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cthulhusstepmom · 6 months

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It's all in the eyes.

When Kremy had first started working his way through casinos he'd been practically unstoppable. Starting with short trips, dipping his toes in so to speak; Staying just long enough to win a hand before cashing out and making a break for it(he'd learned the hard way about that special breed of thug that likes to beat up kids with a little cash). Slowly, one hand turned into two turned into three and four. Soon enough he would be playing tables for hours, bouncing between games with a smile and a wink.

Problem being there's only so many casinos around Agwé. Mobility wise he was also somewhat limited, unless he felt like swimming or ducking through the swamp, but he only had the one good shirt, can't afford to ruin it or they won't let him in. That and being too young and stupid to know better is what led him to that table in the Hungry Catfish.

He was about to cut it and cash out when he'd felt a clammy hand on his shoulder, looked up into the eyes of a bullywug with a smile too wide for his already froggy face. He hadn't bothered putting up a fuss about his winnings as he was steered from the table towards the bowels of the boat. What's money worth to a dead man anyway?

Mr.Guru's office is opulent, decorated with draperies in rich deep shades of blue. Kremy can feel the soles of the better of his two pairs of shoes sink deep into the carpet that he's too scared to lift his eyes from. Deep smoky incense and cigar smoke make the still air heavy and thick. It isn't helped at all by the almost physical weight of Mr.Guru's eyes focused solely on him.

"You hit a real lucky break there son. Do you know the odds of winning ten hands in a row?" His voice is gravelly, dark, with an edge of malice hanging over the words like a thunderhead.

"No sir." Of course he knew it was astro-fucking-nomical. He got greedy, Ma's birthday is coming up and he'd seen a beautiful pearl necklace in a shop window passing through the Magnolia Promenade, he'd wanted to grab the cash in one night so he'd be able to pull enough double shifts at the kitchen to make it believable when he showed up with it. If only he'd chosen any other casino.

"I don't appreciate being lied to boy."

"I'm sorry sir, I'm sure you don't sir."

"Why don't you go ahead and look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you?"

Suddenly his head moves on its own, he can't think of any better idea than looking Mr.Guru in the eyes, there's certainly no reason not to. Almost as soon as the conviction roots itself in his mind, it vanishes. But not before he's wrenched his face upward to lock eyes with the devil.

"You have the eyes of a sinner boy." He sounds pleased, smug. "You care to explain to me why I should let a whelp like you walk out of my casino with all that cash?"

Kremy stands his ground. He knows bullies, dealt with them all his life. And Mr.Guru isn't as such. He's a shark; Complete with the cold dead eyes, such a dark brown they're almost black. This is a man in power, power that Kremy can't even begin to understand. The moment he sees weakness, the moment he smells blood, Kremy is as good as chum in the water.

"Suppose I just have the luck of the cards with me Sir."

"That right? They speak to you do they?"

Kremy feels a small smile creep across his scaly lips.

"From a certain point of view."

To Kremy's utter shock, Mr.Guru lets out a bark of gravelly laughter.

"What do you do boy? Besides win improbable odds."

"Well sir I'm a fine chef and a quick learner."

Those black eyes narrow for a moment as Mr.Guru strokes a hand over his well trimmed beard.

"Could use a pair of hands like yours in my galley. What do you say son?"

The smile becomes a crocodile grin.

"Where do I sign Mr.Guru?"

It's not regret necessarily.

Kremy knows regret, intimately, and he can't quite say he regrets signing that contract. Perhaps guilt is a better fit. Deep down he knows he didn't really have much of a choice, if he hadn't accepted Mr.Guru's offer of employment he would have ended up like these poor souls.

Pushing the last of the heavy burlap sacks over the edge of the boat Kremy feels a sigh bubbling in his throat. It's an odd thing to be all introspective and shit when you're disposing of bodies, or so he’s been told. Personally, Kremy feels it's a very natural time to feel existential but he knows better than to try and make discussion over it now. He's just here because he's stronger than the bullywugs and it's been a busy night.

Now that he's been promoted to pit boss he's been spending more and more time with the Grinning Sinners, or the other Grinning Sinners(Mr.Guru has never been too clear on exactly what Kremy is in the organization, keeps everyone guessing that way, prevents anyone from getting too chummy with one another). Whether that be patrolling the pit, taking inventory, or dealing with some of the more unwanted patrons in whatever ways the Boss deemed necessary. He'd even been sent out to collect on bargains for Mr.Guru, a task that most of the Grinning Sinners are disallowed from.

