#in particular the last two animatronics to be there and the first and last

[monty-glasses-roxy]

I actually love the little collection of animatronics that previously and currently live in what's now the Raceway and Salon. There's not a single boring dynamic between any of them they're all so different yet similar I love them

[azhuur]

What's FNAF?

Five Nights at Freddy's is a video game series and media franchise created by Scott Cawthon. The first video game was released on August 8, 2014, and the resultant series has since gained worldwide popularity. The player controls Mike Schmidt/Micheal Afton, a night security guard for the family pizza restaurant Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The player must complete their shift that lasts from midnight to 6:00 a.m. without being caught by the homicidal animatronic characters that wander the pizzeria at night. Five Nights at Freddy's tells the story of a serial killer, William Afton, and his degenerate family, who prowled through a chain of family pizza restaurant in the 1980s. William's original motive for killing the kids was because of his jealousy toward Henry. In the books, there were indications that William was spiteful of Henry (like the diaries he wrote in, explained in TSE). Seeing that Henry could bring life into creations. The main series consists of now 11 (fnaf 1, fnaf 2, fnaf 3, fnaf 4, etc) video games taking place in locations connected to a fictional family pizza restaurant franchise named "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza", after its mascot, the animatronic bear Freddy Fazbear. In most games, the player assumes the role of a night-time employee, who must utilize tools such as security cameras, lights, doors, and vents to defend themselves against animatronic characters who inhabit the locations and become mobile and hostile at night. The series' lore is gradually revealed through voice recordings, minigames, and Easter eggs featured throughout the games. The Five Nights at Freddy's series consists of horror-themed video games in which the player is usually a night-time employee at a location connected with Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, a fictional children's restaurant that takes inspiration from family pizza chains like Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza Place. The restaurant has life-size animatronic characters resembling anthropomorphic animals that perform on a show stage, usually for children's parties. The animatronics wander the restaurant at night, and the guard is instructed to watch over them. To progress through the games, the player must guard themselves against animatronics with a variety of tools. The original stated explanation for the animatronics' mobility is to prevent their servomotors from locking up due to lack of use, and their homicidal behaviors are caused by their mistaking humans for animatronic endoskeletons, whom they will force inside character suits, killing them in the process. From the third game forward, however, it is retroactively established that the animatronics are actually possessed by spirits of children murdered by restaurant cofounder and overarching franchise antagonist William Afton, who stuffed the bodies inside the animatronics, then accidentally killed himself when he disguised himself in an animatronic suit and activated its spring-locks. This backstory is hinted at through a secret in the first game, where a hidden news article explains that the restaurant's reputation was damaged when blood, mucus, and foul odors began to leak from the animatronics' eyes and mouths.

In Five Nights at Freddy's, the player can control the two security doors connecting their office to the adjacent hallways as a barrier against animatronics in the vicinity. Each night, the player has a power supply that depletes faster when a tool is used. If the power goes out, the player can no longer use any tools and is defenseless against the animatronics unless a shift ends before main animatronic Freddy Fazbear can attack. Five Nights at Freddy's 2 has different tools; there are no protective doors, and the player must instead use an empty animatronic head and flashlight to defend themself against the animatronics. The game introduced a music box which must be remotely wound up on a regular basis to prevent an attack from a particular animatronic. Eight-bit mini-games were introduced, which are played randomly after death and give cryptic clues into the lore.

Five Nights at Freddy's 3 uses a monitor panel, which contains audio, camera, and ventilation. The player must keep certain systems from malfunctioning. These malfunctions can be triggered randomly or by the hallucinations of the animatronics from the first and second games. The ability to seal vents is also added and must be used to prevent the sole tangible animatronic from entering the office. The player can use an audio-based function on the cameras, which triggers a childlike voice to lure Springtrap, the game's only physical animatronic possessed by William Afton's spirit, away from the office. The 8-bit minigames return and are playable after each night if the player completes side tasks such as clicking on a poster or inputting a code into a wall. If the player completes the minigames, they unlock a secret ending.

In Five Nights at Freddy's 4, the gameplay occurs in a bedroom setting, and instead of being a nighttime security guard, the player takes the role of a small child who experiences nightmarish visions of the animatronics due to fearing their real-life counterparts. The player also no longer has access to a camera system. The player has four areas in the bedroom to monitor: two hallway doors on both sides of the room, the closet directly in front of them, and the bed behind them. At the doors, the player must listen for animatronics' breathing, which can determine whether they are near.

If the player hears breathing at the side doors, they close the door and wait for the animatronics to walk away. If they open the doors too early, however, the animatronics jump scare the player. The player must also prevent small animatronics from accumulating on their bed, and prevent an animatronic from entering their closet. Five Nights at Freddy's 4 also introduces a minigame involving a new animatronic, which offers the player a two-hour skip in the next night for completing the minigame.

An elevated control pad is introduced for Sister Location, which can light a room or shock the animatronics. Other mechanics include a second control pad in a breaker room, which controls power to the facility and a flash beacon, which allows the player to see in the dark Funtime Auditorium (a party room) and avoid its animatronic. Sister Location is the only game where the player can move between rooms.

Pizzeria Simulator has business-style gameplay, and the player must spend in-game money to buy features for their pizzeria.[28] A series of minigames can be played by testing the establishment's attractions.[28] After the player has completed this portion of the game, they complete tasks in a room and fend off hostile, previously salvaged animatronics. The gameplay of Pizzeria Simulator shares a number of elements with Five Nights at Freddy's 3, including the importance of ventilation and the ability to distract animatronics with sound.

Ultimate Custom Night is a customizable night, in which fifty animatronics are present and have a maximum AI level of twenty. The game includes many mechanics from the previous games, such as the heater, fan, music box, and power generator. The player can choose which characters they want active for a night, and how active the characters will be.

Help Wanted combines the gameplay of every other game, and turns into a virtual experience for the player. It also introduces several other minigames, in which the gameplay is variant, and also at times has free-roam. Special Delivery features location-based augmented reality gameplay. The player can switch on their camera, and the footage itself is the game's background. The animatronics will try to attack corresponding to the environment. The animatronics generally have cloaking, which leads them to being invisible.

Security Breach holds the open-world aspect to this title allows players to experience a new level of immersion, similar to that of Five Night's at Freddy's 4. Players will also have access to a nifty tool called the Faz-Watch, which allows them to view maps, read messages picked up from random areas on the map, check security cameras for nearby danger, and look at their current objectives. It incorporates Freddy as a helpful companion throughout the game, though he has limited power and must be charged at stations through the map. Players can distract hostile animatronics by knocking things over to get their attention, while they can crouch and hide in various structures to evade them as they follow you throughout the map. Unlike other Five Nights games there are limited save points and there is only a single save station after 6 a.m. The Five Nights at Freddy's series mostly revolves around a chain of family restaurants under the ownership of Fazbear Entertainment, a company founded by Henry Emily and William Afton, an engineer that created a series of animatronic mascots for the company: Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. Additional animatronics that were created include the Marionette, Golden Freddy, and Circus Baby, which was the mascot of the restaurant's sister location, Circus Baby's Pizza World. William was also a negligent father and child murderer, who would take his victims bodies and hide them inside of his animatronic creations, where their souls would inhabit the animatronics; he also specifically designed Circus Baby to be capable of murdering children, which led to the accidental death of his own daughter, Elizabeth (leading to the shutdown of Circus Baby's Pizza World). Afton's direct murder victims started with his co-worker Henry's daughter Charlie, and would expand to include children visiting the restaurants with their families. Alongside this, a child (nicknamed the "Crying Child") was continuously bullied by his older brother, making him develop a fear of the animatronics. Eventually, the older brother and his friends forcibly shove him inside of Fredbear's mouth, where his head is unintentionally crushed. At an unspecified point in the series timeline, William's son Michael investigates Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental, the underground facility where Circus Baby is kept, only to be forcibly "scooped" by Baby, who has combined with other animatronics to form Ennard, using Michael's body as a host. Eventually, however, Michael's body rots, and Ennard is forced to eject itself out.

A while after the death of his victims, William is confronted by the ghosts of the children he murdered. In an effort to try and hide from the ghosts, he seeks refuge inside of an old yellow rabbit animatronic, Spring Bonnie. While inside the suit, the springlock mechanisms inside fail and snap shut, crushing Afton to death as his soul inhabits the animatronic, becoming Springtrap. Eventually, the restaurant chain shuts down. Thirty years later, a horror attraction based on the restaurant chain known as Fazbear's Fright is constructed and Springtrap is unearthed for it. Before opening to the public, however, a fire destroys the attraction, which frees the souls of most of Afton's victims and destroys the original mascots, though Springtrap manages to escape. Some time after the fire, Henry lures Springtrap (now Scraptrap) and all animatronics that weren't destroyed, including the Marionette, Ennard (now Molten Freddy), and the now-rebuilt Baby (Scrap Baby), in Fazbear's Fright into one single pizzeria. After all of them are in one location, he sets fire to it, destroying all animatronics inside, freeing all the souls of the children. Afton, meanwhile, is trapped in eternal hell by the spirit of Cassidy, one of the children he murdered.

[fatteningmenstories]

At your service Part 7

Alex didn’t know what month it was let alone day, after he signed the contact time changed - he seemed to lose all control of it.  At first days seemed to be a blur as he continued his gluttonous lifestyle, once he had signed the contact Mr Gordo had  made no mention of when his final day was to be so, and Alex saw no need to bring it up, especially now that Adam had seemed to restore his meals back to their former status. The smell of bacon and pancakes returned to fill Alex’s mornings and lunch’s were piled on high with burgers and pizzas, not  to mention all the snacks stations restored to their previous fullness. To begin with Alex tried to slowly increase his portion size back to a ‘healthy’ balance after all once the gym was opened it was back to the cut, but despite his good intentions  and with the gym continued to maintain shut,  he found himself  fighting a losing battle to contain his gluttonous appetite. This wasn’t especially helped by his and Adam secret late night rendezvous where the machine made sure that his lover had tables full os  chocolatey desserts  ready to keep them fed as Adam explored their body

Alex had started out eating a decent halve of his previous diet, restraining himself from finishing the  copious plates of foods , but without any clear sign in the horizon of an end date this restriction barely held - it wasn’t long before the floodgates opened one extra dish turned to another, a second lunch turned into a third and then a forth. He was soon eating more than he was eating before his “diet” it was like his brain was accounting for the lost meals in his short lived fast. But Alex couldn’t help himself, he need to eat it was like an addiction to him, goaded on by Adam’s lustrous words - in their late night sessions.  Adam would encourager his organic lover to eat more and more and when Alex felt like he was about to burst Adam took over force feeding Alex the rest of whatever was laid in-front of him. Alex never viewed himself to so submissive but when Adam took charge he simply let them, towering over him Adam commanded respect and as their two bodies grew more and more in contrast Alex submitted more and more.

“Alex by dear boy’ 

Mr Gordo boomed as he bragged into the suite

“Its the big day - your gym is finally open’

Alex looked up from his plate of fried food, snapping out of his feeding loop. 

Mr Gordo chuckled to himself as he saw the fat boy quickly climb to his feet - using the table to lift his obese frame up, it was obvious the boy hadn’t been adhering to his diet plan, he was more rotund than ever, a couple of months sure he could have dropped  the weight and return tho his former glory but  now  asMr Gordo  saw  as Alex  try to composed himself wiping the crumbs of his mouth and fat folds - the boy was a last hope.

“Ah finally, about time I get this diet in action - huh’

“Yes right as rain once again boy - and  I’m sure you’ll be eager to see your new additions to your gym’

Alex was more than eager- finally it was time to shift these pesky pounds he thought as he trailed behind Mr Gordo milkshake in hand slurping up the remnants.

“Now boy I think you will happy with these changes won’t you’ My Gordo laughed eyeing up Alex’s protruding paunch  that entered doors before he did.

Alex was jaw-smacked for a spilt section, have the gym was filled with state of the art gym equipment - sleek and modern but this wasn’t what captured his attention the most. The other halve of the room had all its gym equipment torn out and instead replaced with rows of worldly food carts built into the wall. He quickly  lost all attention of the gym equipment as he waddled past them and went straight to the stalls. The moment he stepped across the barrier, the stall manned with robotic animatronic came  to life, the Chinese stand in particular started buzzing and churning until finally it produced a plate piled high with thick oily noodles coated in sweet and sour chicken

“What ….. how did it ….’

“Know exactly what you were hankering for - my boy, you can call it magic but I like to call it science’

As Alex reached out and grabbed the dish and plopped down on the extremely comfortable sofas - Mr Gordo went on..

“This sensors can detect whatever you want by the moment you enter this doors - think of it as a treat for entering the gym Alex’

“Not that you need one - right Mr Athlete ’

Alex nodded his head his mouth full of Chinese 

“Now I’ll leave you be - I think France is cooking up something over there’

Alex happily agreed turning his head to see  his fresh crepes being made

And so Alex’s cut commenced, sure he had some extra weight to his frame but with his gym back he would easily drop the pounds, and it was certainly time. He couldn’t keep the facade up much longer - his was definitely in dire need for the gym, he couldn’t remember the last time he could see feet as the mound of stomach blocked his view - everywhere he looked he found fat upon fat . And when he explored his growing body at night caressing  his hands over his thick thighs and feeing his moobs fat - he hated how turned on he got thinking about how Adam  touched  him there . This lifestyle was dangerous and it had to go - he couldn’t even recognise himself in the mirror, his face had softened out filled with chub from his triple chins and chubby cheeks. He looked like those fat fucks he used to see in the gym  struggling to hit a minute of cardio,, now that he was in their shoes he could easily see why. Being fat was tiring, waddling around the suite all day was hard work, not to forgot how lethargic he was now, he broke sweats trying to get out of bed and often need Unit to fully get him up, he was just so heavy especially with the gut of his.

But all this had to go and today was  where it started. Or so he thought, the moment he stepped though the gym doors determined to burn the fat  the sound of the robotic chefs whizzing about quickly broke the silence and it wasn’t long till the smell of fresh cooked food filled the gym luring him away from the equipment. Most days he could barley get a rep in with the smell taunting him and it was so easy to quit after all he had to do was waddle to the other side of the room.  Besides working out was just so tedious not to mention embarrassing as he felt squeezed into the already comically large weight machines, he just couldn’t righting to urge to stuff his face with the pain of working out. His  willpower  just wasn’t strong enough to continually  face the smell of fresh Belgian waffles, or crispy batter of fish and chips or  the fresh Italian  over grilled pizzas.

 His gym sessions may have started out with him struggling to lift various weights and gasping for breath on treadmills but they quickly morphed to him instead struggling to finish all the worldly treats  as he stomach continually was pushed to its limits  and  him gasping for breathe as he waddled back to the stalls for more food And it wasn’t long that he gave up altogether officially too weak to fight his stomach desire  called to be fed.

Alex quickily returned to his gluttony the cut was always delayed till the next day then the next week and then the next month, he was a man lost to his own hunger for food, he became an eating machine time passed freely months flew by and Alex paid them no attention as long as Unit filled his plate high and Adam made deep chocolaty love to him he was content.

The curve of his belly continued to grow as the months flashed pass, day by day the copious amounts of calories latched themselves to Alex wide frame, Alex couldn’t even fight back in fact he was happy to continue pigging out. He was engorged in his food he didn’t’  even notice or care how at dinners he demanded more and more, how machines soon acted like convey belts bringing him more and more food and  how his mobility was slowly eroding away as he piled his plate higher and higher. Alex payed little attention to how getting out of bed now always required the strong pull from Unit or how he now he head to squeeze through door ways where his fat filled out frames, or the fact his body was quickly outgrowing his suite. Once built for an athletic stud, furniture buckled under Alex’s bloated body, mirrors failed to to encompass his rotound frame, Vr head sets barely squeezed  unto his head and not  to mention the shower  could no longer  fit Alex in any way at all . Alex simply payed these no attention, simply grunting as he shoved his fat through doorways and  burping as he squished his doughy arse unto too  small chairs too pre-occupied by whatever food was laid out in front of him.

