts to find them.

Lore bits:

Jeremiah is largely a programmer, and doesn't usually test out the game himself. He leaves early one day after listening to his two coworkers (a man named Parker and a woman named Hope) testing the game in the next room, during which they go strangely quiet for awhile, and then start giggling strangely. Jeremiah assumes they're canoodling, and doesn't investigate.

The next day is Jeremiah's birthday, and he is greeted at the office by birthday balloons, a cake that reads "Happy Birthday, Jeremy!," and no coworkers. A strange voice with a glitch to it starts taunting him over the loudspeakers, telling him that his coworkers are in danger, and he'll have to play a game to find them. The game turns into a strange set of riddles, maze-like directions, and his coworkers' body parts spread around the office, decorated like birthday gifts.

Jeremiah thinks the voice sounds like Parker changing his voice, and at first thinks it’s just his coworker/s playing a prank on him.

Speculation: It's implied that the voice belongs to Glitchtrap / the Anomaly, and he noticeably speaks similarly to how Funtime Freddy speaks in "Count the Ways," making up rhymes and cruel jokes and generally laughing at his victim's misery. Again, it's possible (and likely) that this is meant to be how William Afton speaks to his victims.

It's implied that Glitchtrap had possessed Jeremiah's coworkers the previous day (hence the silence, followed by giggling), and forced them to mutilate themselves.

While it's implied that the body parts Jeremiah keeps finding once belonged to his coworkers, it seems like there were other victims involved. He opens a box of fingers at once point, and there are too many fingers of varying sizes to have come from two people. At another point, he finds a box of teeth, and notes that there are both adult and children's teeth mixed together.

The voice eventually leads Jeremiah to a tape, which plays a message from Parker and Hope, telling him that they're going to set up a special prank for him for his birthday. Jeremiah hears a sound coming from a closet behind him, and it's implied that what's left of Parker might still be alive inside the closet.

Jeremiah bears many similarities to the ill-fated Jeremy from "FNAF: Help Wanted," but it's unclear if he's the same person or if he's just meant to remind the audience of Jeremy.

"Kids At Play"

Basic plot: A young man (Joel) hits a kid with his car in the middle of the night. Rather than tell anyone, and risk getting in trouble, he keeps quiet about the whole thing, even when the entire small town he lives in starts tearing up the countryside looking for this missing child. He's haunted by a plastic child-shaped traffic sign that holds a "Slow! Kids at play!" sign, until he is eventually possessed by an outside force and is forced to lead the police to where the missing child lays on the side of the road. Joel then goes missing himself, having been transformed into a traffic sign.

Lore bits:

These particular traffic signs are manufactured by Fazbear Entertainment, as part of a campaign against reckless driving. They also have miniature 'toy' versions, which show up in cereal boxes. Despite their benign nature, people who look at these signs tend to actively find them unsettling.

The first time Joel sees one of these signs, there's something in front of it that he assumes to be the carcass of an animal, but he doesn't want to look at it too closely. When Joel is turned into a sign at the end of the story, parts of his own body land in front of him, and are similarly mistaken for a dead animal. This implies that this has happened before, and that some of these signs used to be people.

It's implied that Eleanor is the one following Joel, and that she's the one mutilating him while he's being turned into a sign.

Speculation: If Joel and his father are meant to parallel Michael and William Afton, as it's suggested they are, then it's likely that William plays the guitar and taught Michael how to play as well.

"Find Player 2"

Basic plot: Two girls (Amy and Mary-Jo) are playing hide-and-seek in an elaborate game maze at Freddy's pizzeria, when they get startled by a creepy man watching them. Scared of the strange man, Amy leaves the game without saying a word to her friend. Mary-Jo is reported missing the following day, and the strange man is seen on the news days later, having been caught trying to kidnap another little girl. Now an adult, Amy is convinced that the strange man did something awful to her childhood friend, and she returns to her hometown, hoping to confront him and get some answers. In two ironic twists, she learns that the strange man was innocent, and was just looking for his daughter amid the crowd of children, and that she herself locked Mary-Jo in a hidden compartment by mistake, leading to her friend dying of starvation and dehydration.

