#this post was originally just about the phone guy dying in a springlock failure thing

[ennard-is-near]

I feel like Time Travel stuff in this fandom often ignores the cause and effect that exists in the games and instead has the time traveler (Usually Michael) trying to stop each individual death/murder despite having successfully stopped the inciting incidend(for example: Evan lives but he still has to stop William from killing Charlie) and I think this can be really cool sometimes, especially in more of a oneshot collection type of story, but I have a pitch:

Time travel story where Michael doesn’t do the Bite of ‘83 (which comes first in the timeline, don’t @ me) so the entire timeline is different and he’s just desperately trying to stop things from going wrong but he has no idea what’s going to happen next.

So like, because the springlock suits were never taken out of commission because The Bite of ‘83 didn’t happen, some random employee (let’s say it’s Phone Guy, just for fun) gets killed in a total springlock failure in one of the suits. And Michael’s so confused for a minute because that’s not what happened the first time around, before realizing that obviously things will change. Then he spends a while trying to figure out if the suit is possessed or not before eventually deciding that it’s best to set it on fire either way. He just burns down Fredbear’s in the middle of the night, both suits still inside.

So maybe burning down Fredbear’s was a bad decision. William seems really stressed out (bad) and he’s been arguing a lot with Henry lately (really bad) about insurance and new locations and maybe bringing back springlock suits if they could be made safer (Henry is completely against the idea, but William thinks the idea of springlocks is still really good, they just have to work some things out). To stop one of their fights Michael pitches them the toy animatronics, as a distraction, without really thinking about it. (He does leave out the facial recognition, though. He’s got a weird feeling that broken facial recognition was what did in Jeremy) Now they think he’s some sort of creative genius or something, and they end up making the toy animatronics even earlier as well as assuming Michael has a lot of interest in robotics (he is actually very scared of them).

Unrelated but then Evan gets like, appendicitis or some shit (he didn’t have the chance to get it before, because he died lol) and is ultimately fine after a while, but William seems understandably stressed about it. Completely normal reaction, but it scares Michael into putting together a whole plan to immediately kill his father if anything goes remotely awry with his siblings (and maybe Henry depending on how William seems to be handling whatever happened) ever again. He’s got some arsenic or something on hand just in case.

Okay anyway, sharks. I’m asking for a $75,000 investment in exchange for 10% of my FNaF time travel AU…

[adobe-outdesign]

My Complete Current Views of the FNAF Lore (1-SL)

I don’t have any up-to-date mega theories about the FNAF lore post-SL, so i figured this would be worth typing up.

Please note that this is not a theory post, but rather a very straight-forward retelling of how I currently view the lore - therefore, there won’t be any evidence or anything provided. If you want to know my rationale behind something, just let me know.

Pre-Games

So this guy named Henry (discussed in TSE) partners with a man named William Afton. Together, they open a place called Fredbear’s Family Diner, with two robots made by Henry - Fredbear and Spring Bonnie.

Henry has two fraternal twins - Mike Schmidt and a girl (name unknown - the Litlte Girl in SL). William Afton kidnaps the little girl while in the Spring Bonnie suit and raises her alongside his own son, Michael Afton, who he most likely neglects.

Fredbear’s shuts down due to the incident and Henry opens another restaurant, Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, with four new animatronics and the old springsuits from the last location. He also adopts another child by the name of Jeremy Fitzgerald.

A sister location to Freddy’s opens around this time, an early version of CBEAR. It shuts down after multiple springlock failures (Spring Chica, part of Chica’s Party World, was probably the faulty one). This restaurant contained an animatronic named Circus Baby - pre-Ennard. Something causes Afton to dismantle it, and he uses the pieces to built four new (child-killing) animatronics, including a new Circus Baby for “his“ daughter. A Funtime Fredbear may have also killed a child at the location, with the Bitten Child witnessing it.

A second sister location, Circus Baby’s Pizza World, attempts to open in ‘83. However, Afton shuts it down after Circus Baby kills his daughter when she visits her alone. She possesses Baby. This is also the year that Afton starts his experiments in FNAF 4. It’s also possible he himself died around this time, which is when he discovers his “immortality“.

A year or two later, four children are murdered in Freddy’s by Afton (possibly people the Bitten Child was friends with, considering how he treats his plushies), and their bodies are hidden in the animatronics. Freddy’s shuts down and is left to rot.

Afton moves his operation underground as a rental service, becoming Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rentals. It is the sister location to another pizzeria Afton opens, the second Fredbear’s Family Diner. It contains a new Fredbear and Spring Bonnie (purple accents instead of black) and merch of the old characters.

Sister Location

Afton then sends his son Michael down to help free his Sister’s soul. Michael succeeds in finding her and helping her escape at the cost of his own life. However, because Michael is “immortal“, he possesses his own corpse after death. He hides in the shadows for the time being. It’s also possible the Bitten Child saw him at one point and became terrified of him, which leads to Shadow Bonnie (see FNAF 2/FNAF 3 section).