Mr Gordo of course was happy to help, surprising Alex every day with more and more changes - wider doorways, reinforced toilets and the biggest addition of all a people mover made just for Alex. To save the walk to the spas and dinner, although Mr Gordo had to admit the last addition was mainly for him  - their walks to dinner had become a tedious chore for him as Alex’s pace regressed to a snails pace constantly waddling behind him. It was oblivious all of Alex’s energy was now reserved for eating  dnd as they sat at dinner Mr Gordo couldn’t help but chuckle as he saw Alex ravenously stuff his face. 

Mr Gordo  had had the front row seat of Alex’s decent to gluttony and he marvelled to remember how the mountainous mound of fat infant of  him had the once been a  handsome muscular cocky young man, who now had long passed Mr Gordo’s own weight and was soaring past it. The boy had definitely  learned his lesson it had  only took a couple  hundreds of pounds of fat to him to squeeze it out of, and he reached over to butter his rolls the boy was oblivious to how he was weight his weight  in research, Alex’s appetite was  priceless to Mr Gordo and  he needed Alex fatter  and he needed it now.

Mr Gordo saw little need to mention to Alex how a year had passed since the amended contact the boy was happy what was the need to disturb that. And besides Mr Gordo even questioned with Alex could ever even return to pre-factory life, Alex had lost himself to his uncontraollable appetite and the boy dint even care. The once energetic jock was rolled out of him to make away for all the fat he had piled under his body, the boy was even losing his own basic mobility becoming a caricature of a fatty. And Mr Gordo was happy to aid, drawing up new amendments, a new suite with bigger frames once built to accommodate its obese inhabitants all designed around Mr Gordo’s breakthrough the People Mover. It was prefect Alex barely had to leave it all, he could sleep in it, be washed in it, eat in it - it was ingenius, sure Alex left it for small parts of the day but as Mr Gordo modified it those hours quickly shortened. And of course it was all worth it, just has he had hoped Alex was ballooning he was helpless to it, the more he used the fatter he got the fatter he got the harder it was to move making him use it even more.  Allowing Mr Gordo to pry off even more data now especially from a sedentary blob of fat, the people mover was built to contain up to 500lbs of fat and Mr Gordo wanted to make sure not a lbs was wasted.

But unbeknownst  to Mr Gordo design wasn’t immune to Adam’s ever growing inception, it wasn’t long till Adam was able to momentarily take over the people mover to get even closer to Alex and more importantly Alex’s fat.  Adam was growing smarter and smarter by the day and with it so did  its fascinating in Alex, when the two were alone Adam caressed, and stoked and kneaded every once of Alex - it was memorised by Alex’s organic blubbery  frame. Alex was its play thing and Adam couldn’t get enough 

Unfortunately for Alex, the danger of being  trapped between an inverters desire for research and profit to a robot  deep  fascination of  its lovers organic shape and roundness was unknown to him . But nor would it have had  much effect on him - he  was happy to eat and oblivious to the dangers his expansive body was leading him to 

To be continued in a 2 part finale

[ohno-the-sun]

I have lots of thoughts on how the animatronics minds work (especially Sun and Moon) and idk where to put this since it’s not fanfic worthy but I feel the need to put it all down somewhere

Sorta just a brain dump don’t mind me

(just some preface I have very little programming experience and while some of this alludes to real psychology, this is not scientifically accurate at all, just my headcannons)

Now first to establish how the AI work it’s essentially a learning system that compiles multiple directives and inputs to make a decision.

Basically there are multiple learning modules that each receive the same sensory input, but each module has a different directive that it codes for. For example pretty much every animatronic has a “safety” directive that prioritizes human safety and the Glamrocks have a “showtime” directive that helps them perform on stage. Each animatronic can have hundreds to thousands of directives running at any given point. Each directive essentially works by taking the sensory input given to it and spitting out a suggested “action” that should take place given its directive. These actions are then sent to the core processor where there the taken action is chosen. For example, if an animatronic sees a fallen child, an action suggested by the “showtime” directive would be to sing to the child, but a directive from the “safety” directive would be scanning for wounds. Both actions would be sent to the core processor, and based upon probability algorithms (where each action is assigned a probability of 0-100% of being chosen, based on a variety of factors), it would likely choose the safety protocol action. So like the singing option would be assigned a probability of 2% and the scan for wounds suggestion would be assigned a probability of 98%. (Staff consider the “choosing” of a particular action to be completely random, but to the animatronics it’s sorta their free will) This process happens multiple times every second, allowing for adaptability and additions to the behavior. Very basic robots, like the staff bots, only work on one or two directives, making them much less adaptable and sentient compared to the others. It should be noted that not all suggested actions are actual “physical” actions, some could be replaying a memory, changing the probability of another directive being chosen, or simply stating a fact/opinion that a particular directive emphasizes. For an example for the last one, the safety directive could point out “there is snow outside, it will be cold” which could lead to a change in probability for another directive, like the “proper attire” directive.

Now one thing about these directives is that each animatronic has differing levels of awareness of them. Awareness of directives manifests as sorta being able to hear one’s thoughts, like being aware of your own decision making process or hearing thoughts that you otherwise would not act on. Ranking the more complex animatronics in order of least to most aware of their directives we have, Monty, DJ, Chica, Freddy, Roxy, and the DCA (my beloved).

Starting with Monty, even though he’s the least aware of his directives, this doesn’t mean he’s the least sentient. Simply put, he’s a action man first think later kinda guy. He doesn’t like dwelling too long on thoughts or feelings that aren’t important to the present situation. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have them though. This ends up messing with his core processor probability mechanism, making him far more impulsive than any other animatronic. When he starts getting errant inputs from a virulent directive (cough cough the peepaw virus) this causes him to act out more violently. He also has a bit of an issue straight up ignoring thoughts that are “bad” to him, like anything to do with a certain rabbit animatronic. 

DJ simply vibes man. He has fewer directives compared to the other complex animatronics, mainly because he rarely directly interacts with humans and tends to stay in one place. This however makes him unstable when a new set of directives are put in place that entail security (the bouncer mode). But he’s overall less impulsive than Monty and is self aware of what directives are running at any given point. He rarely has any conflicts with any of the thoughts he receives, so he doesn’t dwell on them. He is the second most stable animatronic emotionally.

Chica is sorta similar to Monty in that she tends to avoid her thoughts and feelings. She’s a far more self aware of them, and purposely takes actions to avoid hearing them (ie overeating) but other than thoughts that depress her, she’s relatively in tune with them. She ends up being very extroverted as she becomes less aware of her directives when shes with others. This makes her seem kinda airheaded, but when she is alone she does tends to get more contemplative. However when a virus starts to isolate her and increase the number of directives/thoughts that upset her, she goes fully into her bad habits.

Freddy is probably the most stable out of all the animatronics (other than maybe DJ). Even before the virus started to effect everyone, Freddy was always the most dependable and strong. In terms of his headspace, this is mainly because he has a good balance of aware and unaware directives. As seen with those previous, having too little awareness of one’s directives can cause impulsiveness, and we will see later what over awareness can do. Even when Freddy has unwanted thoughts/directives, he is able to reason and process them in a healthy way. Some directives relating to Bonnie do mess with his processor though, but other than those, he is relatively stable.

Roxy tries to seem like she doesn’t care, or hear her own thoughts, but that is a fat lie. She has a lot of errant directives that greatly affect the probability calculations of her core processor. This mainly stems from a lot of her directives being related to her appearance, giving her a lot of input she can’t do anything directly about unless she calls staff. This has given her a lot of self image issues. She makes up for this by continually choosing the most “cool” options, even if it’s not the best action for the situation. This leads to her being pretty mean to the other animatronics, staff, and kids. She’s closest to Chica, as she’s the only one who also has a lot of appearance directives (ayo sexism?), but as mentioned before she has more methods to quiet those thoughts.

Last but not least the daycare attendant. The daycare attendant is unique in that it has two main “modes” Sun and Moon. Each mode has the same directives and core processor, but the probabilities of suggested actions being chosen are changed greatly between the two. For example, the probability of naptime and security directive actions being chosen are reduced greatly in Sun mode, and playtime and crafting directives are reduced in Moon mode. Meaning if the situation calls for it, the other mode can still access its counterparts directives, but in daily use the likelihood of those options being taken are so low they basically never happen. This was meant to be the only difference between the two modes, as with only one processor, there would essentially be only one animatronic in the body. But there was a bug that lead to the memories of the daycare attendant to be split. Now one thing to clarify, memories are considered sensory input, so they go directly to directive modules to aid in learning, but don’t necessarily need to pass through the main processor. However, the only way animatronics are able to consciously recall a memory is if a directive  suggests playing it to the main processor, and that can change its probability calculations. Now the bug Sun and Moon have prevents directives from replaying memories from their counterparts database, essentially preventing recall from an event that happens to them in the other mode. But, the individual directives still processed the memories as they happened regardless of mode (for psychology nerds Sun and Moon basically share implicit memories but don’t share explicit). Now if the daycare attendant were any other animatronic, they would probably be okay. Maybe have some memory issues but their directives are in sync so they would still be one animatronic, except both Sun and Moon are hyper aware of their individual thoughts/directives. Moon sometimes gets thoughts to yell and wake all the children he spent an hour trying to get to bed. Sun wakes up to suddenly have multiple thoughts about certain children needing punishment, except for Sun that child was fine for him. For both, the others memories and directives creates intrusive thoughts for the other, making it difficult to discern which thoughts and feelings belong to them, and which belong to the other. This made both start to develop distinct identities, to the point they consider the other a completely different AI (even though again, they only have one processor). Moon’s directives are far more dangerous compared to Sun’s so for him this has created massive anxiety and frustration. He is not only receiving thoughts and input that are not safe for when children are around, but he is also constantly second guessing himself, not knowing whether or not an action will cause unwanted harm. This makes Sun the incredibly nervous person we see. Moon in general is less scared of his counterpart’s interference, but the constant barrage of both his own and Sun’s thoughts is a lot to deal with. This leads to him being kind of a recluse and really quiet, earning the reputation as the plex cryptid from the other animatronics. He also has a major complex when it comes to comparing himself to Sun, being overly self deprecating and having a skewed viewpoint as to how Sun is like (since they don’t really ‘know’ each other very well). His overthinking is somewhat lessened when he becomes friends with Monty and forms a line of communication with Sun (essentially writing notes to each other constantly), but once Monty joins the main band and the virus starts affecting Moon, everything starts to go south. The virus is a directive, so technically it affects both Sun and Moon, however, the probability of “virus” directives being chosen is far higher for Moon than Sun (since it’s categorized as a security directive). Therefore we have both Sun constantly receiving these extremely distressing thoughts and Moon acting on these thoughts. Tldr, both Sun and Moon are extreme overthinkers who have intrusive thoughts, for Sun this causes anxiety, for Moon this causes depression.

Extra stuff:

Sun and Moon tend to get overwhelmed when they are in situations that activate their counterparts directives. For example darkness and conflict for Sun and bright lights and loud noises for Moon. This leads to them both avoiding these situations as often as possible (Sun being conflict avoidant and Moon preferring a nice dark quiet space to hide away in).

Staff are not sure what determines how aware an animatronic is of their own directives and write it off as a bug.

The virus very specifically targets instabilities in the animatronics programming, taking directives from the base processor and twisting them to be more violent and bad. Basically taking their worst personality traits and turning them against the animatronic. For example, for Moon it amplifies his negative thoughts about Sun, the other animatronics and himself, and suggests violent ways to deal with it. This is how they are able to amplify the probability of these violent actions from being chosen. 

[crazybookcat]

Heeeyy besties it’s been a while hasn’t it-

Ok lore dump time. Buckle in besties this gonna be a little sad. (TW; for a few general mentions of violence, I don’t describe it at all but it’s implied).

Cracks knuckles Ok so first things first! What would this behemoth actually do? Simple actually! He juggles. But he juggles some strange things, including people/animatronics. Specifically his two adoptive daughters; @enigmaticcattic and @omenofthevoid (Seren). Basically; he’d come out juggling the two of them, then after a short bout of the three of them preforming various acrobatic tricks BC would toss them both up to their arial hoops. While the two of them spin around up there the big man would go over to two hoops and using the blowtorch in the back of his throat would light them on fire. Then Seren and Eni would jump down to him and he’d fire them like two cat shaped missiles through the on fire hoops. He could also juggle chainsaws but I’m not sure where we’d fit them in 🤔

But how did these three meet? Wonderful question! They all met in a robot fighting ring. But of course BC’s little story starts long before that.

The big man himself was made to be the ultimate home security and care bot. He was created custom for an incredibly wealthy family and equipped with some.. interesting features. (Stares at the blowtorch). Anyways! The family consisted of two parents and three kids. Said kids were primarily cared for by BC. But let’s just say their parents weren’t the best people, and upon some bloody revelations the draconic bot ended up snapping both literally and figuratively.

Which ended in him getting sent back to the factory he was built in. Upon looking over his code and memories his creators decided to decommission and recall every robot from his model. But luckily or not while Bc was on his way to be taken apart the car with him in it got robbed. Which ended in the leader of this robot fighting ring acquiring BC, and after a short memory wipe the robot was willing to commit any atrocity in his owner’s name.

Seren and him met when she was sold to the ring’s owner. She was assigned to fixing up BC and a couple other bots every time they got a little too banged up from a fight. The jobs were mostly patchwork and done with haste, or before Seren came around done by BC himself. So you can see a lot of scratches on his body if you look closely enough. (I assume the Fazbear crew helped him fix up his damaged paint job before any shows).

Things went along the way they used to with the only bright spot in his days being Seren. Until one fateful night he was thrown into the ring with Eni, and the horrified look on her face lit a fire in his circuits. Memories thought to be long lost came bubbling up to the surface, creating a deadly concoction of emotions. Most prominently; rage.

So for the second time BC turned, defying his very code to see to it that no bot was ever hurt by this particular fighting ring again. After setting things ablaze BC yoinked Seren and Eni then proceeded to book it while carrying both of them like luggage under his arms.

(Side note: I imagine his interview went something like this;

Freddy: “So what are your talents? What makes you special?”

BC who just expected to be doing manual labor: Starts panic juggling chairs)

(Also cough, @laurzzz-again-lol leave it up to me to be one of the last submissions-)

[yourhispanicgoldenretriever]

BREAK FOR A DATE — A VIRIAN ONE SHOT (No clue if I’m gonna finish this but I wanted to post it because I never did.)

[ Modern AU, Located in Corona ]

It wasn’t that he regretted his decision. God no, he was off the walls that Violet even said yes. What he regretted was being completely disorganized; nothing particularly new with him, but the least he could do is have some idea of where he’s taking this girl on a date.

Two days; Varian had two days to come up with an idea he never had in the first place, just to lose track of the time. Some time management skills would really come in handy right now, but the only occasions where he’s made time for other things involved important business or maybe his own personal interests. It was rare that he had spare time like this, where he wasn’t showing off his work or helping out with some huge nationwide problem. This was a date. He’d be setting down his supplies, looking away from his work, going out, having fun. He’d realize this was a break! And while he kind of hated taking breaks, he didn’t hate Violet. But now he’d potentially disappoint her as well as himself.

He’d spent the last few days working on something for a party Rapunzel was throwing that weekend. A “just because” party, she says, it wasn’t for anything in particular. He got so caught up in his inspiration, he barely even realized the day of his date had come.

Now he only had mere hours, and not even enough to come up with something big or extravagant. Not that it needed to be, that was just the panic talking.

———

“You need date ideas!?” Large smiles were plastered on Eugene and Lance’s faces, as they repeated Varian’s request just after he made it. Varian blinked a couple of times.

“That would be nice, yes.” He clasped his hands together with a rather urgent smile, urging them to skip the excited theatrics and help him out. Time wasn’t entirely on his side right now.

“Wait…you planned a date but didn’t-“ Eugene started, a hand pressing to his chin in thought before Varian started waving his hands in the air.