Lore bits:

This Freddy's has an elaborate "Hiding Maze," which is a set of play structure tunnels and vents that run through the walls of the pizzeria. There are cubbies in the tunnels, giving the kids spaces to hide in. The tunnels are decorated to resemble a fairy forest, with the main entrance into the maze decorated by a painted rainbow arching over the doorway.

The strange man (Emmett Tucker) is described as being tall and thin, with crooked teeth and greasy hair, and a creepy smile. His description sounds similar to the appearance of Dave Miller / William Afton in the graphic novel versions of the original novel trilogy.

When Amy confronts him as an adult, he tells her that the girl he was caught “kidnapping” was his own daughter, who he didn't have custody of, but that he never touched any other children. We also learn that he was the suspect in a series of missing children in the area, and even went to jail for it, but he professes his innocence of the whole thing. 

Speculation: In FNAF1, we're told that a suspect was arrested for the kidnappings, but that his innocence was later proven. It's possible that Emmett Tucker is meant to represent that suspect.

Speculation: In “the Silver Eyes,” it’s implied that Henry is blamed for William’s crimes, mistaken for being the killer due to evidence pointing to him. It’s possible Emmett Tucker could be a stand-in of some sort for Henry.

We're also told the Freddy's where Amy and Mary-Jo played their hide-and-seek game actually closed under mysterious circumstances during the week following Mary-Jo's disappearance. Amy doesn't know why.

the Epilogues / "the Stitchwraith Stingers"

Storyline and Lore bits:

- A scientist named Dr. Phineas Taggert collects haunted objects that he buys off the internet, so he can study the Agony they carry. Among his purchases are a robotic endoskeleton from Fazbear's, the animatronic dog Fetch, and the haunted doll from Jake's home. Taggert attaches the doll's face and Fetch's battery pack to the endoskeleton, fusing the three haunted objects together, and giving them the ability to move around. This fusion creation becomes the monster called "the Stitchwraith," and promptly kills Taggert seemingly by mistake. - Taggert buys haunted objects so he can study the Agony they carry. He doesn't feel emotions the same way most people do, and is fascinated by how the emotions of a dead person could be so strong that they linger after the person dies, becoming Agony and bringing life to inanimate objects for centuries after their departure. - Other haunted items in Taggert's collection include pieces of the Fazbear's animatronics, paper party plates, and even Eleanor herself. Taggert has also been trying to no avail to find and purchase the haunted Ella doll (Charlie's doll). It also seems that Taggert's workshop is what used to be Sergio's home/warehouse from "Sergio's Lucky Day," as the buildings are described in similar ways and seem to be located in the same area. - It's implied that Taggert was once friends/colleagues with Dr. Talbert, another scientist that studies hauntings. Unlike Taggert, who focuses on collecting and studying Agony, Talbert pursues the study of Remnant. - The Stitchwraith contains at least two known spirits: Jake, the little boy who died in "The Real Jake" and became attached to the doll Simon, and Andrew, who seems to be one of William Afton's murder victims who then attached himself to Afton with the intention of causing the man pain in retaliation (as seen in "The Man in Room 1280"). The two boys become friends, but also have very different personalities and are often at odds with each other. They also don't know who or what is haunting the endoskeleton they're attached to, and have limited control over it. - As a spirit, Jake has the ability to sense when a person is lying to him. Andrew and Eleanor both seem to sidestep this ability of his by twisting the truth, or telling him half-truths. - Jake also has the ability to see into another person's memories, and can force them to either focus on good memories or bad memories, trapping the person in a state of joy or a state of fear and pain, depending on his decision. He calls these mental traps of his "Happiest Day" and "Worst Day," since those are the kind of memories he searches for in a person's mind. Eleanor is the only person he ever traps in their "Worst Day." - Jake considers the prospect of passing on into the afterlife as what will be his own "Happiest Day," and looks forward to reuniting with his father. But he refuses to pass on, at first because he doesn't want to leave Andrew alone, and later because he realizes he's the only one who can fix all of the badness that Eleanor and Afton have left in their wakes. - Who or whatever the unknown third party is that's part of the Stitchwraith (possibly William Afton???), it causes the shared robotic body to seek out victims, killing them by touching them and absorbing their life force. The Stitchwraith's victims are left as empty husks, leaking black "tear streaks" of Agony from their eyes. - Jake and Andrew talk, and Andrew says that he thinks his anger and pain are so strong that he may have infected several items in a Fazbear's warehouse, turning the toys and robots into violent killing machines. Since Jake doesn't want to see anyone else get hurt, he uses their shared Stitchwraith body to walk around the city, collecting all the items that Andrew has infected, and bringing them back to Taggert's lab for safe disposal. - When the bodies of the Stitchwraith's victims begin to pile up, police detective Everette Larson is given the task of identifying and locating a monster, even though he believes it to be nothing more than an urban legend. His mind starts to change after listening to what Margie (Jake's former caretaker) has to say, and seeing the aftermath of Sarah's death in "To Be Beautiful." - Larson realizes that the Stitchwraith isn't a human serial killer, like most of the police department have been assuming, and isn't just an urban legend, but is rather some sort of robotic creature. Following the trail of parts making up the Stitchwraith, he realizes that the endoskeleton and battery fueling it are both from Freddy Fazbear's. He does some digging into the history of Fazbear's, and gets the feeling that he could use some old items from the evidence locker to stop the Stitchwraith. - An old cold case that Det. Larson grows interested in is called "the Freddy Murders." We the audience know it as the game, "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator." The case centers around a Fazbear's building that mysteriously burned down, destroying almost everything inside. The remains of at least two human bodies were found in the wreckage. Evidence suggests that one of the original founders of Fazbear's set the fire himself, presumably with the intention of killing whoever was in the building. - Despite taking place after FFPS, we see both William Afton and Charlie/the Puppet return in these epilogues, along with a new iteration of Circus Baby. This makes sense, as in one of the books "The Freddy Files," Scott says that Henry was the one who burned the Pizzeria Simulator, but that it didn't really end things or release anyone's spirits the way he thought it would. - Following a tip, Larson pursues the Stitchwraith to the vacant building that used to be Dr. Taggert's workshop. The Stitchwraith is inside, using a trash compactor to dispose of various haunted items and animatronics. Larson attacks the Stitchwraith, and Jake forcibly takes control of the Stitchwraith body, trying to keep from harming the detective. The Stitchwraith ends up in the trash compactor itself, at which point William Afton's spirit passes into the ever-growing pile of Agony-enfused trash. Afton's spirit brings the pile of trash to life, forming it into a 15-ft (4 1/2 meters) tall rabbit. Eleanor, who has just been playing dead in a corner of Taggert's workshop for awhile, also wakes up at this point, and runs to join Afton. - The Stitchwraith becomes momentarily fused with the trash rabbit (the Afton Amalgamation), but is detached and thrown across the room by Afton. When Jake climbs back to his feet, he realizes that he's