Tonight there are whispers in the air though, one of the mid level Sinners(Jean-Claude he's pretty sure) is going to challenge the boss. It'll be his first time seeing it in person, he'd heard it a few times in his years in the kitchen, provided refreshments even. It's a privilege Mr.Guru provides all of his employees: the opportunity to challenge him to a poker game for your contract. If you win, you walk away with your soul in hand; no longer blemished by the contract you've signed. If you lose, another seven years are added to your time aboard the Hungry Catfish.

He's never heard of anyone winning.

And tonight is no exception.

As he leans against the bar, he attempts to subtly look over his boss's shoulder, get a glance of his cards; but it's almost like a veil of shadow sits over them and all he can see is darkness. Every time they hit the table though, it's clear as day how poorly Jean-Claude is making out. Word on deck is that he'd been seeing a gal and was looking to propose. Kremy had seen her a few times, she was alright he supposes though not to his tastes(between being rather toad-like and being of a womanly persuasion, there's not much to pique his interest). The information being passed down along the bar is that Jean-Claude had six years left in his contract; Hopefully his lady love would wait for him for thirteen.

The first time Kremy gambles his soul they're deep in the woods, returning from a meeting between Mr.Guru and a powerful business associate.

"Mr.Guru?" He asks, staring deep into the fire as he allows the bullywugs to clean up after dinner(an arrangement he can't say he dislikes too much, Kremy despises doing dishes almost as much as he loves cooking).

The man himself moves just a smidgen, tilting his head with an indulgent "Hmm?"

"Would you kindly play a game of poker with me?"

He loses. Badly.

It's the first time he's truly lost a game of cards in a long, long time.

Mr.Guru claps him on the back with a smile that shows too many teeth.

“Maybe next time son.”

He loses the next time too. And the next.

After the fourth he’d gone to find help in the only place he knew.

Pierre has a comfy seat in the organization all things considered, he may as well be Mr.Guru’s right hand man. And he didn’t get there by luck(or misconception given how many bullywugs seem to have his same name). With a steel trap mind and the instincts of both a killer and a gambler, he makes an excellent pit boss; and a better confidant.

“What the fuck is it Pierre? I’ve practiced my poker face till my muscles froze up. I know it’s not that. I don’t have tells, I know I don’t!” Seated at the bar, Pierre gives him an unimpressed look. “Right, I’ll listen.”

“You are young yet Kremy, and full of passion. And apparently all the knowledge in the universe if you are to be believed.” Kremy finds himself glad that he can’t flush under the gentle admonishment.

“Sounds like a you problem if you’re believing.”

Pierre grants him a croaky chuckle “Listen and Pierre will tell, your silvery barbs may amuse Mr.Guru but he is a man with much more patience than I.”

Kremy nods eagerly.

“There are many ways out of a contract, Kremy, you must learn to think outside of the box if you don’t want to be inside of it. You can iron out every muscle in your face, spend hours mastering the control of your expression, but you will never cull your true tell.”

He sits stone still as if that will make it easier to catalog all that Pierre is saying.

The old bullywug takes his hand. “Your eyes, Kremy. There is a fire inside of you that cannot be doused, it shows in your eyes. They will always betray you.”

Eventually he’d realized that Pierre was right, after stubbornly extending his contract another fourteen years. So he thought outside of the box. It was easy enough to track down Mr.Guru’s generous benefactor, even easier to sign yet another contract(though he read through this one much more thoroughly). Taking a patron and taking another name for himself: Lecroux. And well, technically speaking Kremy Lecroux didn’t sign his soul away to Mr.Guru. It wasn’t an honorable way out but if there’s one thing Kremy is good at it’s cheating. Sort of poetic in the end, that cheating Mr.Guru got him into this mess and (from a certain point of view) it’ll get him out of it as well.

From then it was history. He skipped town, swam through the swamp for a few days before pulling himself up out of the river and setting about getting a new set of clothes. Trading playing cards for a set of dice, though he still kept his aces close (tucked into the brim of his new hat to be exact). Altogether he was a new man. And one night as he sat down for a drink, his wandering eyes found another fire.

His name was Gideon.

#is this how it happened? probably not #but until we get more information this is my story and i'm sticking to it #My inspiration for one Mr. Remy Guru is Patrick Page's performance in Hadestown btw just copy and paste straight over #fascinated by Kremy and eyes #the cyclops thing at the carnival #trading his eye color for the unicorn horn #eyes are windows to the soul you know #kremy lecroux #once upon a witchlight #gideon coal #coalecroux #legends of avantris

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cartoonus-maximus · 8 months

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It's been 84 years, but we're back now with my notes, thoughts, and theory noodles about "Fazbear Frights #12: Felix the Shark."