“Shush! I know where the problem is, but Rapunzel is throwing that Because Party and- just please! I really don’t have a lot of time, I only have until evening..” he exclaimed, his words almost jumbling together.

“Right, yes, of course. Don’t you worry, Varian, Lance and I have the perfect idea!” Eugene went behind Varian and enthusiastically placed his hands on his shoulders, before looking at Lance with a cheeky wink. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Only if you’re thinking what I’m thinking!” He replied with the same cheeky wink, Varian darting his eyes between the two as he’s unsure if he should be intrigued or scared.

———

“Geez, how much further?” Varian asks, growing a bit impatient and irritated with Lance’s hands over his eyes. He can hear the hustle and bustle of a crowd around them, mostly from the smaller voices of laughing children or the flirtatious giggles and gossips from fellow teenagers. The amusement park?

“Not much farther, Varian; as a matter of fact, we have arrived! I’ve found this is super popular with the younger fellas, so what better place to take your ladyfriend?” Eugene says confidently as he stops in place, Lance finally removing his hands from Varian’s eyes.

The youngest of the three squinted a bit, his eyes readjusting to the sunlight as he gazed up at a large fortress colored with reds, pinks, a few splashes of white here and there, and littered with heart-like designs as well as lovey animatronics. His expression dropped, as opposed to the absolutely awestruck looks on Eugene and Lance’s faces. It was as though they’d seen it for the first time. Varian, on the other hand, had already seen enough.

“It’s….The Love Tunnel.” He said finally, his tone flat and undeniably unimpressed.

“Exactly!” Lance exclaimed, going to Eugene’s side as they stood proudly with their hands on their hips. Varian deeply inhaled, briefly closing his eyes as he turned to face the other two.

“No.” He said simply, furrowing his eyebrows. Lance gasped loudly, louder than Eugene did.

“What do you mean no? It’s The Love Tunnel!” Lance motioned to the romance-themed ride.

“Exactly!” Varian mimicked before taking a deep breath, “Violet’s not gonna like The Love Tunnel, she’s too cool for that. And I don’t mean that to make her sound snobby and stuck up, I mean that she’s genuinely too cool for this. And, heh, not to toot my own horn but, frankly so am I!” Varian‘s tone ranged from fairly serious to sarcastic towards the end as he made exaggerated hand gestures. At the end of his small rant, he had his arms firmly folded over his chest.

“Varian, Varian, Varian, girls dig The Love Tunnel! I mean, it’s a classic! It gets them every time! The atmosphere, the mood..” Eugene wraps an arm around Varian’s shoulders.

“Yeah! Just imagine; it’s twilight..you meet each other here at the amusement park..just the two of you in one small boat, cruising down the waters of the tunnel, dim lights, slow music, the cute little animatronics singing love songs to you as she gazes into your eyes and bats her eyelashes, and you lean in like-” Lance agreed, before going into detail about what they could experience inside. Except he stopped mid sentence when he noticed Varian looked no less than unconvinced, unimpressed, and yet a bit flustered with where his description went as a soft red color dusted his cheeks.

“Right. So romantic.” The younger commented sarcastically with a subtle eye roll, “Of all places, The Love Tunnel is not where I’d wanna *set the mood*..”

———

“Can you believe he rejected The Love Tunnel!?” Eugene exclaimed, flailing his arms as he paced around Rapunzel’s room. The princess was contently painting on a new canvas, while Cassandra leaned against the wall with one leg propped up and her arms crossed. Rapunzel took a moment the smile sheepishly with a small shrug of her shoulders.

“I do love that ride but it is a little cheesy, Eugene..” she said in an ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings’ sort of way. Cassandra chuckled.

“At least his brain isn’t only good for alchemy and weird inventions. You know it’s bad when even the youth says no to it.” She commented, raising a brow with a smirk to get under Eugene’s skin.

“But it’s The Love Tunnel!” Eugene countered, this time sounding a little more heartbroken, though the girls knew he wasn’t all that serious about it. They hoped, at least.

“Yeah, but do you really think kids like them are gonna be swooning on The Love Tunnel? This is Varian and Violet we’re talking about, ya know?” Rapunzel replied, optimistic as ever as she set down her paint brush. Even Pascal, sat on her shoulder, nodded his head in agreement.

“Please, do say The Love Tunnel at least a thousand times more…” Cassandra commented, growing tired of hearing it.

“And who invited her here?” Eugene, motioned to Cass, Rapunzel approaching him and taking his hands into hers.

“Why don’t you let me help out? I’ll plan something real great for them, and I’ll need you guys to pitch in so it turns out perfectly! I didn’t mean for him to get so caught up in the party this weekend, but I guess it can’t be helped when his brain is working.”

——— TIME SKIP ———

Varian was getting restless, tapping his foot while his arms ached from holding the abundance of prizes he and Violet won. The said girl joined him at his side, her own arms occupied with her purse and a rather large stuffed bear.

“So uh…why’d go on that again?” Violet asked, nodding her head to the dreaded love tunnel. Varian couldn’t even look her in the eyes when she asked, it was just embarrassing.

“Last resort.” He mumbled, looking around anxiously.

“Right. Um-“

“You look — very pretty, by the way.” Varian quickly snapped his head to her, a sheepish grin across his cheeks. Violet smiled, but it was clear this wasn’t news to her.

“Thanks, V, you uh…said that about a dozen times over the course of us going on every single ride here. Is the big surprise ready, I’m getting antsy?” Violet replied as she took a couple of items from his hands. Varian only stammered a little, visibly unsure of what to tell her.

It was all starting to sound like a lie. He made sure to go on every ride (except the kiddie ones),

—— WHERE IT ENDS FOR NOW. ——

[snzysimper]

HI idk if you still write snz content for FNAF but my hype has come back after the movie so i come with a little request!! i’d melt for either a fic or just some snz HCs about mister william afton… 👉👈

>:0000

I’m happy to oblige:

I literally have a Google doc dedicated to Snz HC’s/ Scenarios for this man. Take it with a grain of salt that I have yet to see the movie (yeah IK ME of all people) so these are more based off of the games. Hopefully the movie will spark a bit of inspiration for a fic in the near future. Although I did a relatively recent re-write of my very first fic here:

When sneezing from nothing in particular, he’s one and done. He also just doesn’t like sneezing in front of people, although there is no particular reason for this.

He is VERY sensitive to dust. This especially sucks for when he had to work in parts and service or other maintenance related places.

If sneezes are allergy related, it can go on for a while. They can be relatively quick too. Several back to back. It’ll last for however long until he gets away from it and sometimes for a bit after.

In the early stages of making the suits, he was trying to fix part of the springlock mechanism in the mask but it was a little bit dusty from the fur on the outside of the mascot. Let’s just say that didn’t end too well.

Being sick won’t stop him from working. Not when there’s money to be made, animatronics to be worked on and kids to ki-…kids to bring happiness to…

If he’s sick, he’ll sneeze maybe two or three times. He gets pretty congested so they can be a bit messy at times.

Ain’t nobody takin care of him. No one. He will refuse to sit down even for a moment, so much to the point that Henry would end up practically having to kick him out of the pizzeria.

((Scenarios undercut; TW: mentions of death and blood))

When he went outside to go and kill Charlie it was raining really hard. He got the job done within a matter of seconds, the clean up job didn't take too long either. He was in the rain for no more than half an hour. The rain washed away a good bit of the blood, but he still had to put the body in a bag, wash away the rest of the blood. Once he got back to the pizzeria, the cold AC was blowing on him and he didn't have any other clothes to change into. He ends up catching a pretty nasty cold.

William has to remove the bodies of the missing children from the animatronics and has to smell the rotting bodies. He can't stop sneezing, the strong scent irritating his nose. Not that he minds the smell itself, it just makes him sneeze a lot. Same thing happens for when he had to remove Elizabeth's corpse from Circus Baby's storage tank.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

Metaru, i'm not sure if you're into Fnaf even remotely, but! i would like to tell you about one of my favorite guys from the thing:

Michael Afton.

so, let me just set the scene for you.

this guy, our good buddy Mike here, has (in no particular order):

- accidentally killed his younger brother in a prank gone horribly wrong (stuck said younger brother's head into an animatronic's mouth to scare him) when he was teenager (age during this incident has never been confirmed, but the best guess we have is that he was a teen), and has likely been living with the guilt ever since.

- lost his little sister to one of his father's creations, and perhaps never learned the truth of what actually happened to her until he was an adult.

- learned at some point that his father is a serial child murderer, and at some point chose to make it his mission to help free their souls and put them to rest.

- was at some point instructed, by his father, to go find his sister in this underground location and to free her somehow.

- got his insides scooped out (literally, the machine that was used for this is called "The Scooper") by the robot that his sister's soul possesses so that she and three other robots (well. their endoskeletons) can crawl into his body and puppet it around to escape.

- was forced to sit back as these animatronics puppeted him around while his body rotted.

- had the robots eject themselves from his corpse, only to be told that he wouldn't die, and then miraculously come back to life.

- was likely outcasted by his neighbors after his body started visibly decaying, enough to where he started "living in shadows" (his words).

- had nightmares that (i personally believe) were caused by guilt after what happened to his brother.

- (if you believe that Mike Schmidt and Michael Afton are the same guy) got targeted by his father's victims because, unfortunately, he looks like his father (Michael implies in a speech he did to his father that the Sister Location animatronics confused Michael for his father because they look similar - "They didn't recognize me at first, but then...they thought I was you.") and also because the ghosts target the nightguards.

- (if you believe the Fnaf 3 nightguard was Michael) had his own father attempt to kill him twice. (Fnaf 3 and Pizzeria Simulator)

- promised to hunt down his father after finding out everything ("There is only one thing left for me to do now. I'm going to come find you. I'm going to come find you.").

and, last but not least,

- died in a fire that was started to set all of the souls free, including his father's (although he was burnt to keep him from harming anyone else, and also did not really get peace like anyone else - "Although for one of you, the darkest pit of hell has opened to swallow you whole, so don't keep the devil waiting, old friend."), and it's stated that he didn't get trapped in there accidentally, but that he stayed there on purpose, likely to die with the rest of his family ("And to you, my brave volunteer, who somehow found this job listing not intended for you. Although there was a way out planned for you, I have a feeling that's not what you want. I have a feeling that you are right where you want to be.").

so...yeah, he's an interesting little guy.

also, he's British. and in Utah. (because, fun fact, the books confirm that Fnaf takes place in Utah, specifically a small town in Utah).

how. how the fuck did this happen twice. what is it with fictional British men and Fucking Utah. Metaru i have two nickels. How.

(anyway, enjoy my ramblings!)

utah is cursed

[fandomsandflyingstingrays]

A quick lumity proposal fic! It’s been rotating in my brain ever since I was caught in a deluge of adorable art of them on Valentine’s Day

Long as Luz had known him, Hooty had always toed a very fine line between being sweet and creepy. This time, Luz wanted very, very badly to think he was being sweet— but she couldn’t deny she was more than a little unsettled.

When she’d asked him to re-create the Tunnel of Love, she’d been prepared to offer photos from her old phone as a reference, or even to draw it for him. But he had brushed her off, barring the door to the basement and assuring her it would be perfect, despite her protests. 

The thing was: it was. Hooty had recreated the Tunnel down to the last detail from memory. The same flowers and insects lined the walls. The same animatronics waved the same banners. Either he had a very good recollection or he’d swallowed everything in the basement waiting to regurgitate it for this moment.

“I’m sorry,” she said to Amity. “I thought this would be romantic, but it’s actually kind of horrifying?”

Amity giggled. “No, no, I love it. I’m glad I get to see it in its full glory without you trying to set it all on fire.”

Luz groaned good-naturedly. “Let it never be said that I was not the height of class.”

An array of Hooty cherubs launched a volley of arrows from the ceiling, the scrolls attached to the arrows reading legends like Amity- U R a Q-T! Luz felt a brief pang of regret that she hadn’t thought to write the question on one of the scrolls. But then, that was another idea that walked too fine a line between cute and disturbing. 

The Hooty swan came to a stop at the end of the Tunnel, where a table lit with candles stood at the end of the dock. Amity let go of Luz’s hand to clasp hers together joyfully. “I can’t believe you did all this!” 

“Hooty was a big help.” Luz leapt out of the boat and helped Amity down, escorting her to the table. It bore an array of human and Boiling Isles delicacies that Raine and Camila had been hard at work on all day: griffin egg skillets, baked sweet potatoes, and fairy pies (minus the live ingredients). Amity sat down with a flourish and the two began piling food onto their plates, Amity squinting at the potatoes.

“Isn’t this, like, cannibalism?”

Luz laughed, taking an enormous bite. “In this instance, my taste buds win over my morality.”

Amity laughed, too, and eagerly dug in. The food was delicious— but Luz began to feel like she’d swallowed a transport worm along with her first few bites, the thing furling and unfurling and wiggling through her stomach. But then, Amity didn’t seem totally at ease, either. She ate rapidly, but the pallor of her skin suggested it was less about the food and more about having something to do with her hands.

When her plate was clear— which took about three minutes— she sat back and kept her eyes on her plate. “So. Was there… any reason you went through all this trouble?”

That was a perfect opening, and Luz had a feeling Amity had done it on purpose. She opened her mouth to begin her speech, the one she’d rehearsed in her head and in the mirror and to Vee and Hunter until she was sure it was perfect. But she took one breath, and then another, and couldn’t do it. That worm had crawled up into her throat and nested there, and no words were getting out. 

“I got a deal on my book!”

At least, not the right ones.

Amity looked up, her face slumping for a split second before a smile took it over. “What?! Luz!”

“Yeah!” Her excitement was contagious, and Luz felt herself smiling, too, the worm making its way back down to her intestines where it belonged. “With this huge publishing company in the human realm, and with a publisher in the demon realm who’s not going to turn me into a tiny cube if I don’t meet my deadline for the sequel!”

Amity clapped her hands, her smile growing even bigger. That had been a particular worry for both of them when Luz had started submitting query letters. “The human realm and the demon realm! You’re going to be the next Mildred Featherwhyle!”

“I know!” Luz bounced a couple of times in her chair, then took another, steadying breath. She had meant to share the news with Amity tonight— but it wasn’t the point of the evening, wasn’t the most important thing she had to say. She tried to get back on track.

“If it does well, it means I’ll be able to get my own place— maybe two small places, one in Gravesfield and one on the Isles. And… and that got me thinking…” suddenly she was gasping for air. Come on, Luz! Get it together! She loves you, she’s not going to reject you, you just need to say it—

“Will you marry me?” Amity blurted.

Luz let out all her air in a single gasp, and the two stared at each other across the table. A faint blush painted Amity’s cheeks, but she didn’t look away. 

Luz started to laugh, and she reached into her pocket to reveal a ring, a shining opal woven in vines of gold. “Oh, no, I was so ready.”

Amity’s eyes widened, filling with tears as soon as she caught sight of the ring— but at the familiar words, she started to laugh, too. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You can say it.”

“Okay.” Luz took one final, deep breath and crossed to Amity’s side of the table, bending to one knee in front of her, the last part of the speech she’d planned finally sliding easily from her mouth. “Our lives are so crazy, and we can never say for sure what the future holds. But I can’t imagine my future without you in it. Amity Blight, will you marry me?”

“Yes!” Amity shrieked, throwing herself into Luz’s arms with so much force that they both toppled backwards, skidding to the end of the dock. Realizing how close they were to the water, they scrambled backwards, then slumped against each other, limbs tangled together. 

Smiling so hard her cheeks were aching, Luz slid the ring onto Amity’s finger. Amity ran her finger over it, and Luz looked up to see tears streaming down her cheeks. She blinked, and her own eyes welled.

Amity lifted her hands and placed them on either side of Luz’s face, pulling her in for a kiss, and Luz brought one of her hands on top of Amity’s, warmth rushing through her at the feeling of the ring on her finger as she pulled Amity closer, that warmth filling every piece of her until they broke apart.

“Crikey,” they said at the same time, then burst into laughter.