the only spirit in the Stitchwraith now, and doesn't know what happened to Andrew. - Afton attacks Larson, picking the detective up and throwing him into walls, then jumping on top of him and stabbing him in the stomach. Larson manages to get away, even with a gaping wound, and runs to his car. Inside his car, he is greeted by faint children's voices and screaming coming from the items he got from the evidence locker. The one screaming the loudest is the faceplate of the Puppet/Marionette, which is apparently evidence from a case called "the Freddy Murders." - The Afton Amalgamation and Eleanor escape the warehouse together, and start looking for more victims. When they start to head toward a nearby neighborhood, Larson moves to head them off. He commandeers a forklift and attacks the Afton Amalgamation straight on, stabbing it with the front of the vehicle in much the same way Afton stabbed him. The Puppet's faceplate suddenly grows several striped tendril-like limbs and it launches itself into the air, latching itself onto Afton and attacking him directly. - The Puppet's attack is initially staved off by Eleanor, but then Eleanor abruptly leaves, abandoning Afton to his fate. Afton stares after Eleanor in betrayal, and, for a moment, resembles something akin to a sad, fragile old man. - No longer stymied by Eleanor, the Puppet begins to tear Afton's new body apart. The two of them end up in a nearby lake, where they sink to the bottom, becoming a layer of trash at the bottom of the water. Larson watches all this from his seat on the forklift, confused and horrified. Jake/The Stitchwraith, who had been hiding during the fight, then approaches Larson to inspect his stab wound, which he cauterizes before it can become more infected. - A few weeks after the battle between himself and four animatronics (Afton, the Stitchwraith, the Puppet, and Eleanor), Larson begins having hallucinations of a ballpit. Now making the assumption that someone or something is haunting him, Larson decides to track down the ball pit he keeps seeing, and begins visiting places that have ball pits. He finds the one he's looking for after a few days, in the building that used to be "Jeff's Pizza" (from "Into the Pit"), and is surprised that his hallucination brought him to a real place. - Det. Larson recognizes that many of the balls in the ball pit have dried blood on them. More likely, he's seeing traces of Eleanor's collection of Agony, but, since Agony looks like blackened blood, and because his job is mostly investigating recent deaths, he assumes it's blood. - Larson tries to find the owner of the "Jeff's Pizza" building, but struggles because of how long and complicated the trail of ownership is. He also does some digging on Eleanor, and learns that she reappears and kills someone once every two years. Coincidentally, he learns that the "Jeff's Pizza" building is currently owned by a Dr. Talbert, and that Dr. Talbert is the leading researcher on Remnant and has previously written about Eleanor's existance and attacks. - Eleanor seeks out help from Stitchwraith Jake, posing as a homeless girl he'd been helping. She tells him that she's Renelle, and that she's looking for her father, Dr. Talbert, and could use his help. Since Jake is very naive and is a very kind person, he agrees to help her look for Talbert. - Since Jake can sense when people are lying to him, Eleanor speaks to him in half-truths. Renelle Talbert is a real person, who really is the daughter of Dr. Talbert. Since the name "Renelle" almost sounds like the name "Eleanor" backwards, most of what Eleanor says to Jake rings mostly true, and he doesn't question it too deeply. Eleanor then garners sympathy from him by telling him about her childhood and her relationship with her father, saying that her mother died when she was young, and that her father became absorbed with his work, and that she left home after she and her father got into a fight. Since none of this ends up being the backstory of the real Renelle, and because Jake doesn't register any of this as a lie, it's likely that Eleanor is telling him her own backstory. - It doesn't take long for Jake and Eleanor to get to Dr. Talbert's home. But they are surprised to see Larson there as well, the detective looking to speak with Talbert about them. Eleanor gets into a fight with Larson, knocking him unconscious and sending him on a trip back in time. - Dr. Talbert comes out to greet them then, and Eleanor makes it look like the Stitchwraith attacked and hurt her. Alarmed that "his daughter" is dying from grievous wounds, Dr. Talbert gets his supply of Remnant, prepared to inject all of it into her to save her. Physical contact with the Remnant changes Eleanor's appearance, making her look like some sort of monster with gray skin, gaping eyes, and unhinged jaw, fangs, and long, black tendrils of Agony to grow to snake all over the house. - Eleanor's spirit separated from her body, and she and Larson fight each other on the astral place, time traveling all the while. Larson realizes that Eleanor is responsible for most of the badness that happens throughout this book series. - Throughout the astral / time-traveling battle between Larson and Eleanor, Larson keeps finding Eleanor asleep inside things. Inside boxes. Inside an old trunk. Inside the storage hatch of an old car. Every time, it gives off the image of a dead person jumping up from their own coffin. - Not one to be left out, Jake begins fighting with Eleanor's physical body, even when it's juiced up on Agony and Remnant and evolved to Eleanor's Final Form. The battle ends when Jake manages to worm into Eleanor's mind, trapping her in her own memories of her "Worst Day." Jake then forcibly takes Eleanor's spirit into the Stitchwraith body, trapping her with him. - Jake goes to the ballpit, where Eleanor has been apparently staying between her biannual kills. He then combines his "Happiest Day" ability with Eleanor's apparent time traveling ability, allowing him to go back in time and save all of her victims from their fates, seemingly reversing the outcomes of every story in this book series. - Dr. Talbert thanks Det. Larson for helping stop the clown doll that was masquerading as his daughter. He gifts Larson a girl's necklace with a heart-shaped locket made of Remnant for his troubles. The necklace used to be the one that Eleanor wore, but it's different now without her malicious spirit attached to it. Larson can tell the necklace is haunted by a happy, peaceful soul, but doesn't know who the spirit is.