Afton gives the Fredbear Plush to the Bitten Child (remember how it was still on his desk in SL?), using the walkie-talkie in it to manipulate the kid. The Sister, now put back together, is freed from Ennard and gains her afterlife mask. She decides not to pass on yet however, instead possessing and speaking through the Fredbear Plush (not how it appears in the gutter in 4′s minigames, which is where Ennard escapes to) in order to take care of the Bitten Child, who is severely bullied by her twin brother.

The FNAF 4 minigame events then happen during the summer, with the Brother’s bullying becoming so severe that he shoves the Bitten Child’s head in Fredbear’s jaws, causing the Bite of ‘87 on his birthday. Henry likely commits suicide or was murdered by Afton around this time. The child lives for a few months, albeit comatose. The Brother speaks to him one more time before death, and the Sister vows to put him back together. He, much like the Sister, breaks into five.

FNAF 2

The Bitten Child has a final dream that leads up to his death. He pictures his room as an office (note the single entrance in the middle) and himself as an employee, hearing his brother’s voice each night just like he did on Night 6. The Sister also appears to him in the form of the Puppet (she’s good at pretending) - mimicking the Bitten Child himself in appearance, and with a mask signifying her freed soul. Jeremy also has a mask, but it’s a fake one that only succeeds in tricking animatronics not based off his family (hence why W. Foxy and the Puppet don’t fall for it).

The entire game is basically the Bitten Child’s fears when alive (you don’t actually feel fear without your frontal lobe, so the main emphasis here is on panic). Shadow Bonnie represents what the child saw “in the shadows“ that scared him so badly, and it crashes the game (ends the nightmares) because the Bitten Child would learn there wasn’t anything to be afraid of if he confronted his fear instead of hiding from it.

The minigames are a stylization of real-world events: Take Cake was the Sister’s death, Go Go Go! was the original five killings, and Give Gifts was the Bitten Child dying and possessing the Nightmares. The only game that is purely false is Chase the Puppet - based off of the five kids he met on Night 3 (this is why it plays differently than the others).

By night 6, we see the effects of the Bite, which is what Golden Freddy represents here (based off the Fredbear heads in the parts and service room on Night 4). Shadow Freddy is the exact same spirit, a recolor of GF meant to represent the child’s death. Note how “Phone Guy“ starts to sound shaky here, and how he’s the one to tell Jeremy to stay close the animatronics at tomorrow’s birthday party.

The sound of the grandfather clock in the Bitten Child’s old house marks the end of each night - and on Night 7, he passes away (the song that soothes the Puppet is My Grandfather’s Clock, a song about a clock dying when its owner dies). While this was your summer job because it surrounds the Bite that happened in the summer, the paycheck is dated for November of ‘87 - the date the child died.

While that was going on, the Sister/the Puppet confronts the Brother in his dreams about killing the Bitten Child as he succumbs to guilt - which is where the FNAF 2 cutscenes come in. These minigames mark the creation of the FNAF 1 Golden Freddy we know, IT’S MEs and all. Note how she’s dong to the Brother the same thing she did to “William“ in TSE - as they’re both killers refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The GF we see in these cutscenes is not the GF in FNAF 1, but rather another form of the Sister - a modified version of the Fredbear Plush, which is why it disappears and is replaced by the Puppet.

FNAF 1

Immediately after Jeremy’s death, Mike beings to completely repress the incident and even his memory of his brother entirely. Because of this, he starts having nightmares where he pictures himself as the Bitten Child, hence why the animatronics act like the bullies here.

Phone Guy is basically the Brother’s subconscious - note how nervous he is here post-Bite compared to FNAF 2. On Night 4, you learn that he was killed by GF (the Sister in this case) - just like she killed Michael Afton. Note also how this lines up with the FNAF 2 cutscenes ending on Night 4.

Phone Guy then dies and becomes FNAF 1 GF (once again, note the Michael parallels with the whole “becoming an empty suit” thing) - he’s being haunted by his guilt. It’s literally the Brother - IT’S ME is both a declaration of guilt and a very literal statement, which is also why it appears outside of Pirate’s Cove (Foxy mask). It only appears/is summoned when Mike starts feeling guilty (signaled by Freddy ripping his head off to boot), and it only goes away when you ignore it. It crashes the game/ends the dreams because Mike would remember what he did if he confronted it, thus ending the nightmares.

But he only continues to repress his memories, and at the end of the dream he completely forgets about his younger brother. The paycheck is once again dated for the current date - the date the Brother died, November 13th, 1987, just like in FNAF 2. (Also note that this was stated to be your summer job on Steam, much like FNAF 2.)

Finally, note how the room layout looks identical to Afton’s Private Room, and how the Night 5 phone call excerpt happens to mention laboratory experiments. This could indicate that the Brother was already kidnapped and lead through the Private Room to get the FNAF 4 bedroom, or the Sister could’ve been trying to warn him about what was going to happen. Either way, this is where the inspiration for 1′s layout and gameplay comes from.