[angelofrainfrogs]

Going Back: Ch. 5

~Coauthored by @zeitghest~

Fandom(s): Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach

Description: Things are looking up for Gregory. After putting the soul of a formerly-immortal killer to rest, he and his new family can finally begin their lives anew. Sure, Gregory might have been cursed with mysterious Remnant in exchange for being involved in this mess—not to mention his caretakers consist of sentient robots and ghosts… But there’s no doubt that the bond they share is unbreakable. They love him, and he in turn. 

All in all, life is finally starting to go right for once. 

…Unfortunately, true peace is a hard-won battle. There are other things to contend with besides William’s decrepit soul, and Gregory will learn that his role in the lives of the Aftons and Emilys is far greater than anyone could’ve imagined. 

Rating: T

Read on Ao3

As Michael mused over the semantics of the Puppet and Charlie as two separate beings, Sun was already speaking with another new friend in the Daycare. When he'd first noticed the faint sound of metallic scraping a few days ago he'd been wary, even more so when he discovered the source—a bulky conglomeration of sentient wires scuttling around in the vents. However, once assured that neither of them was a threat the pair had gotten to talking... and surprisingly, they'd hit things off quite well.

Currently, Sun was giving Ennard a tour of his little room above the stage. It'd been put back to rights once the virus was gone since Moon was no longer apt to mess it up in his unbridled rage. Nightshift was in full swing with only barebones staff, so Sun felt alright having Ennard out and about as long as they kept watch. Therefore it was to Sun's great surprise when he heard the metallic garage door sliding open by the pick-up area, coupled with faint laughter and chattering voices.

Gripping Ennard's arm and shaking it gently, he exclaimed in a hushed whisper: “Ooh, I think someone's here! Stay put juuuust a sec and let me see who it is!” 

“BE SAFE,” replied Ennard, who had been meticulously helping Sun redecorate the room back to his liking. The Daycare attendant was very particular about how the string lights were hung and their placement inside his room, so Ennard thought to busy themselves by helping out and finding the right balance for their living space. Ennard was still not one to trust the guards around here completely, and likely never would. That didn't mean they couldn't respectfully keep a quiet and mature distance from whoever entered to check up on the Daycare attendant.

Now inside the Daycare again, Gregory hoped Sun could forget all that nasty business with the lights. It wasn't like Gregory had even pulled the switch anyway! It was stupid Vanny when she was being puppeteered by William. Even so, at the sight of Sun coming out from his colorful balcony Gregory’s first instinct was to hide behind Michael and Charlie.

“Hi!” Sun exclaimed brightly, waving to the group through. Standing atop the tiny stage, he tried to get a good look but could only see so far through the netting that surrounded the play area. Still, it was enough to know he didn't recognize any of the humans—at least, not the two young adults. That animatronic draped over the girl's shoulders, though...

With a gasp, the memory of the kind Puppet hit Sun like a truck, causing him to clap his hands together in delight. “Charlie! Oh gosh, I'm so happy to see you again! Come, come—I'll let you and your friends through the main door!”

Sun pointed to the large wooden doors that had been the bane of their existence the last time the group were in the Daycare. Once he saw them start moving, Sun scampered down and rushed to open the heavy block of wood, eagerly hopping from foot to foot as he awaited their arrival.

Michael was sure to keep Gregory close behind him and as out of sight as possible, feeling the boy's palpable hesitancy radiating off him like a wave. As they neared the doors, he murmured in Charlie's ear: “Maybe you should do the introductions this time? He's clearly excited to see you...” 

Charlie would take on the task eagerly. She was happy to see that Sun had made a full recovery from near-complete insanity via virus shenanigans. Stepping in past the huge door, Charlie motioned for the others to follow suit as she called to Sun.

“Sun! How the heck are you?” she called, the Puppet on her shoulders practically vibrating with anticipation. As soon as they were inside, Charlie felt the lightweight form fall to make her way towards Sun, greeting the attendant by holding out her long and spindly arms for a hug.

“Look—this is all probably a lot to take in, but I'm Charlie. That's Puppet!” Charlie clarified, gesturing to the boys as they filed in through the door. “You remember Gregory, right? And this is Michael!”

“Oh! Hello there!” Sun laughed, lifting Puppet's lanky body without hesitation and hugging her close. Over her shoulder, Sun examined the others through his static mask. Charlie's voice was familiar, certainly—that had been coming out of the animatronic in his arms the last time they'd met. Strange, but nothing the Daycare attendant couldn't look past. He didn’t recognize Michael, but Gregory—

“Little sunbeam!” Sun gasped, pressing his palms to the sides of his mask as Puppet finally let him go. He desperately wanted to reach out and hug the boy, but resisted the urge. From his expression alone, he could tell Gregory was wary of him... not that Sun could blame the poor kid after what his darkness-loving counterpart put him through.

“Gregory, I'm so sorry for the other night!” Sun went on, wringing his hands together in the best display of nervous apology he could muster. “Moon was not himself and shouldn't have chased you around like that... Plus, I know it wasn't your fault the lights got flipped! You were nowhere near the switch. I shouldn't have thrown you out, either—I felt so bad afterwards and I really wanted to help, but I couldn't get through...”

“Hey, it's alright,” Michael soothed as Sun's pitch reached higher and higher the more he fussed. “None of the animatronics were themselves that night—don't stress about it. As long as you still feel okay now...?”

“Oh yes, I feel wonderful!” Sun chirped, perking up at the reassuring words.

Puppet seemed glad to hear that, squeezing Charlie excitedly around the shoulders after scaling her back once more. Maybe it was strange, but Charlie thought of her as her shadow—reliable in the way that she’d always be there.

But where she felt comfort in her animatronic protector, her best friend's clingy companion was feared and reviled by him...

“MIIIIIIKE...” A reverberating purr could be heard behind Michael and the gang. It was a good thing Gregory had been looking up at Ennard’s more put together form, shocked into not speaking. While Gregory didn’t necessarily fear Ennard, he didn't appreciate being snuck up on. Unfortunately, he failed in alerting Michael before it was too late.

“SUN... IS NEW FRIEND! MEET SUN...?” asked the giddy clown.

“Oh god—of course,” Michael griped, pulling Gregory away from Ennard’s immediate grasp.

“Ohhhhh!” Sun exclaimed with a chuckle, lightly smacking a palm to his forehead. “Michael… Mikey… you must be Ennard’s best friend!”

“Like hell I am!” Mike was glaring daggers at this point, solely fixated on Ennard’s leering form. Sun cocked his head curiously, looking between the dichotomous pair.

“Hmm? But… Ennard said you were besties!” the cheery attendant added, using terminology he’d picked up on from being around younger generations of humans. “They said you’ve known each other for a loooong time!”

“ROOMIES,” Ennard choked out through their shared voice box. Ennard stood leaning heavily on their side in a way that made Gregory think they were going to fall over, but they were just sort of lopsided due to the carpet covering weighing more on one side. 

“It's a long story,” Gregory filled in Sun briefly. That wasn't really for him to explain, and he didn't have all the facts anyway. If anyone, Ennard should fill their new friend in on what they did all those years ago—so Gregory abstained from big (and unfortunate) details. “Mike worked with Ennard, and they tricked him—”

As Gregory summarized the sanitized version he knew of their past, Puppet decided her presence was best used on Michael at the moment. She clambered up his back, watching over his shoulder protectively. Feeling the anxiety and anger rolling off him, she gently patted Michael’s head. With how much she heard Ennard speak about Mike already, there wouldn't be a need to really protect him. Still the Puppet was aware that Michael may need some form of safety blanket or he wouldn't calm down.

“Ennard,” Charlie called their attention. “You know you’ve got to take it easy on Mike. Come on...”

There was a moment of silence before Ennard uttered a broken, penitent: “SORRY...”

Michael heaved a sigh, reaching up to pat the soft shoulder of the Puppet that lingered over him.

“I’m fine,” he assured. Every encounter with Ennard was a little easier, especially when Michael had his family by his side for security.

“Wow… sounds like you’ve had quite the adventure together!” Sun remarked after Gregory finished his summary. Sun threw an arm around Ennard's shoulder, which served as a good counterbalance for their lopsidedness. “Ennard showed up in the Daycare yesterday night and they’ve been super fun to hang out with! It’s no wonder you two get along, Mike!”

Michael simply pursed his lips, deciding that to refute Sun’s insistence on his “friendship” with Ennard was a losing battle. Instead he rolled his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets as he mumbled an unenthusiastic: “Whatever…”

“SO!” Sun exclaimed after a moment’s pause, clasping his hands together and looking around before his gaze settled in Gregory. “Would you like to play?! I know you didn’t get a chance to really explore the Daycare, sunbeam—feel free to look around, if you want!”

Sun’s upbeat demeanor slipped into a calmer tone as he reassured: “By the way, if the lights do happen to go out for some reason, I promise than Moon's functioning perfectly now. He feels horrible about the whole thing, even though we can’t remember most of it… He wants to apologize too, if you come across him.”

Sun would leave it at that, completely up to Gregory if he’d willingly like to summon Moon at any point. Either way, the Daycare attendant would do his best to make up for all the terror his personalities caused the poor child the other night. 

Sun was a huge factor in Gregory’s major trust problems with the animatronics thanks to how friendly and accommodating he'd been until Vanny shut them into total darkness. Gregory was sure that Samuel wouldn't allow anyone to waltz into the Daycare should either attendant be acting out of sorts, so he threw a smile up to Sun.

“That's what we came here for! Come on—what kind of game should we play?” Gregory asked, gently pulling the ribbons and bells that were connected to his wrist in the direction of the play area.

That left the Marionette and Ennard locked in a stare-down, as if one was waiting in anticipation for the other to move. It was like watching two stray cats advance on each other, calculating before simultaneously deciding to throw down and fight in an alley.

Ennard broke the silence, greeting the Puppet with a strained: “HEL...LO?” and slowly reaching their hand out.

The Puppet remained cautious, watching as Ennard’s clawed fingers stopped a foot short of Michael. She bridged the gap, reaching out before swiftly climbing to hang off their arm.

“She can't speak—voice box only plays music,” Michael clarified, watching the interaction like a hawk. Ennard wasn't going to harm anything that didn't pose a threat to him, Michael had to keep reminding himself of that. It still didn't help his nerves as he saw what was his best friend until a few days ago hanging off Ennard like they were a weird jungle gym. He let out a small sigh, sparing a glance to where Gregory was leading the Daycare attendant around excitedly.

“Have you met Moon yet?” Michael asked after a beat of silence, eyes flicking back to Ennard with mild curiosity. He couldn't fathom how Sun and Ennard's personalities worked together, let alone Moon's. With a mild frown, Mike realized that he didn't actually know what Moon was supposed to be like either. 

Ennard diligently held the Puppet up as she swung herself lazily from their arm. The very action made Charlie laugh at what she perceived to be the fun her old robot was having. Ennard shook their head, eyes never leaving Michael now that Puppet posed no real threat.

“MOON IS... ELUSIVE,” Ennard noted, one of their superfluous eyes glancing at Gregory's direction. The boy was in thought, thinking of the games they could play together.

“I figured as much.” Michael turned his gaze to the glow star-studded ceiling. If Moon was actually as calm and friendly as Freddy stated during one of their many discussions about his time in the Pizzaplex, Mike could definitely see how kids would enjoy spending nap time here as well.

“You're good at Hide and Seek, right?” Gregory was asking Sun, already having his first hiding spot picked out. 

Sun nodded enthusiastically, the bells on his wrists jingling as he shifted from foot to foot. “Yes! That's one of my favorite games!” He turned his back to Gregory, having noticed him searching for a place the Daycare attendant wouldn't easily be able to find him. Covering his eyes with his hands for good measure, Sun told the boy: “Okay, you can hide first—I'll give you to the count of thirty!”

Charlie had been entertained at the sight of Puppet nimbly clinging to the carpet on Ennard’s back before sitting directly atop their head. Unfazed completely, a couple of Ennard's vestigial eyes blinked as they remarked: “SHOULD TINY MICHAEL GROW TIRED… WE MEET MOON.” 

Waiting for Sun to cover their eyes in anticipation, Gregory bolted faster than he ever thought he could run. He made a beeline straight for the ball pit, diving head first into the deep, rubber-coated pool of color and staying buried beneath its saturated waves for cover.

Charlie tugged on Michael’s shirt to get his attention. “Speaking of which—look, isn’t he so stinking cute when he’s having fun?”

Before Michael could correct Ennard on Gregory's name, Charlie had diverted his attention towards said kid and his disappearing act. Michael conceded with a nod, his smile growing wider at the sight of Gregory actually having fun for once. Mike realized how little chance he'd actually been able to just... be a kid. They might not know the finer details of Gregory's troubled past, but his new family could tell without a doubt his childhood had been stifled far too much.

Of course, Sun instantly recognized the sound of someone diving into the ball pit. He'd give Gregory the benefit of the doubt though, making a big show of looking around when he eventually counted all the way up to thirty.

“Hmm...,” the Daycare attendant murmured, slinking casually towards the nearest play structure and peering into one of the plastic tubes. “Now where oh where could that little sunbeam be...”

Michael chuckled softly as he watched, crossing his arms over his chest. He figured Sun already knew where the kid was, but clearly understood his role to let Gregory think he'd outsmarted him—at least for a little bit. “Sun's a good sport, I'll give him that.” 

Ennard sat on the ground now, Puppet's legs dangling just within their line of sight until they picked her up and set her down on their knee. She slouched a little against Ennard’s hand, but ultimately kept resting upright with their help. Puppet looked to Ennard gratefully and patted their hand as they watched the little game of hide and seek.

“MAYBE... NEXT ROUND... WE COULD PLAY..?” Ennard mentioned to the group as they watched Sun entertain Gregory and his antics for the time being.

Charlie glanced sidelong at Ennard, surprised that they wanted in. Then again, she figured they wanted to spend more quality time with their new friend. She hadn't even considered that they may be encroaching upon their time together.

“I'm game. Mike?” Charlie asked, nudging her friend with her elbow.

Michael stared at Ennard hard through narrowed eyes. No matter how much everyone else got over their initial unease around them, Michael knew he'd never be absolutely 100% comfortable around the amalgamation even if his stress and anxiety lessened as time went on.

Who could blame him, though? No one had quite the experience with Ennard as he did...

Even so, a glance at the Puppet resting contentedly in Ennard's lap, then a look at Charlie's imploring face was enough for Michael to relent to their wishes.

“Ugh... fine,” he groaned, sounding almost like a petulant child who'd been told to clean their room. He did want to play hide and seek with his friends though, and knew Gregory and Sun certainly wouldn't turn down any new players. Before the group could get too excited, Michael held up a finger to signal them to wait. “One condition, though—I'm the seeker first.”

Charlie saw no issue in this, and by the looks of the Marionette she didn't have an opinion about their upcoming game in the slightest. Ennard began to quake slightly, gaze floating back to Michael. Ennard really hoped he found them first. That would give them time to talk a little...

Or, that's what Ennard had secretly hoped for. More than anything, they would love for Michael to understand them just a little more.

“THIS... WILL BE... FUN!” Ennard decreed, reaching over and taking Puppet's arms gently by the wrists. They resembled waves with the cadence Ennard shook her with, but she didn't seem to mind at all. It was hard to tell, given she was the most stoic of the animatronics, but she was soaking in the attention from this strange companion. 

“Dude, you're such a super cheater when you seek,” Charlie scoffed, causing Puppet to take back her hands and cover her mouth in a silent laugh at Charlie's call-out. 

“No, I'm just good,” Michael corrected smugly, then turned his attention towards the ball pit as he heard a loud exclamation.

“Found you!” Sun cheered, lifting Gregory high into the air. The Daycare attendant laughed brightly, carrying Gregory back over to the group as his legs kicked uselessly. Eventually he set the boy down, the smile in his voice matching the grinning visage of his mask. “Gregory had a great hiding spot! Does anyone else want to join?!”

“You read our minds,” Michael replied, craning his neck to look up at the tall animatronic. Sun let out a gasp of excitement, looking between the group.