Book 12

"Felix the Shark"

Basic plot: A man (Dirk) who went to Freddy Fazbear's as a kid starts having recurring dreams about an animatronic shark he saw there. He mentions the dreams and memories of the animatronic to his friends, four other adults who also went to Freddy's as kids, but none of them ever saw the shark character, leading Dirk to realize that he went to a special Freddy's location with unique animatronics. Dirk sets out on a quest to find where this special location with a special animatronic was. He finds it, only to learn that the Freddy's building was literally buried underground, hidden below a new attraction, and to find it he has to follow cryptic puzzles from a children's book and messages he receives in strange dreams he keeps having. He finally finds the building and the special shark animatronic, only to become trapped inside the shark's tank, where he eventually drowns.

Lore bits:

Most Freddy Fazbear buildings have the same animatronic characters, but occasionally one will have specialty animatronic characters, like the titular Felix the Shark, who is a prominent feature of one particular Freddy's franchise building but doesn't exist in any other part of the brand. The means that some of the more unusually characters across the franchise, such as the Puppet or the Mediocre Melodies, may only exist at one building, and aren't found across all Freddy's restaurants.

One of Dirk's friends is a conspiracy theorist, who comments that the robotic engineer/s at Freddy's made really advanced robotics, far ahead of their time. He goes on to speculate that the engineer could have had an underground laboratory where he ran experiments and developed more advanced mechanical creatures, going as far as to ask about the possibility of an "android army" coming out of this unknown man's underground lab. This character's speculations are treated as jokes by the narrative, possibly teasing the theorist community in the fandom, but all of his speculations are aspects of unvarnished canon.

Despite all the emphasis put on Felix, he ends up being nothing more than a robot that can only follow its core programming. Felix isn't haunted or intelligent, it seems, and is only able to swim around in its tank.

Felix is a special animatronic that was built to commemorate the building manager's dead son. He's trapped in an old Freddy's building that has been buried underground, hidden below a larger attraction. That big attraction above it is themed around a (in-universe) real-life criminal and murderer, with the attraction (a waterpark) transforming their real-world horrific past into a "fun for the whole family!" resort. While we don't know that Felix is haunted or intelligent or anything like that (the story actually implies that he's not), we see that he's able to connect to people, and can communicate through people's dreams, as he talks to Dirk while Dirk has dreams in his sleep, begging Dirk to come find him and promising happiness and friendship in return. This seems to mirror the story of the Mimic in some ways, and can be seen as a parallel to the story we get in the later portions of the FNAF franchise.

"The Scoop"

Basic plot: A high schooler (Mandy Mason) plays the FNAF games and is involved with the theorist community online, and gets very excited when she finds something unusual in the FNAF3 game files, which turns out to be a photo of a real building. Figuring out what the building is and what connection it has to a video game ends up reopening a cold case about a missing child at a restaurant with an animatronic bear. The ghost of the missing boy haunts Mandy every step of the way, pushing her to find his body so he can pass on.

Lore bits:

In this story, FNAF is treated as a fictional franchise. Mandy plays the games, which sound similar to the version of the games we're familiar with, but with some differences.

A dead child haunts Mandy through a video game, showing her images of his final resting place and urging her to let people know his body's whereabouts. This child died by accident, and isn't associated with Fazbear's at all, and isn't even attached to the FNAF game he communicates with Mandy through. Instead, he's attached to Mandy directly, drawn to her sense of loneliness.

Speculation: The way the ghost boy communicates with Mandy through her dreams is reminiscent of the way Balloon Boy's voice is used as a luring mechanism in FNAF3. It's implied that he does that on purpose, to put her in a situation she's already familiar with.