FNAF 4

Sometime shortly after 1, Afton kidnaps the Brother and starts his second round of experiments - experiments most likely meant to draw out trauma in order to figure out the “joy of creation“. He builds the main 4 Nightmares and Plushtrap (which is why they have similar endos to the Funtimes and other design choices, like 5 fingers) and has them try to kill the Brother.

(It’s also possible that the Bitten Child posses the main 4 Nightmares, and the Sister possesses Plushtrap. This is why Plushtrap won’t kill you - the Sister doesn’t want you to die, just help the Bitten Child).

Everything about the experiment is meant to draw out the trauma from the Bite - making the Brother think he’s a young helpless child, making him think he’s asleep during the nights, making the Nightmare’s behaviors mimic the bullies’, ect. Hallucinogenic gas may have been used to influence the Brother, which could be why he sees himself as a child and what causes him to see the hospital equipment. The nights this time around aren’t based off the grandfather clock from his house that were in his dreams, but simply the IRL alarm clock on top of the dresser.

On Night 5 and 6, the Bitten Child himself takes over, taking the form of Nightmare and Nightmare Fredbear, the stomach-mouth having come from his memory of a kid being “eaten” by Funtime Fredbear. Nightmare, representing the Bitten Child’s death, makes the Brother lose his memories - he’s repressed the Bitten Child’s death so much that he literally can’t remember it anymore. This is also why the FNAF 1 phone call (backwards and lower-pitched GF style to boot) plays in the background - his guilt’s so repressed he can’t remember it now.

That’s where the box comes in. Afton either left it on purpose for the Brother to find to create more trauma, or the Brother somehow found it himself. Either way, the box contained something that jogged the Brother’s memory of the Bite and forced him to confront the facts. This causes the Brother to want to help the Bitten Child instead of ignoring him again - he can’t ignore him anymore.

It is around this time that William attempts to dismantle the old animatronics (or possibly even the Nightmares if the minigames are symbolic). Shadow Freddy/the fifth piece, lures out the animatronics so they can be “killed again” - SF does represent the child’s death, after all. The Bitten Child, now freed from the animatronics, gets William killed in the Springlock suit, which allows him to find a bit of rest for now. The Brother’s “nightmares“ end with William’s death.

FNAF 3

30 years or so later, Fazbear’s Fright opens IRL, a horror attraction based off the events of Freddy’s. They find William’s corpse and plan to use it in the attraction. The Brother’s nightmares resurface at the news, this time facing off against the man who killed his family and tried to do the same to him (the two are foils, after all). The room layout is based off of the experimentation room, and Springtrap and the Phantoms are based off of Fun with Plushtrap, as is the gameplay. The need to have a ventilation system may have come from the possible use of hallucinogenic gas in 4.

Both the Sister and the Brother reappear. The Brother only appears as Shadow Freddy, a memory of his death waiting to be freed, while the Sister once again appears as the Puppet. The Sister’s Phantom Puppet hallucination, mimicking her dad’s Phantoms, does the same thing to the Brother as it did in the FNAF 2 cutscenes - a casual reminder of what will happen if he doesn’t finish helping the Bitten Child. (She also may influence the other Phantom’s appearances, as she’d know them from the Bitten Child’s dreams.)

Throughout the nights, the Brother reaches out to the Bitten Child and helps to put him back together. Each of the hidden minigames relates back to the reasons why the Bitten Child can’t pass on - fear of people, fear of the animatronics, and, of course, the Bite itself.

BB’s Air Adventure has representations of the Toys in it with the silhouettes. Mangle’s Quest has a silhouette of the Puppet (posed like the Bitten Child as that’s who the Sister’s mimicking) as that was her toy. It’s relationship to the Sister is also probably why it unlocks the cakes - it’s helping her to put him back together as well. Chica’s Party has representations of the Bitten Child’s plushies in it - the final cupcake moving and following you like the Fredbear Plush.

Stage 01 is fixing the Bite - FNAF 1 Golden Freddy, the Brother’s guilt, frees the Foxy-mask piece. The missing child in one of the rooms implies his twin sister’s kidnapping. Finally, Shadow Bonnie, the apex of the Bitten Child’s fears, provides the last main cake - as what is seen in the shadows is misunderstood. (If Shadow Bonnie is indeed Michael, this would also explain the kindness, as well as the glitchiness - he is neither dead nor alive).

The Sister finishes putting him back together by providing the last cake, and they pass on together in the Happiest Day (tomorrow is another day, after all). However, the Sister hangs back just long enough to burn down Fazbear’s Fright in a final attempt to kill William (hence why her mask fell slower). The Brother’s now put back together himself, and won’t be having any more nightmares.

Meanwhile, Michael Afton vows to find his father, having survived the fire and left Fazbear’s Fright - leaving us on the potential for another game.