“ALL of you?!” he asked, and when Mike nodded Sun instantly bent to grasp the one of the Puppet's spindly hands and Ennard's arm, hoisting them both to their feet in one fluid movement. It was a surprising display of animatronic strength and Michael felt a pang of relief that the Daycare attendant was now fully on their side. Sun bounced from foot to foot, causing the lightweight Puppet to sway with the movement while Ennard remained more or less stationary. “Ooh, this is so exciting! Who's the seeker this time?!”

While the Puppet grasped onto Sun's hand in turn, she raised her arm to point repeatedly at Michael in silent answer to Sun’s question. Gregory was attempting to find a new hiding spot; inside of one of the slides seemed to be a good idea. Charlie meanwhile had no clue where she’d go. Honestly, just trying to sneak around unnoticed by Michael was probably her best bet.

“I CAN HARDLY CONTAIN MY JOY,” Ennard remarked, their voice betraying little raw emotion as normal; rather their inflection was presumed as excitable due to how hard it was to understand them through the exorbitant static.

“Ooh, Michael's it? Okay! We're counting to thirty!” Sun instructed, releasing his animatronic friends so they could all find spots to hide.

“Got it. One.... two...,” Mike began, closing his eyes and making a display of also covering them with his hands so Charlie wouldn't accuse him of cheating.

As the countdown began, everyone followed Gregory's lead and scrambled to find a good spot. Sun went into the play structure as well, scrunching his flexible body up as much as possible and settling in one of the opaque tubes that connected two of the jungle gyms. Michael was bit bigger than the kids that usually crawled through the play place, but if Sun could fit he imagined Mike's lean frame could as well.

“—Thirty. Ready or not, here I come!” Michael proclaimed loudly, doing his best to slow his counting until all sounds of shuffling had stopped. Opening his eyes, he turned to scan the Daycare for signs of any of his companions.

Gregory had made it to his chosen hiding spot right away. He felt like it was smart to stand inside the tube slide. Who would guess he was chilling comfortably inside?

As for Ennard, currently they’d made the rough attempt to hide behind the security desk. Provided no one looked that way at a certain angle, Ennard was totally hidden.

The Puppet? Gone without a trace. Tiny and silent, the animatronic had wedged herself between the bars of the climbing gym and a metal cut-out of Roxy’s face.

All the while Charlie wandered around, tiptoeing across the rubber. She was praying now. There had to be a good hiding spot somewhere—some place no one had taken yet. She watched her step, careful not to trip while listening for Michael in her search.

Mike had gone for the easiest place to check first: the security desk. As he approached, he got the definite feeling that someone was hiding back there. With a wicked grin, he slowed his steps so they barely made a sound on the padded floor, hoping to get the jump on his hapless victim.

“AHA—oh… it’s you.” Michael’s joy was cut short as he peered over the front of the desk and came face to face with the last thing he wanted to see. Rolling his eyes, Mike pushed away from the desk and gestured for Ennard to come out of hiding. “Figures you’d be the first one I found.”

“YAY.” Ennard rejoiced, slowly picking themselves up from the floor. “YOU HAVE FOUND US... GREAT JOB, MICHAEL...”

Charlie watched this interaction from the obscurity of the colorful bars of the play place. Wow Ennard, Charlie thought to herself, way to kill him with kindness... Either that, or poor Ennard genuinely had no damn clue Michael legitimately hated them with a passion.

“Let me know if you see anyone, alright?” Mike said, searching the jungle gym with narrowed vision and refusing to acknowledge the smidgen of amiability he was showing his metallic shadow. “You’ve certainly got enough damn eyes to track them down…”

Though it was the smallest of swears, Sun was unable to stop a little gasp from escaping his mouth. His language filter was amped to the extreme, even more than Freddy’s due to his job of watching over babies and toddlers. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late—Michael’s head swiveled in the direction of the echoey intake of breath, and as he squinted hard he could see the vague outline of a lanky figure illuminated by the bright overhead lights that tried to pass through the plastic tube. Michael could crawl in and tag Sun… but with a side-eyed glance towards the tendril inching near his arm, he realized there was another option that saved him from going in the enclosed space altogether.

“Hey Ennard, why don’t you help me out and get your new friend?” Mike suggested, pointing towards Sun’s hideout. At Michael's request, Ennard seemed hesitant to comply. Then again, they supposed that now that they were found, technically Ennard was on his team! This was going to be funny...

Ennard silently maneuvered their way towards the construct with the intent to scale it silently. Squeezing in past the bars and safety netting, they quietly snuck behind Sun inside the tube, then gently tapped his shoulder. “FOUND Y-Y-YOU!”

At the terrifying prospect of Ennard finding her next, Charlie skedaddled and went to take cover behind the service desk for now. Luckily no one would think to check where someone else was found recently.

“Oh!” Sun’s head whipped around 180 degrees at Ennard’s tap, though he seemed more surprised at being discovered than the animatronic itself. Having already made Ennard laugh once before, Sun already recognized the disjointed chorus of staticky feedback for what it was. Chuckling as well, Sun began unwrapping himself to follow Ennard out into the open, lamenting: “Aww, and I thought I had a great spot...”

While Ennard got their prize, Michael set his sights on finding the others. Despite her indecisive tendencies towards selecting a hiding place, somehow Charlie had managed to evade him for now. Mike padded along the floor slowly, trying not to give his position away. When he got to a suspicious opening or tunnel in the jungle gym, he’d jump out from around the corner in hopes of catching one of his friends unaware. It wasn’t long before one of these sneaky attacks was a success. Upon finding an unassuming slide and peering in the bottom, Michael noticed a distinctive pair of little red sneakers.

“Gotcha!” he exclaimed, grasping Gregory’s ankles and yanking him out of the of the slide feet first, holding him upside down as he gloated in his victory. “Good hiding spot, kid—but not good enough!”

“NO! NOOO!” Gregory lamented, shouting and clawing the inside of the tunnel as he was dragged. Dangled unceremoniously, Gregory found himself swinging as he cried out. “My spot was SO good! How?!”

“For you? Brotherly intuition,” Michael stated with a grin, setting the kid down. There wasn’t a chance Mike would reveal the discovery had been pure luck. “Right, now onto the last two…,” 

“Maybe they’re hiding together?” Gregory brought up, helping Mike out despite losing the game to him. Charlie crawled, trying to be careful and quiet before reaching the far side of the desk and further away from the group. Wherever Puppet ran off to, she was certainly fast and thorough with her hiding spots.

“WE HEAR SOMETHING...,” Ennard told the group in an almost intimidating manner, though they likely meant nothing by it other than hearing Charlie crawling mutely across the floor.

Michael cocked his head, listening intently. For a moment, there was nothing but the ambient sounds of the Pizzaplex. And then, the faint sound of fabric rustling was picked up by the android’s sensitive hearing. Without a word Michael turned on his heel and marched back to the security desk as the rest of the group tagged along behind. Just as he’d done with Ennard, Michael pushed himself up to peer over the top of the desk to find Charlie huddled into a ball and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

“Charlie Emily!” Michael exclaimed, mild offense in his tone. “And you accuse me of cheating?! You can’t use the same spot as someone else!”

Charlie could've jumped higher than the moon. Her face even flushed with the accusation as she stood with a bashful grin. “What—Huh? Since when was that a rule?”

“Oooooh, cheater!” Gregory jeered. Looking around in a grand spin on his heel, he tried to spot a dot of black and white amidst the sea of color. “Guys—Puppet's too good at this game! Where could she even hide that she wouldn't stand out?”

“YOU HAVEN'T... THE PLAY PLACE...” Ennard’s voice glitched helpfully as they pointed towards the rainbow jungle gym. 

“Hmm…” Michael reached out to Gregory, hoisting him up to sit on his shoulders. The boy’s new height still wasn’t a match for the lanky Daycare attendant, but it was definitely closer. Looking at Gregory upside-down, Mike advised: “Keep an eye out for stripes.”

“Oh my goodness. These dorks...” Charlie sighed, watching as Michael took off in a high-speed bolt that made Gregory grasp onto his head for security. Soon, screams evolved into laughter as Charlie and the others followed in their silly game. The Puppet, who wasn't one to wait around in such times, began to crawl out from behind Roxy's cutout cartoon face. 

Carefully climbing through the bars and timing it just right, she dropped right onto Gregory’s back. The boy let out a higher-pitched scream of surprise. Where did she even come from? Gregory couldn't deduce it, but began to laugh when he realized what was happening.

“Whoa—hey, we didn’t even get a chance to look for you!” Michael laughed as one of the Puppet’s long limbs brushed his arm while she got settled. His body had no trouble stabilizing itself with the sudden added weight, and after one more round past the jungle gym Michael halted at the edge of the ball pit. He felt like he should be out of breath, but true to these bodies’ wonderful capabilities he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Puppet, hold on tight!” Michael said, grasping Gregory by the underarms. 

“Oh goodness—careful, Michael!” Sun called, sensing what the man was about to do mere seconds before it happened. With a heave Michael tossed Gregory and the Puppet into the colorful river, causing a wave of plastic balls to rise up from the impact. 

It was like the two brothers had been in sync their whole lives. Gregory had expected the throw, but was uncoordinated when being tossed up. Thankfully the Puppet squeezed around him, lessening the chances of Gregory being hurt further. Not that it was likely he would be hurt—it was only the ball pit, after all.

Laughing from the sidelines, Charlie watched Gregory's splashdown, plastic flung from his loud and crashing impact.

“Do that again! Fling me into the pit again!” Gregory begged as he popped back up with stars in his eyes. The Puppet still clung on for the free ride, her hugs reassuring Gregory and keeping him calm. Charlie had placed a hand on Sun's arm, patting him gently.

“It's okay, Sun! They do this stuff all the time. No worries,” she attempted to soothe. The poor guy was probably used to kids roughhousing too much and children being hurt all the time. Charlie found his reaction justified, but there was no need to stop—especially because she was sure that Gregory had a hard time being hurt anyway.

“Well… they do seem to be having fun,” Sun relented, placing his hand on the back of Charlie’s and squeezing gently. As long as he was assured no one was being harmed—especially the child—he saw no reason to stop their activity. With a cheerful laugh, he added: “It is super fun to jump in there! I understand why Gregory loves it!”

Charlie leaned into her friend. She'd been meaning to pop back to the Daycare to see how he was doing—especially after their less than friendly last encounter of being kicked from Sun's home. She felt awful leaving Sun as alone and scared as he was.

After the fifth or sixth toss, one could see Gregory’s energy wearing down. It was true that his last nap seemingly only lasted two hours before he was charged up again, but surely Gregory still needed more sleep as a growing kid.

“You getting sleepy, little man?” Charlie asked playfully, watching as he lugged himself from the ball pit with the Puppet's arms tied over his shoulders.

Gregory, who could hardly hold open his eyes now shouted back a defiant: “Nooo..!”

This time when Michael picked him up, he tossed Gregory straight into the air, listening to his burnt-out giggles as he landed safely back in his arms.

“Oh yeah, he’s spent,” Michael announced. He could feel Gregory gearing up to argue, so he rolled his eyes. “Relax; you'll thank me later."

“Oh! I could help with a nap!” Sun perked up eagerly, lightly bouncing from foot to foot. “Well, Moon could—if you’re up for it, sunbeam.” His tone softened, fully understanding if Gregory was still hesitant. “We can set up a little sleeping spot and turn the lights off.”

“Uh… maybe not all of them?” Michael suggested, to which Sun quickly shook his head.

“No, no, certainly not! We only turn the lights directly over the play area off during nap time,” the Daycare attendant explained, pointing to the ceiling waiting to come alight with glowing constellations. “The only reason the whole place would go dark is if a breaker was flipped! If you ever get too nervous with Moon and aren’t near the light switch, just walk into a bright area—he won’t follow. I promise he’s fine though!”

While Michael and Sun discussed Gregory's sleeping arrangements, Charlie moved to Mike's side to gently play with Gregory's hair. Charlie had found Gregory's more sudden bout of fatigue to be both interesting and... Maybe a little cause for alarm? For all she knew, irregular sleeping patterns and fatigue could all be a part of the side effects from his Remnant injection. It would be something to discuss with Freddy and Mike later, but for now Charlie watched as Gregory struggled hard to keep his heavy eyelids open.

“Moon..? Yeah... Yeah I'd be fine seeing Moon...” Gregory hoped that Moon may scare him enough to be pulled from his tired stupor, but if Sun was sure his counterpart was back to his original personality then he didn't have a chance at staying awake. Ennard hung back behind Sun, gently brushing him with their carpet-covered body.

“WE WILL GRAB PILLOWS...” they offered. Those huge sleeping pillows provided in the Daycare had all been organized meticulously by Sun's high standards earlier that day, so Ennard was more than familiar with where everything was now.

“Thank you, friend!” Sun said cheerily, turning around and giving Ennard a brief hug around their shoulders. “I’ll get blankets—give us a minute!”

The Daycare attendant bounded away towards a little section of cubbies that held blankets, stuffed animals, and other such things the little ones would need during nap time. As he and Ennard gathered supplies, the others moved to the security desk where the light switch was located. Michael believed Sun when he said his counterpart was fine, but a small part of his mind warned to be cautious. Even with the lights off, the security desk would be a safe space with its back-up illumination.

“Okay, we’re all set!” Sun exclaimed a minute later, gesturing to a spot in the midst of a plethora of pillows that’d been decked out with cozy blankets and various Glamrock stuffed animals. Sun stopped a few feet back from the security desk, clasping his hands as he looked at Gregory. “Aww, he’s all tuckered out…”

“Yeah...” Charlie agreed with Sun's assessment. She gently stroked Gregory's bangs from his face, reading his peaceful and sleepy expression. “He hasn't been sleeping well; he probably needed this.”

From there, Puppet gently climbed down from Michael's tall frame to scamper towards the pillow pile, immediately getting lost in the soft, embroidered cushions. There she would wait for her friends to join her, and Charlie headed over to investigate the soft-looking pile as well.

Over at the desk, Ennard found the naptime switch. Flicking it dimmed the lights, prompting the glow in the dark stars to come out and coat the sky in a gentle neon. Upon the overhead lights dimming completely, the Puppet's music box began to play Grandfather's Clock gently on instinct.

No longer was Sun afraid of the transformation into his night-themed counterpart. Contrary to the screaming and frantic mask-tearing he’d shown last time, in this instance Sun simply gave a cheery wave and ducked out of sight, knowing that sometimes the change distressed the children—even if Gregory wasn’t conscious enough to notice, Sun wanted to make this experience as easy as possible. In seconds, his thin fingers had taken on a blue-tipped hue as Moon hoisted himself up to peer over the edge of the desk.

“…Hello,” he said in that soft, raspy voice, eyes locked onto Gregory and Michael. Unlike their last encounter, Moon’s tone was soft and calm, the almost-staticky undertone meant to soothe instead of distress. There was a faint red glow to his eyes, though it wouldn’t brighten unless he perceived a security threat.

“Hey, Moon,” Michael replied, holding Gregory close. To his relief, he didn’t sense an ounce of maliciousness from the robot—and Mike knew a threatening animatronic when he saw it. He cracked a smile, curiously examining the stark difference in color palates as Moon moved fully into view, notably staying out of the lights from the security desk. “Nice to formally meet you.”

“Yes… I’m sorry about before,” the Daycare attendant apologized, wringing his hands exactly as Sun did when nervous. There was a distinctive crouch in Moon’s posture, but now that his coding wasn’t going haywire it was easy to see how the two were indeed the same animatronic at their cores. Moon went on, still in that easy tone tinged with genuine apology: “I don’t know what came over me… Like Sun told you, we don’t remember much, but I think I caused Freddy and his little starlight a lot of trouble.” 

Charlie was surprised at the calmness Moon portrayed. It was quite the opposite of what she’d seen when he chased them through the Daycare with possessed-looking abandon. The way his voice no longer contorted to something nightmarish and twisted made her feel better about the character that supposedly took care of sleeping children.

“It's not your fault,” Charlie gently reminded, her first words to Moon kind and gentle.