"You're The Band" *

Basic plot: A woman (Sylvia) bought a Freddy Fazbear mask on ebay for her Freddy's-obsessed son (Timmy), but the mask turns out to be the stolen head of the animatronic Freddy Fazbear himself. When Timmy puts the "mask" on, he becomes possessed by the spirit of the dead child inside Freddy. This attracts the attention of two very different entities -- the nightguard Mike Schmidt and an unnamed spirit, both of whom are very interested in exorcising Timmy and returning Freddy's head.

Lore bits:

The spirit of the child who usually possesses Freddy ends up possessing Timmy's body for a week. During this time, the child (who is unnamed in the story) expresses a constant need to protect themself, and routinely offers up information and details about their own murder.

The unnamed spirit that starts stalking Timmy is described as being tall and thin, with "beady eyes" as the only feature on its silhouette. The spirit slithers up walls and hides in the house vents during the day, but comes out to talk to Timmy/Freddy's spirit during the night. Eventually, the spirit convinces Timmy/Freddy's spirit to return to the Freddy's building with it, so Mike can return Freddy's spirit to the Freddy animatronic.

Despite their cooperative actions, Mike admits he doesn't know who or what the unnamed spirit is. He thinks it's helpful, and doesn't view it as a threat, but doesn't seem to recognize it.

Speculation: It's possible that the unnamed spirit is Jake/the Stitchwraith. I say this because we know Jake can take on different forms, and because we know his goal was to connect with and rescue Fazbear's various victims.

The security guard introduces himself as Mike Schmidt, and says he works at Freddy's. The Freddy's he takes Sylvia to is old and run down, and hasn't been open in 30 years. This building seems to resemble the FNAF1 location. Mike is intimately familiar with the animatronics Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica, and the dead spirits that possess them, but isn't familiar with the Puppet at all.

Unlike Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica, the Puppet doesn't behave like an animatronic. It floats through the air, moves like a living thing, can change the length and amounts of its own body parts, and can even manipulate the building its in. Overall, the Puppet behaves more like a fully-realized ghost than a haunted animatronic.

Mike is described as being young, with Sylvia thinking he looks like a college student. He's a bad liar, and is socially awkward. He seems very familiar with the Fazbear's franchise, its sordid past, the animatronics, the ghosts, and how to handle unwanted ghostly possessions.

It's stressed over and over again that Sylvia thinks about whether Mike does or does not "look like a serial killer." Since Mike Afton is described as looking like his father, a serial killer, this could be taken as implying Mike Schmidt and Mike Afton are the same person.

We're never told who broke into Freddy's and stole Freddy's head.

|| Please note that the stories in Book 12 were scrapped, and aren’t considered canon to the book series as a whole. As such, any lore bits gleaned from them may be considered less useful than others. ||

[nitw]

Can you explain what you mean with misinterpreting Chara? I've always been confused about that character and you seem to have a pretty solid read you alluded to in that post about Snowgrave.

of course!!! as your local chara defender since the ripe age of 13 i hope you don't mind me doing a small essay on this. please bear with me tho because i sometimes can't articulate my thoughts well on stories that deal with philosophical themes ;;

UHHH SPOILERS FOR UNDERTALE AND DELTARUNE CHAPTER 2 BELOW

first let me make a few things clear so i don't have to repeat myself a bunch:

only tobias radiation fox himself has The Word of God privilege when it comes to things that haven't been explicitly confirmed in the games yet, EVEN if they're strongly hinted at. don't take anything i say about the plot as more than firm personal interpretation based on the info we have right now!

i cannot stress this one enough: undertale is a game that was never meant to be experienced from a singular perspective/mindset. the genocide route doesn't JUST exist for the sake of "enjoy your personalized edgy fuck-you run for being a serial killer in a video game", every one of the total 93 endings (look it up) in this game exists to reflect the player who achieved it in one way or another. the genocide route is really no different from any of the others, because in the end, no matter what, the player who decided to go through with the things they did will ALWAYS be rewarded for it. the question the player will have to ask THEMSELF afterwards is "is this what i wanted?"

OK MOVING ON-

let's think back to the little but vital amount of info we have on who chara actually was, like, as a person. we know pretty much all of this due to 1) the tapes in the royal lab 2) asriel's additional dialogue at the end of true pacifist.

while we'll never really know why frisk fell into the underground, asriel tells us explicitly about chara's hatred for humanity, and how they jumped from mt. ebott for "not a very happy reason"; supposedly a suicide attempt. chara "never talked about why", it's left intentionally vague because their reasoning isn't really what matters. what DOES matter is how this is relevant to the genocide run, ESPECIALLY with the new obvious parallels in deltarune's snowgrave route. i'll get to that.

when you finish the genocide route, chara will talk directly to the player in person. they talk about your (you AND chara's) success, despite "their plan (having) failed". this "plan" is one they secretly made with asriel when they were both still alive, as revealed from the tapes. chara got terminally poisoned from eating buttercups (whether this was fully intentional or not is still kiiinda up for debate), and while on their deathbed, asriel says that he doesn't like the plan anymore. yet despite his fear, he still fused his soul to chara's when they died.

the actual plan here was to become a monster powerful enough to slaughter humanity, specifically chara's home village by their own dying request - this all ties into their mysterious spite and hatred mentioned before. but due to asriel's resistance against chara, their fused body was killed by the humans - which eventually led to the creation of flowey, and asriel's inner demons after death.

but back to the genocide route. during chara's monologue to the player, they give us a LOT of important exposition. basically:

at the very start of the game, frisk's own determination is literally what brought chara's soul 'back to life'. we know how human and monster souls are different and how "determination" in this universe is something only humans possess, so it makes sense why it awakened them. i won't get into the whole narrator theory because i feel like it's not that relevant to my point (it's fun tho), but chara is always present from the moment frisk falls down, and stays regardless of the player's actions.

if you managed to finish undertale at all you'll already kinda know this (thanks sans), but the EXP and LV you (can) gain throughout your journey aren't just numbers on your screen - they're genuine in-universe manifestations of power that increase when you kill someone. and in genocide, chara explains how they were directly affected every time your stats rose. they could FEEL their spirit growing stronger for every life you decided to take (REMINDER THAT THE GENOCIDE ROUTE CAN BE PERMANENTLY STOPPED AT ANY POINT BEFORE SANS. YOU DID THIS.), so is it really that strange that they felt the desire to grow even stronger?

and once you do reach this point, there's no return. all that excessive time and effort you put into killing off a civilization OBVIOUSLY has some consequences. the consequences HERE being - if you paid attention to chara's life story - you took advantage of a traumatized child who was already at the breaking point and making irrational choices on their own, and you led them to believe that this was what they needed!

this is VERY MUCH SUPPORTED by the snowgrave/weird/pipis/whatever route of deltarune chapter 2 that was discovered about 2 days ago as i'm writing this. i'm gonna go ahead and assume you know what happens in it and i don't care to go into details if you don't, since this post is about chara, but surprise: THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO NOELLE, TOO! even in a completely normal run, noelle makes it clear multiple times that she wouldn't mind staying in the dark world; that in spite of how scary and dangerous it seems at times (something something horror movies), she started to feel at home. POSSIBLY even more so than her ACTUAL HOME, with her dying dad and negligent mom. like chara, noelle is a young person with low self esteem and her fair share of trauma, even if it's not as apparent. and like in the genocide run, the player's desire to ruthlessly kill in order to grow stronger affected her already-poor mental state.

someone else already pointed this out specifically, so don't credit me for it, but the main difference between chara and noelle is that noelle managed to break free in the end.

if you're like Most People Who Played The Genocide Route Back In Like 2016 and you played the genocide route with no further knowledge about it than "i have to follow these specific steps to get a harder fucked up version of the game", i don't blame you. you didn't actually know what you were doing in the end, did you? but did the outcome disappoint you, make sense to you, or did it just leave you with an empty/confused feeling? i love undertale because it WILL force you to think about things like that. i mean, if the result wasn't gonna affect you in SOME way, why would you go through all of that trouble in the first place? you had your reasons, as the player of any video game where you know your choices matter. would you have carried out the entire thing if you knew what was coming? the answer to that is only relevant to yourself.