In Michael's arms Gregory rustled, willing himself to snap out of his sleepy state for all of three seconds, long enough to glance up to the smiling Moon and to feel a sense of safety under his gaze. Squished against Michael's chest, Gregory muttered a tuckered out, “Hello, Moon...”

“Hi Gregory, ehehehe…,” Moon let out a quiet cackle, far from his raucous, demented laughter the other night. With a sweeping gesture, he motioned towards the pile of pillows. “Let’s put you to bed, hmm?”

Michael nodded in agreement, finally taking a step into the darkness where Moon was free to snatch the boy up if he so desired. The Daycare attendant remained calm and collected, swaying slightly as he tracked Mike across the padded floor. That was definitely an unnerving sensation… Or it would’ve been had Michael not already been used to multiple sets of eyes locked onto him at once. Sure enough, as he neared the bedding he heard Moon and Ennard shuffling behind him.

“There you go, kid,” Michael said as he set Gregory down in the plush cloud next to Charlie and Puppet.

Gregory didn’t have time to cover himself with the chosen blanket, Puppet was quick to cover Gregory up and snuggle against his side. To Charlie, it reminded her of when she was young. Taking naps in her father’s office while using her Puppet as a pillow…

Charlie smiled, telling Gregory: “Goodnight, kiddo.”

There was a soft kiss pressed into Gregory’s hairline, and he Gregory was out like a light once more. This smiling angel sleeping on a cloud was a far cry from the hyperactive maniac she watched run from the ball pit and towards his brother so many times.

Moon’s instinct was to help Gregory get settled, but he resisted the urge—his siblings and music box-playing animatronic clearly had that covered. Instead, he turned to the amalgamation at his side, grinning behind his mask. “Hi, Ennard—I’m glad to finally talk to you myself. Sun always hogs our friends…”

Ennard was fiddling with a knob at the side of their head, lowering the volume of their voices as to not disturb Gregory.

“MOON… VERY GLAD TO MEET…” they murmured, opening their arms and enveloping the Moon in a slow but unavoidable hug. Ennard swayed him slightly as they embraced, the joy of having two new friends noticeable in the Funtime conglomerate’s voice.

Michael grimaced at the tall animatronics’ interaction, sinking into a cross-legged position at Charlie’s side. Resting his head against her shoulder, he murmured in a quiet, sarcastic tone: “At least there’s someone for Ennard to bother with besides the ghosts while I’m not here…”

Charlie would chuckle quietly at this, barely audible and only noticeable from her shoulders bouncing slightly. She reached over, gently holding Michael’s cheek as she sympathetically touched her forehead to his.

“You're doing that thing where you worry too much,” Charlie warned, urging him to relax and follow his own speech. Ennard was leaving him alone! There was something in that to be grateful for. Charlie wrapped her arms around her friend and dragged him to lay down beside her, more or less trying to force him to not be on the defensive right now. She trusted the guardianship of Puppet and Moon to keep them all safe. Even if Michael never 100% trusted Ennard, they weren’t defenseless.

“Take it easy; listen to the music,” Charlie advised. Puppet's softly playing music box could nearly put Charlie herself to sleep. It surprised herself how she wasn't immune to its tempting lullaby even after all these years.

“I always worry too much,” Michael grumbled, a bit too much rawness in his voice for the confession to be taken as a joke. Still he did as Charlie instructed, curling up with his back to her.

“You can rest, Michael,” Moon offered, catching the man’s watchful gaze. He pressed a hand to his chest, standing up a bit straighter. “I’m designed to protect anyone who decides to sleep in my Daycare—you’re all safe, I promise.”

Michael muttered something unintelligible that sounded slightly mocking, but he allowed himself to sink a bit further into the pillow mountain. He wasn’t still wasn’t going to sleep here though.

…Of course, all it took was another few minutes of listening to the Puppet’s now-comforting song before Michael too was passed out, his face finally relaxed into a peaceful mask that matched Gregory’s. Moon cackled softly and gestured for Ennard to follow him a little out of the way so they could talk more without disturbing anyone. As was his design, Moon would never be far when he had a sleeping child under his care, so if Gregory or his family needed anything he’d be at their side in a few hops. 

With the tough guy finally fallen asleep besides her, Charlie could in turn relax. She threw her hand into a thumbs-up for Puppet and Moon before it limply fell back on her chest. Having wormed her way into Michael’s side, she began to doze off with the light of the glowing sticker stars guiding them to sleep.

***

The room must’ve been set on an automatic timer. Once the switch was pulled there was only a limited time before the “Sun” was to come back up and wake the children within the Daycare. A rooster crowed, alerting the residents of the coming day, and Gregory was the first to wake under the bright light again. Groggily, he lifted himself up and rubbed at his eyes. He was well-rested, sure, but Gregory thought he could stand to sleep a few minutes more.

“Hi, sunbeam!” the Daycare attendant greeted excitedly, sounding much too cheery for those who’d been asleep moments prior. Sun was crouched at Gregory’s side, all smiles as usual as he checked in on the boy. “How’d you sleep? Did you have good dreams? Were you comfy enough?”

“Mph... Morinin', Sun..." Gregory yawned before unabashedly reaching over to give Sun a quick hug in greeting, feeling like he got a pretty relaxed few hours of sleep.

“Why are you so loud…?” Michael groaned, awoken by the bright voice of the Daycare attendant. He tried to shift but felt something at his side. Glancing down he saw it was Charlie, to which he smirked and tapped the crown of her head repeatedly. “Chaaarlie… wakey wakey; if I have to get up, so do you.”

“I'll bite you.” Charlie tossed the empty threat to Michael, letting out a yawn herself and stretching obnoxiously in his space before even thinking about sitting up. It got her thinking as she finally sat up and looked around how much this place could really warp one’s perception of time. “How long were we out..?”

After a cursory glance to his Fazwatch, Gregory tried to remember the last time he looked at it before finally dozing off. “I think, like... Less than three hours?” 

“Yup! Two hours and forty-seven minutes, to be exact!” Sun clarified, still glowing with happiness from Gregory’s hug.

“Oh geez, that long?” Michael said, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, then attempting to comb fingers through his hair to get rid of the frizz as best he could. “We must’ve all been exhaust—shit!”

The curse escaped in a yelp as his gaze fell upon Ennard standing much too close for comfort. In Michael’s pleasant dreams the amalgamation was nowhere to be found, so to see them right there was startling.

“Michael!” Sun gasped, pressing his hands over Gregory’s ears. Mike winced, feeling the robot’s glare through his mask. “We do not use that sort of language in the Daycare, especially around impressionable children!”

“Sorry!” Michael quickly apologized, holding up his palms in deferment. “I was just surprised—can you move back a little?"

This last part was snapped at Ennard, Michael’s embarrassment at being scolded coupled with his sleep-addled brain making him lash out at the robot out of habit.

Ennard’s eyes widened ever so slightly at Michael’s outburst. He found the man to be silly for being so startled when they’d been here this entire time!

“WE WERE W-W-WAITING FOR YOU TO WAKE UP—” they admitted, hands held innocently behind their back. “—WANTED TO PLAY MORE GAMES…”

To save Michael the headache of answering Ennard without cursing him out, Charlie stepped in politely.

“Sorry big guy,” she said, seeing the disappointment in Ennard’s drooping shoulders and head. “We gotta get Gregory back to his dad… And probably go job hunting?”

Charlie thought more about that. Someone had to keep Gregory fed and clothed, and expecting Sammy to pay for a child that wasn’t his would be selfish of her. He had enough to worry about without them thrusting that responsibility on him, too.

“MICHAEL AND FRIENDS… BACK TOMORROW..?” Ennard asked, getting their own hopes up once more.

“Sure!” Gregory answered this time. Now that the Pizzaplex was safe again, he could settle back into returning most days. “We’ll play tomorrow, Ennard.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael confirmed, rolling his eyes at Ennard’s eagerness. Really, he was looking forward to returning to see his family again and check in on the progress Sammy made in fixing up the other animatronics. Speaking of which…

Charlie’s mention of a job had given Michael pause. The only jobs he’d worked were related to Fazbear Entertainment. He’d never experienced what it was like to do anything else, and honestly Michael just couldn’t picture it. Maybe he could talk to Sammy about letting them work a little bit in the Pizzaplex—that way they could make some money and keep watch over their families at the same time. But did Michael really want to work in this place?

…That was a discussion for later. As he stood and helped Charlie to her feet, the walkie on his hip crackled to life.

“Michael?” Freddy’s voice came through. “Are you there?”

“Hey, Freddy!” the android answered with a grin, holding the walkie up to his mouth. “We were just about to check in on you—everything good?”

“Yes, everything is wonderful!” The smile was clear in Freddy’s voice. “Samuel and I will meet you at the front entrance in about ten minutes, alright?”

“Sounds good; see you then.” The static clicked off and Michael slipped the device back into its holster. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Sun bouncing much more energetically than ever before.

“Freddy’s back in commission?!” the attendant squealed. He would’ve recognized that voice even if Michael hadn’t said the bear’s name. “Ooh, he should come here and visit! I miss him!” 

“Yeah! He's all better but... Well—” Charlie answered with a smile, wondering how exactly to explain Freddy's new situation to such an old friend of his. So she went for the most easy to digest answer. “—you just might not recognize him right away. He looks a little different now.”

She was sure that Sun wouldn't hold any qualms about Freddy’s appearance. The Daycare attendant wasn’t the type to judge people in such a way. Gregory reached up and unhooked the walkie talkie from Michael's hip, happy to accommodate for Sun's request.

“Hey, Dad? We're in the Daycare and Sun wants to see you!” he called over the radio waves, hoping both Sammy and Freddy would be fine with the pit stop.

There was a moment of dead air before Freddy’s voice came through again. “Hello, superstar! That is fine—we will be there shortly.”

“Dad?” Sun questioned with a curious tilt of his head. “So it isn’t Freddy Fazbear…?”

“No, he definitely is,” Michael replied, only adding to the poor bot's confusion. Reaching up as high as he could, he gently patted Sun on the small of his back. “Look, there’s a lot of stuff that’s been going on around here that, honestly, I think you’d be happier not knowing about… But I’m sure Freddy will tell you all the details soon, okay?”

“Oh… okay,” Sun relented with a nod, not one to argue on topics like these. Instead he clapped his hands, looking to the group. “Well then! How about we play a game while we wait? Maybeeee… red light, green light? I can be it!”

“Works for me,” Michael said, alright with the game so long as he wasn’t being the one snuck up on. He looked down at Gregory with a raised an eyebrow. “What do you think? One more game before your dad gets here?”

“Heck yeah!” Gregory censored himself, fists balled excitedly in front of his chest. “Where's the starting line?”

“Start at the security desk, finish on the other side of the jungle gym,” Sun instructed, bounding over to the finish line to demonstrate. He waved to the group and then turned his back, calling over his shoulder: “Let me know when you’re ready!”

After a bit of shuffling, everyone was poised in front of the desk. Michael indicated they were good to go, and the game began.

***

They played almost three full rounds before the sound of the metal garage door opening caught Sun’s attention.

“Red light!” he called, whirling around without much time to give everyone a chance to stop. Sure enough he caught Gregory swaying on his feet, arm outstretched mere inches from tagging him. Laughing brightly, Sun scooped the boy up into a gentle hug. “So close, Gregory! But I think we have to cut this round short—we have more visitors!”

“Hello, everyone!” Freddy called with a wave, grinning as he and Sammy made their way to the play area. He looked just the same as when they’d last seen him, without even a hair out of place. Whatever Henry did in order to check out the whole “eating human food” thing was completely undetectable.

Sun could feel Gregory start to wriggle at the sound of Freddy’s voice, so he was quick to set the boy down. He watched the men approach, rather confused but going with the flow as usual—surely someone would explain in time.

“Dad!” Gregory shouted, excited to see his favorite member of the Glamrocks again. Though he no longer wore the bear costume, his voice was unmistakable. Waving Sun goodbye, he ran for Freddy and jumped him in a hug. “Oh! Dad, Sun's been waiting for you to show up! He said he missed you.” 

“FREDDY HAS BEEN GIVEN A NEW MODEL...” Ennard whispered, having sluggishly moved across the room to inform his friend of the recent life changes Freddy was going through. “HE HAS ADOPTED GREGORY AND THEY LIVE INSIDE A HOTEL.”

Charlie smacked a palm to her face, wishing she could’ve given Sun a more nuanced version of the events that took place before Ennard chimed in with their blunt explanation.

“Oh, um… hmm…” Sun muttered weakly, for once at a loss for words. It wasn’t the body change itself that was hard to process, but the suddenness of it all. Also, from the cursory health and safety scans the Daycare attendant performed, Gregory was definitely human… so how in the world did he wind up being Freddy Fazbear’s adopted child?

“Hello, Sun; I am sorry for the abrupt change,” Freddy apologized as everyone made their way over to him. Gregory rested on his hip, held securely in one arm as he hugged onto Freddy’s shoulders. He chuckled softly, inclining his head towards the multi-eyed conglomeration. “Ennard explained the situation quite succinctly. I will spare you the details tonight, if that is alright.”

“No problem, Fred; as long as everyone’s okay and happy, so am I!” Sun assured, leaning down to get a better look at his old friend’s new body. Used to Sun’s hands-on nature, Freddy didn’t bat an eye as the lanky animatronic twisted a lock of bright hair in his hand, then pressed gentle fingertips against his cheek to feel it’s warmth. Sun’s eyes would be shining in childlike astonishment if they could.

And then as his curiosity fully peaked, the line of rambling questions began, directed towards both Freddy and the CEO at his side. “Wow… this is amazing! Are you sure you’re still a robot?! Did you make this, Sammy? Ooh, do we all get human bodies? Hmm, I’m not sure if I’d want to totally give up this one, though… Oh, would Moon get his own, or would we still share?!”

Everyone getting their own robot? Sam grimaced. Oh man—his poor ghostly father would have his work cut out for him. At the barrage of inquisitions Samuel floundered some, flustered but smiling nevertheless at his first original creation.

“Sunny!” He laughed, coming forward and grasping the giant’s hands to pull his attention to him again. “Ah... Yes! That's a project I'd be happy to work on. However, there's only two of us who know how to work with them. I need to hire more techs and then we'll make something for all of you in the meantime!”

Christ—Samuel now had another obligation to fill. This is what he got for being such a people pleaser with a tight enough schedule as it is. He needed to hire people, and fast.

Gregory had been happy that Freddy's new look was being accepted so quickly by the others, especially when Freddy had once been a little concerned about it. Soon the Puppet was crawling up to sit on Freddy's shoulder, missing her disguised ursine friend.

Mention of Sammy needing workers gave Charlie an idea, though she wasn't sure how much Michael would like it. She nudged him from where they stood beneath the jungle gym and asked quietly: “Do you think we should ask Sammy for stuff to do? He seems a little strapped for employees...”

“You read my mind,” Michael whispered back, flashing Charlie a grin. For the first time, he wouldn’t be working in a restaurant designed by his corrupted father—this one was made with loving, attentive care from the mind of Sammy Emily, a man who took after his own father in the best of ways. Taking Charlie’s arm, Michael led her over to where the others were talking. “We should bring it up before we leave tonight.”

“Have you all been having fun?” Freddy asked, leaning his head to rest against the Puppet’s side.

“So much fun!” Sun replied, jumping from foot to foot . “We chatted a little bit, played some games, and some of us even took a nap! Oh, and Moon got to say hi!”

“It sounds like you all were quite busy,” Freddy commented with a smile, giving Gregory a little squeeze. The boy seemed very awake now, and Freddy assumed he’d been a part of the napping group that Moon quietly watched over.

“Michael said we should come back tomorrow—can we?” Gregory tugged on Freddy's sweater eagerly. He may have been officially over his fear of the Pizzaplex now... Though maybe it wasn't best to leave him alone in this place just yet. “I wanna bring the other kids up to the Daycare! They'd love this place!”

Evan and Liz had told Gregory a bunch of stories about the old diner and how it used to look. Their vivid storytelling is what made Gregory want to check it out earlier. He impressed them in turn with his description of the Pizzaplex as “Fredbear's playground on crack,” and the pair simply had to see it. Hopefully Sam would be fine with them all hanging out in the shutdown Daycare, at least until the week was up. Coming over to Sam's side, Charlie hooked an arm around her twin's shoulder.

“We couldn't help but overhear you need experienced staff members,” she mentioned, much to his surprise.

“You're serious? You two actually want to work here after all... The...” Samuel didn't want to mention the unpleasantness of the past, though the implication was clear.

As Charlie offered her brother extra help around the building, Freddy tuned into their conversation with hesitant eagerness. If Sammy allowed them to help out, perhaps Freddy could make himself useful as well. After all, he arguably had more knowledge of the Pizzaplex than most of the human staff…

“Sam, this place is a marvel,” Michael added, slinging his arm around Sammy’s other shoulder to rest on Charlie’s. “And even if it was just a tiny little diner, it'd be far superior to anything my father built.” He flashed a trademark grin, pointing a proud thumb to his chest. “Besides, don’t you want the best mechanic and night guard Fazbear Entertainment’s ever seen in your arsenal? I can help you get all those animatronics back in shape in no time.”

That was true; Sam did need a new night guard. And like usual in this businesses history, both the security and mechanics departments were severely understaffed. So much so that Sammy really only trusted himself to be working on all the severely busted Glamrocks.

“Michael—if I could get you to come in and do both, I'll start you off with a decent paycheck,” he said, looking to Charlie then and knowing he could count on his sister to help out in the Pizzaplex where they may be short-staffed. “Seriously, I'll need all the help I can get come morning—” Sammy even looked to Freddy. “— and if I could hire you back, I would, too.”

“You’ve got it, Sam,” Michael told him, giving his old friend a brief side hug before finally letting go.

Though he wouldn’t voice this out loud, Mike realized he would’ve come back to this place no matter what. Fazbear Entertainment was ingrained into his very soul whether he liked it or not, and despite all the horrible things his previous technician and guard jobs led to, a small part of him enjoyed the work itself. As he told Sam, the Pizzaplex was a far cry from anyplace he’d worked in before—in the best kind of way.

“Wait! You can't all get jobs. What am I supposed to do when you're gone all day…?” Gregory asked with widening eyes, concerned at being left alone again. Unless they planned on sending him back to school...

Anything but school...

“Do not worry, Gregory,” Freddy reassured with a soft smile. “We still have many more things to sort out in our immediate future before we can consider leaving you on your own; I will stay with you while Michael and Charlie help around the Pizzaplex.”

No one put up a fight to this—if there was anyone who should be watching over Gregory 24/7, it was undoubtedly Freddy.

“Don’t think you’ll be rid of us that easily,” Mike added, reaching over to ruffle Gregory’s hair. “Charlie and I will hang with you when we’re not working!”

At that moment, almost as if summoned by the notion of the new night guard, Sammy’s walkie talkie came to life with Vanessa’s unmistakable voice.

“Um, hey… Mr. Emily?” she began, and everyone leaned towards the CEO to listen. “I’m sorry about yesterday—I know you didn’t technically fire me yet, but I’m sure you’re about to so I’m heading to your office to get it over with and turn in my stuff.”

Vanessa sounded completely resigned to her fate, not even entertaining the thought of a simple demotion after the shitstorm she’d caused. There was barely a pause in the static before she added: “I also just wanted to tell you that there’s some lady at the front door; I told her the Pizzaplex was closed but she insists on talking to you. It’s… something about a missing kid.” There was an obvious wince on the last word. “I managed to keep her from actually getting in, but you might want to see her soon.” 

Oh Vanessa, Sam thought, scrabbling to answer. Helpful, even when self-depreciating.

“You really think I can afford to fire you, Ness?” Samuel asked playfully. No she wouldn't be rid of this place; not yet. “Why don't you stay at the office for a little? I have a new assignment for you, and we've got a few things to discuss.”

Still, the talk about addressing one of the missing persons made a nervous chill run down his spine. “I-I'll handle the parent. Just relax...”

Samuel dreaded what this conversation would entail. He was getting dangerously close to remembering all those times the police had showed up to question his own father and William—

No, those kids weren't dead because of him, Samuel had to keep telling himself.

“Charlie? Michael? Mind coming with me? Freddy and Gregory, you two should just hang tight until we get back.” Samuel would entrust the walkie with Gregory, handing it off to the kid as he headed for the garage door and out into the atrium.

Freddy nodded at Sammy’s instructions, waiting until the trio reached the doors before turning back to the companions that were left.

“Well now,” he started with a warm smile, running a soothing hand through Gregory’s hair to quell any worry that might be building up in his young mind. “How about we play another fun game while we wait?”

***

Michael and Charlie were right on Sammy’s heel like some sort of android guard dogs. Like Sam, Mike had been through his fair share of distraught parents begging for something—anything—that would help figure out where their child was. They mostly ignored him when he was younger, but as Michael aged into his father’s face he’d been confronted a few times by angry, screaming guardians. One notable moment involved a mother actually pounding on his chest and yelling for him to:

“Take some fucking responsibility for your fucking restaurant, you heartless bastard—if she died here, you’re responsible! You might as well have killed her yourself, MURDERER!”

She’d only been venting at the time, but little did anyone know how close to the truth she really was. However, this was not one of those situations.

Michael reminded himself of this as they reached the front doors, noticing a figure under the harsh lighting of the Pizzaplex entryway. He grasped Charlie’s hand for mutual comfort, following Sammy outside to greet this mysterious visitor. 

Steadfast and with a neutral expression, Samuel held the doors open for the two. While them holding hands in front of the woman didn’t seem the most professional, Sammy wasn’t about to scold them for it. It was likely the lady wouldn’t even mention it. Charlie wove her fingers together with Mike’s as her stomach twisted with anxious bubbles.

Inside the inner lobby sat a woman. She looked like the standard clientele of the Pizzaplex: a middle-class mother type, though her expression was grim.

“Hello, ma’am. I’m Samuel Emily; I was told you needed to speak with me?” the CEO greeted with a tone of understanding, his best customer service voice on display. After all, he was trying to preemptively minimize how badly this woman was prepared to scream at him.

Charlie could feel the animosity for this place plastered in the woman’s gaunt expression, years of anger already apparent in the harsh lines between her brows. She seemed to be worrying a missing person’s poster in her palm. 

The woman stood at the group’s approach, dark brown eyes locked onto Sammy. Her ink-black hair tied in a stylishly-frazzled bun and barely there makeup made her look like the perfect example of a distraught mother trying to keep it together.

“Mr. Emily,” she said curtly, offering a hand to shake. What used to be French-tipped nails were now chewed off from anxiety, and she was quick to hold up the paper for the group to examine as she explained her situation. “My name’s Rita Smith. I’m looking for my son, and I have reason to believe this is one of the last places he might’ve been… His name is Gregory.”

Her fingers tightened around the frayed edges of the poster. “Have any of you seen him?”

***

Previous Chapter ~~ Next Chapter

Looking for more? Check out the Chapter Masterlist on Tumblr!

Or check out the entire Wires that Bind Us Series on ao3!

[kingdicemrwheezyflowertor]

What are some head cannons for Tugs and your Five Nights at Freddy's au?

I hope I'm not bothering you

You’re fine; Well here we go again!

Let’s start with TUGS:

I have mentioned in the past that the Tugs all knew the Titanic, well I don’t believe I mentioned that on the anniversary of her accident; They don’t do their work and Pay tribute.

In the show; They ended with Bigg Freeze (If going in a particular order), That was the last time any of the tugs were in Bigg City Port due to financial problems. (Before being sent to Sodor in the AU)

OJ has been protecting Zebedee from Johnny Cuba for years because OJ knew about Johnny’s Abusive Behavior.

Zak has a real habit of messing with people’s hair. Styling it; Playing with it, It doesn’t matter. He loves messing with it.

Don’t mess with OJ if you are a thief. That boy will Usain Bolt after ya and Tackle ya to the ground HARD! Even with his age; The Muthafucka DEADLY!

I have stated before that Ten Cents was adopted by Hercules after his mom’s death. Ten Cents has learned to cope with this by knowing that his family has always been there for him.

Zorran may show that he’s a big man and doesn’t care about his team; Deep down, He does care and it’s always slipping out.

Zip and Zug has Autism and it’s very far into the Sectrum. The first person to find out about it is Zorran (Who feels Hella guilty and becomes their papa)

Zak is VERY FLEXIBLE!! So flexible that he can do the girl from the Ring so well it scares Ten Cents and Sunshine.

Big Mickey almost had to explain himself to OJ and the others on what happened to him after the Munitions accident but he didn’t have to.

Now time for Five Nights at Freddy’s! Get ready; This is gonna be intense.

Toy Freddy has Welding/A Physical Scar on his Chest in the shape of an “X” due to a incident that almost left him decommissioned.

The Glamrocks have met the original Fnaf gang as well as the toys and the Sister location gang.

Withered Freddy is a Depressed Bear who only wants to be on stage again, The toys thankfully give him that chance at night.

Original Freddy is very oblivious to Toy Freddy having a crush on him (Because TF saw Freddy liking someone else and didn’t wanna embarrass himself)

Chica; Toy Chica; Nightmare Chica and Glamrock Chica are all great cooks! As well as Sisters; Including Withered Chica.

Springtrap and Toy Freddy have been a couple for a few years until the two talked because Springtrap loved Ballora (William Afton and his Wife kinda shipping idk)

Golden Freddy has been angry at Springtrap for years (Evan mad at William)

There is only other one Afton family member that is alive; Yeah, it’s not just Michael. It’s their son Bec (Bec belongs to my wife @lovedevildice4ever ; Thought it would be nice if I mentioned Bec.)

Glamrock Freddy is in a Poly relationship with Monty and Glamrock Bonnie (Who got fixed up thanks to Gregory and Bec).

Gregory knows a lot of things about Robots and about the Pizzeria because of the newspapers and because of looking at broken robotic machines.

Gregory views Glamrock Freddy as his father and he views Monty and Glam Bon as Papas.

Sundrop and Moondrop get their own separate bodies thanks to Gregory.

When Gregory chose to Stay in the Pizza plex; He was able to save Glamrock Freddy in time by getting the other Glamrock animatronics to come help.

In Fnaf 3; Bec was not happy when he realized he had to deal with his dad who was Springtrap.

There is one animatronic that Bec hates and that would be Funtime Freddy. BonBon is cool to Bec; Not Funtime Freddy.

Little Fun Fact for ya if you all haven’t noticed by now (Though some of you have but Idc I’m gonna say) But my Sona is literally Toy Freddy but Light Blue and having my kind of Hair.

[monty-glasses-roxy]

considering how chaotic things get when the animatronics play UNO (cause bonnie never plays fair), do things get just as salty when they play monopoly?

Oh for sure.

Bonnie is banned from being the banker. The banker is always Roxy if she's playing because even if she's losing horribly, she just outright refuses to cheat. There's just no temptation to do it for her so she's always the banker and she prefers it this way. She can make sure no one cheats way easier if the box of monopoly money is right next to her. When she's not playing though, yeah Bonnie is banned from that. No banker role for him. He played banker once and they never let him do it again. Freddy is also not allowed to be the banker. Mostly because Bonnie gets mad about it and unlike Roxy, Freddy would at least be tempted to cheat a little if he suspects Bonnie is. As such, the banker role is usually a toss up with Monty, Chica, Sunny, Moon or Vanessa if they've managed to rope her into it. She's almost as solid a banker as Roxy is so if she's playing and Roxy isn't, she is immediately begged into being the banker.

In the case of who always wins, that would be either Monty or Foxy. They're great at it. They normally end up bankrupting everyone else and owning half the board each, just waiting for the other to land on that one property they've stacked everything on. They never do and the winner is determined by who can whittle the other's funds down to 0 first or who gives up. They end up really close games unless Sunny in particular is playing. Honestly, they forget Sunny is playing sometimes. He owns the electric company or something and thats it. And yet somehow he's always in it right until the last few turns. His luck at Uno carries over to Monopoly too, he just keeps dodging everyone's properties like magic, only to lose as he lands on Mayfair with a hotel on it and loses everything lmao

Moon is just as quiet when playing but he typically owns random properties here and there and will never fucking trade for shit so no one can get a monopoly unless they get him out the game. Or unless it's Roxy. Roxy also never trades with anyone but Moon. These two will hold the whole game hostage for as long as physically possible. They trade with each other so they can both stay in the game and keep as many people from possible from getting a Monopoly. They choose who gets the power in this game. They hold all the cards. They have tormented Monty and Chica so much in a game that they traded all their properties for one before. Roxy won a game purely because she had that one green property that Foxy had been trying to trade her for all game and she finally traded that one green for half the fucking board. Roxy suddenly had all the Monopolies and hotels everywhere and wiped out the whole game. Moon does the same but he primarily pisses off Bonnie and Monty. They are the last resorts. Freddy has never traded with Roxy except for the one time he took a huge risk and lost the game to her. This is how they win they are both infuriating.

Chica is abysmal at Monopoly. She has won maybe once ever and it was because both Monty and Roxy were working together to make sure she did to piss Bonnie off after he was caught cheating. She spends most of the game in jail, only completing her first lap of the board near the end of the game. She's normally the first out and likes to dramatically be like "when I die, when the end comes for me... Roxy can have all I own." when she owns literally nothing. Why Roxy? So she can hold the game hostage even more lmao Chica thinks its hilarious

Freddy is actually the smart guy about this and yet he's always losing because he's stupid unlucky with where he lands. He'll have houses and hotels everywhere but keep landing on fucking luxury tax and everyone else's properties. He likes to create a minefield across one side of the board where he owns the whole thing and keeps building houses and hotels on them so making it through unharmed is like trying to fight a pride of hungry lions with a bouncy ball. The fact Sunny just flies through that section of the board and lands on none of his properties grinds his gears how is he so fucking lucky what the fuck-

Vanessa is actually good at this. She tends to try and get all the railways and utilities, and has a few monopolies with houses on spread out over the board pretty evenly. She's pretty lucky when it comes to landing on community chests and getting good things from them, which is a double edged sword when she's trying to buy property. Like, she'll land on a community chest or chance space literally the space before the property she needs and if it happens enough times she'll just yell "STORY OF MY FUCKING LIFE" while the others laugh at her misery. She normally pulls off a massive comeback at the end to steal a victory right under Monty's nose too it's great. Chica loves playing with her too because she always takes pity on her in jail all the time and gives her 'get out of jail free' cards whenever she can. The others do too, just not as often since they usually don't get many.

Oh yeah and every time someone ends up in jail with Chica she starts acting like 'hey. So what are you in for? Fraud? Oh not me. I'm more of a murder person myself.' and she plays the bit out for the majority of the game it's great fun

Yeah game nights in the Plex are fun.

[algusunderdunk]

Fixing FNAF: Security Breach

Fix 2: The AI

Alright, so the AI in the game is, sad to say, abysmal. Path-finding is expensive, and the further two objects are with more obstacles in between the more expensive it gets. They tried to get around this with the constant security bots and teleporting animatronics, but this just cheapened the experience. While they could've used hierarchical path-planning or pre-baked optimal routes, the point of my rambling is to make things better with the least work possible, so let's focus on the AI.

First and foremost, as I noted in the last post, ONLY the shattered variants will hunt you in the open world segments. Other AIs will be confined to smaller areas wherein path-planning is much easier to deal with. So the endoskeletons in hallways, battling individual animatronics on their own in their specific domain, all to cut down on computational overhead. Also, I'd have each shattered variant do something very specific to them.

MOONDROP: First one to hunt in the open world, Moondrop would actually travel the area's ceilings, and descend on a cable like a spider (a visual supplies by the Sundrop/Moondrop fan art). Since most of the Pizzaplex ceilings resemble stars at night, he'd blend in and be tricky to spot. The computational reason for this is that the ceiling is an obstacle -free mirror of the floor plan, so he doesn't require any fancy path finding algorithms. He slowly and quietly stalks Gregory, and if you stay still too long he quietly descends to attempt to snatch you away. If Gregory moves out of range, he ascends back up.

SHATTERED CHICA: Most of the animatronics have a glow to them, and 3D audio letting you know roughly where they are. After being broken, Chica does not. Without illumination, she blends into dark and shadowy areas, staggering around randomly without any particular goal in mind. When she gets near the player she'll start making loud radio feedback noises that sound like they're dead-center of the player, negating the ability to discern her position from sound. Her movement is mostly random bumping off of things, but when she's within range of Gregory, she'll start moving towards him and squarking.

SHATTERED ROXY: Taking advantage of Roxy being blinded, she'll also move randomly to begin with. However, she'll have two notable traits. First, is her sense of smell. As Gregory moves throughout the open area, he'll be leaving behind a simplistic batch of data points. Essentially, the path the player's taken. If Roxy encounters this path, she will start following it, seeking the player based on Gregory's "scent." She is also sensitive to sound, and uses a coarse-grain environmental map. This means very few nodes representing the open area. Perhaps "main stage", "party floor", "left hall", "right hall", etc. So hearing a noise will cause her to ATTEMPT to move towards an area to wander and sniff, but she'll be dissuaded if she gets stuck on an obstacle. If she hears a LOUD sound, such as a distractionary object throw or noisemaker activated, she will lunge towards it. This can be used to get her off of Gregory's scent temporarily.

SHATTERED MONTY: In-game he doesn't actually do anything, but he could be added without much work and no real AI needed. As shattered Monty is largely immobile from having his legs and claws torn off, he becomes an ambush enemy, hiding on the ground between various set pieces, similar to how alligators and crocodiles will play dead to catch prey. He doesn't move unless the player comes within range of him, so they'll need to keep their eyes open to spot him ahead of time and avoid him. This can get tricky as he is relatively smaller in shattered form, and can hide between arcade cabinets, plants, under tables etc. There would be a number of set ambush points for him, and he could teleport between them when not observed, and when the player's far enough away. Explain away as him traveling between vents.

SHATTERED FREDDY: Freddy never gets to truly attack, so for night 5, he's briefly turned and hunts Gregory too. His mechanic is, to save on reprogramming, the exact same mechanic you always have. The Fazwatch. He does two things. He will wander, looking for Gregory, or he will RUN... When the Fazwatch randomly glitches and CALLS HIM to your immediate position. This means you have to VERY quickly either run (which may attract the others) or hide. In addition, players will be able to use the Fazwatch's camera menu to see from Freddy's point of view to attempt to avoid him ahead of time. Freddy DOES have the more complex path-finding algorithm as he regularly runs to Gregory throughout the complex, so this ensures the others don't compete for computational resources with Freddy. Everyone else has simpler AI that works regardless of how the environment gets structured (meaning level designers can add new obstacles or move things and they only need to update Freddy, and make sure Monty's ambush points still make sense.

They'll also tend to "interact". Chica's skwarks will draw Roxy's attention. Looking up to spot Moondrop means you're not looking down to spot Monty and vice versa. Freddy rushing to your location means you may have to suddenly abandon caution to quickly vacate an area, making noise and not checking for the others.

I feel this would work well for the main open world. No roaming security bots constantly going off, just constant dread from being hunted. In the areas where you face each animatronic individually, just a basic path-finder or pre-scripted encounters. Their path-finder can handle a more heavy -duty workload if it's just them versus Gregory.

DJ MUSICMAN: Similar to Moondrop, he already traverses walls and ceilings but aside from the scripted bathroom and hallway encounters isn't an actual threat. He should navigate the walls and ceiling hunting the player, and when he's in range start to reach for the player. If they get out of range, he crawls back into the ducts to reappear elsewhere. Again, him being on the ceiling means no obstacles to avoid, so his path-finding can be efficient and low-cost.

VANNY: No AI. I'd restrict Vanny to solely scripted encounters in the decaying underbelly of the Pizzaplex, giving the player a constant feeling that she's watching them. Have her stationed in various spots where she'll duck out of sight JUST as the camera swings to her so the player spots her for only a second. Have her peer around doorways and up stairways and from behind fences, always just out of reach. Animations can be reused and she can be teleported around to set locations. Throw in a few audio cues to make players feel like she just ran behind them without having to do ANY animation for some parts.

And there it is, a clean-up for the AIs to make them more threatening, easier to program, more unique, and really add to the sense of dread. Plus cheaper computational power means better performance across any and all systems as well.

[rebrandedstoryline]

Rebranded - 10.6 - (Extra) A Moment of Thought

We see the aftermath of Ayala’s injuries from the previous night. She reveals to her friend that she’s had an “accident”, which has led to new problems.

Word Count: 1,421

Seven missed calls. Seven voicemails. All from the same person. That was what Ayala discovered upon taking a moment to check her phone. 

Admittedly she was not surprised. The person in question was prone to fretting over her. 

The first call had been made a few hours ago, when she normally would have gotten up to start her day. Thus far it looked like an additional call had been made every half hour or so. 

A sort of tired sigh escaped her lips as she unlocked her phone. She wasn’t ready to address this particular issue just yet. But she also wasn’t going to pretend that it didn’t exist. 

A text would do for now. Something to reassure her friend that she was alright and that she would call him soon.

“”Hey, sorry. I forgot my phone downstairs when I went to bed last night. Had a few mishaps. I’m going to take a shower real quick. I’ll call you once I’m out.“”

The text was short and to the point. Enough to at least put her friend’s mind at ease for long enough to allow her to have a proper wash. 

Though, additional issues soon arose. 

Her arm was killing her. Namely her shoulder. The slightest movement sent jolts of pain rushing through her. Ergo, trying to get out of her shirt and bra was going to be a process. 

Realistically she should be asking for help, but she didn’t quite trust the animatronics. 

She knew that Sun probably wouldn’t hurt her. He seemed genuine in his concern. 

Moon on the other hand was probably going to be a problem. 

More of a problem, realistically. 

The entire reason she was hurt to begin with was because of him.

Still, she would have to grit her teeth and bear it. 

Pulling her shirt up and over her head absolutely wasn’t an option. She had to resort to a process of awkward squirming in order to get out of her shirt. She wriggled her good arm out of her shirt first, which allowed her to get her bad arm free with relative ease. 

That was when she inevitably noticed the state of her body. Specifically the bruising. 

All around her shoulder was a ring of dark, purple-blue markings. Evidence of the injury from the night before. There was also an obvious, hand shaped bruise on her arm just above her wrist. 

Admittedly this latter had been in clear view from the moment that she woke up. The problem was that she had been so overly distracted by the chaos that she had failed to pay it any mind. 

Her shoulder was also visibly swollen. Most likely a reaction to the traumatic injury sustained the night before. 

At least now she fully understood why moving had made her feel so miserable. Moon really had come dangerously close to ripping her arm off. Or at least that was how it looked.

She had been shoved face down onto the Livingroom floor. Some level of pain was present in her chest region when she breathed. 

Were there additional bruises on her chest just waiting to make their way to the surface? What about her back? Was there a massive, hand shaped bruise on her back from where Moon had held her down? 

As it were, she couldn’t twist about enough to even attempt to check. 

Tentatively, she reached to touch the bruising on her shoulder, wincing at the inevitable pain that came from the contact. 

An injury like this would be hard to hide with the amount of issues that needed to be dealt with. She had only picked up enough groceries to get her through a day or two. Her car was an absolute mess and was in dire need of repairs, thanks to a certain raccoon. Chances were that even getting back into her usual work routine was going to be difficult.

Someone was inevitably going to notice her injury. There was no chance of keeping it hidden. 

So a valid excuse was going to need to be thought up. 

She was going to have to pass everything off as a wild accident. If that was even a legitimate possibility. 

There were bandages in her luggage. Maybe if she wrapped up her hand and wrist, she could fib somewhat and claim that she had cut herself on something. 

She had been tired when she arrived at home. The animatronics had just been a forgotten surprise. They had been waiting in the room nearest the top of the stairs, and came out to introduce themselves upon taking notice of her presence. In her tired state, she had completely forgotten about them having been delivered. She panicked and took a bit of a tumble down the stairs. The cut on her hand and the injury on her opposite arm were a result of trying to catch herself on the way down.

It was a farfetched story full of holes, but the best story that she could come up with for the time being. Something that she could elaborate on with enough time to think and plan. 

That could wait. Creating an elaborate string of partial truths and lies could wait. 

Her body felt gross. 

The gentle caress of the water cascading over her would help dull the pain, if only for a while. 

Getting out of the rest of her clothes was easier, overall. Not pain free, but not as difficult. The clothes she’d chosen to change into would also be easy to put on. A button up shirt with long sleeves would help cover everything up. 

The water used to clean her body was hot. Near scalding, actually. The heat and the sensation of the water rattling her flesh helped to numb the pain. 

Admittedly she lost track of time at some point. She also went from standing to sitting at some point. 

Initially she had only sat down to make cleaning her legs easier. Then she just failed to force herself to stand back up. Ergo a lot of excess time was spent just sitting under the running water. 

Still, she inevitably had to get out of the shower. Getting back on her feet was a bit difficult, but she managed. 

The heat had done its job. 

Drying off proved more difficult than she had anticipated, but she did what had to be done. Whatever needed to be done, was inevitably done. 

Once she was cleaned, dried, and dressed, it was time to begin making attempts at sorting out the shambles of her life. 

The first step was to give her friend a call. A few button taps and the phone began to ring.

“”Christ that was a long shower. Did you fall asleep again?“” The familiar voice of her friend sounded from the other side of the line. Already he had a worried and somewhat scolding tone. 

This conversation was going to be rough.

“No, no. Just... Needed time to decompress, I guess.” Ayala replied, sighing internally as she prepared to drop a metaphorical bomb on her friend. Better to just rip it all off at once. Like an old bandage. “Okay, so... Logan. Do not. Get mad. I kinda fucked up last night.” She began to speak, putting emphasis on some of her words in order to get her point across. “Those animatronics that I ordered were delivered while I was away and I completely forgot they were here. I had a bit of an accident, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine!.. Long story short, my car wound up being left open all night and a raccoon tore it up. I’m gonna need to take it in for repairs and I’ll need a ride to get a rental.” She uttered, more or less word vomiting a mixture of truths and lies. All the while hoping that her friend wouldn’t burst a blood vessel from worry.

What followed suit was a disturbingly long period of silence. She hadn’t heard the phone hit the floor or anything, so she knew he was still holding it. Which only made her more nervous.

“”I’m coming over.“” Were the only words Logan uttered before abruptly hanging up his phone. 

Ayala mentally swore to herself in response to this. She did not bother attempting to call him back, as she knew full well that he wouldn’t answer. 

Now there was another issue for her to deal with. Like attempting to get the animatronics to remain calm while also trying to piece together a semi-believable explanation behind... Everything.

[joshbruh10x]

Idea 13: Things Vanessa does to get over Vanny, a sequel to Idea 6 (kinda)

As has been previously stated, I consider Vannys personality to effectively be the polar opposite of Vanessa's, with some exceptions. I wanted to expand on that with this idea that Vanessa would try to do things as differently from Vanny as possible. She does this in order to help convince herself that they were not the same. Here is a list of some of those things, ranging from minor to major, in no particular order:

She stops wearing hats indoors and uses a different hair style (something easier to do than a damn ponytail, which according to Roxy, "hasn't been popular since the 70s". So Roxy gives her a friendly makeover)

She creates a small bowl of candy and puts it on her kitchen counter. This is because Vanny hated candy for some reason.

Tries to avoid getting slightly upset or mad at anyone, but especially children. Vanessa is absolutely TERRIFIED of losing her temper in front of children, because then that means they will be scared of her. This makes Vanessa, in her mind, just as bad as Vanny. This is because Vanny was constantly irritated and annoyed by everything, and that was basically one of 2 emotions that she felt. The other emotion was…

…pure bliss, which Vanny only felt when she was murdering her victims while also wearing a deranged smile. As a result, she tries to find more reasons to be happy and smile softly in her life. This is comparatively easy, (although it is still a lot more difficult to be happy and positive then it was before) the animatronics help her by being available to talk to. Luis also assists by just being supportive and he is especially great for whenever she needs some comforting words of encouragement. He and Gregory also offer to play some games with her, which she really appreciates because of the company.

She stops wearing clothes with long sleeves like sweatshirts and jeans. The stuffy feeling they give her feels way too much like HER costume, something she only discovered after she tried wearing "her" work uniform for the first time after being freed. She had a flashback, had a small panic attack, and quietly sobbed in her bedroom for 30 minutes. She ended up just showing up out of uniform, but no one really cared so it was fine.

Starts making cupcakes and cooking again, something she loved doing before this mess happened (check the cut FNAF AR emails.) Everyone at her workplace loved them, Luis even had some made for him especially ;). Chica even asks for her recipe after Vanessa brings some to eat at the pizzaplex and the 2 end up sharing multiple recipes with each other and become great friends.

After being freed, Vanessa is extremely hesitant to be near knives, let alone hold one, for obvious reasons. However she really wants to get over this fear she has because she wants to start cooking things since that was a hobby she had before… before.

Vanessa would start by having Gregory take out a knife and put it on her kitchen counter.

Then once she gets acclimated to the knife's presence, she would move a bit closer.

She would repeat these steps until she is within arms reach of the knife. Now comes a more difficult step, touching it

Vanessa moves her arm very slowly towards the knife, gives it a small poke, and then quickly darts away like she touched hot coals. This repeats, each poke lasting a longer amount of time, until she is able to rest her hand on the knife.

The next step is the scariest for her, holding it. She takes it even slower, constantly reminding herself that she is in control and that nothing bad is going to happen. She manages to give it, moves it around, and then gently places it back in the drawer.

Vanessa relaxes, lets out the breath she was holding, and walks out of the kitchen.

Actually cutting something will come later, but for now this is enough.

I think this is a healthy way for her to overcome Vanny but someone pls give her a hug

I didn't answer the last two asks cuz of school but I got em all for now, had fun reading your ideas

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

Horror 100 Yeas Later

     Despite being created back in 1922, Nosferatu, directed by F. W. Murnau was able to create horror in a similar manner to films today. While many techniques are used throughout the film to build suspense, two of them in particular stood out to me as being early versions of what we would come to see in later horror movies. The first shot I wanted to focus on is the close up of Nosferatu in the coffin. It is a close up shot putting us directly in his face, allowing us to see his sharp vampire teeth. However, despite how close we are, we don’t get a full look at him, as he is still mostly concealed behind the coffin itself. This shot not only lets us feel terrified because we are so close to him, but it also keeps us in suspense as we don’t have a clear view of the monster. It’s a similar idea to a shot seen in the trailer for the upcoming movie Five Nights at Freddy’s. In this shot the monster, being Freddy, is shrouded in complete darkness, but peeking through are his sinister red eyes. Both shots highlight a particular aspect of each monster, Nosferatu’s Teeth and Freddy’s eyes, while keeping the rest of them hidden from view. In both cases it creates a sense of horror because we as an audience can see the most sinister part of each monster but can’t see the rest of them.

        The second example of Nosferatu comes from when he is about to attack. It focuses on the main character sleeping, but as he does so the shadow of Nosferatu slowly creeps over him. This follows a similar principle of the last shot, showing us just enough to scare us but not enough to have the comfort of a full view. Seeing the shadow slowly creep up gives us as an audience a sense of suspense as we wait for Nosferatu to attack. A similar shadow idea is shown in Five Nights at Freddy’s. One of the animatronics, Bonnie, is attacking one of the characters in the film. We aren’t given a clear view of the attack however, only being able to see Bonnie’s shadow through the door. In both cases leaving the monster in shadows keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats as we know the monster is there but not exactly what they’re doing.

       Despite the over 100 year gap between the releases of Nosferatu and Five Nights at Freddy’s, there is a clear similarity between how the two handle the horror element of their films. While there are also plenty of differences, the similar shots and techniques are worth looking at to understanding what makes a good horror film.

 Michael Jones