I don't have as many theory noodles about this volume as I've had about others, in large part because of this volume's status as "noncanon." But I have a few comments and connections sprinkled throughout my notes.

I actually think the stories in this volume were really well written. Easily better written than several other stories/volumes of this series I could name but won't.

*coughcough* TheFriendlyFace *coughcough* TheBlackbird *coughcough* Fetch *coughcough* ThePuppetCarver *coughcough*

Sorry about that... just had something in my throat.

Anyway, it's nice to finally finish the series. I want to comb through it again sometime in the future, as a "I now know the ending, so let's see if all those clues and moments of foreshadowing really point to the ending properly" retrospective thing. I also want to move on to the "Tales From the Pizzaplex" series, since I see lots of theory fodder come out of those books.

As always, spoilers under the cut.

Reader beware, you're in for a scare!

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(picture of the Blåhaj shark plushie from Ikea)

"Felix the Shark"

- The story opens on a young man named Dirk, who is playing chess against his friend, Jenny. Jenny's twin brother, Gordon, watches on. The three of them plus two others, Leo and Wyatt, have been friends since junior high, and all five of them have known each other and been close for over a decade, even though they have very strong, very different personalities; it's stated that the five are largely friends because no one else will hang out with them.

- Dirk has a crush on Jenny, Jenny loves him like a brother, and Gordon cares too much about chess.

- Gordon is a mechanic, who has auburn hair and wears grey shirts; he's constantly covered in grease stains. He's very aggressive when annoyed. He and Dirk don't get along well at all, and keep getting on each other's nerves.

- Leo is a D&D nerd and active grammarian, and Wyatt is a cheerful computer whizz.

- 'Caverns & Crocodiles' is a game Dirk and Leo created, based off of a book called 'the Dogged Dogmatist.'

- People outside of his friend group tend to ignore Dirk when he talks, which he attributes to his 'chipmunk looks.'

- The five of them share pizza together in a room with a black-and-white checkered floor, which is the basement of Jenny and Gorgon's parents house. Not unusual, but the image of the floor, the pizza, and the group of 1 gal and 4 guys makes me think of FNAF1 (where there are five animations, with Chica being the only lady).

- Leo is a comic artist! (I'm jealous)

- Dirk is a book reviewer. He spent his teen years in a foster home, after the deaths of his parents and aunt. He did not have a good time.

- Jenny teaches gymnastics at a local school. She has green eyes and masculine features that resemble her brother's; Gordon is very handsome, but Jenny is considered 'unattractive' to most. She's unbothered by this.

- Gordon is a conspiracy theorist.

- All five of them have weird interests and behaviors, which have always prevented them from having very active social lives.

- The five adults reminisce about going to Freddy Fazbear's as kids. Wyatt cites Chica as his favorite character, saying that his mom made him a birthday cake that looked like Chica's cupcake one year.

- Leo mentions the coloring books at the restaurants, saying that they inspired him to start drawing himself, and cites Foxy as the inspiration of a "purple-clad superhero" character of his own comic series. The character has a scythe attached to his arm in place of a hand.

- Jenny and Gordon mention that the Freddy's they went to most as a kid had an indoor jungle gym that they always climbed on. Jenny liked dancing the music played at the restaurant, and Gordon liked watching the animatronics; he now has the conspiracy theory that the robot apocalypse will start at a Freddy's, if it hasn't secretly started already.

- Gordon: "Clearly the guy who created the Freddy's animatronics was way ahead of his time. … He had to keep [the animatronics] rudimentary for the public, but what if he had an underground laboratory? What if he created the first wave of the android army?"

- Dirk recently unearthed his old plushie from Freddy's of a shark character called Felix, and admits that he's also been having dreams about the shark. His friends don't recognize the character, and are confused when he mentions it. Dirk talks about his memories of Felix, saying that he went to a Freddy's that had a moat feature, and a massive water tank that customers could dive into to swim alongside an animatronic shark; Felix was 6 ft long, could swim freely through the water tank, and could open and close his mouth.

- The more Dirk describes the shark animatronic, the more the others ask about the safety of allowing children to climb into an enclosed tank with a toothy robot. Dirk says that, as a child, he felt a connection to Felix, saying he felt the robotic shark was the only one that understood him. Jenny suggests that Felix was an imaginary friend of some sort.

- Since Dirk's family traveled a lot when he was a child, Wyatt suggests that there was a unique Freddy's location somewhere that Dirk went to and saw Felix.

- Dirk's parents were performers of a magic act, who traveled everywhere and used Dirk as a child-sized prop in their show. They died in a car wreck. Dirk was then cared for by his aunt, but she didn't know what to do with a child, and mostly got angry at him for getting her house dirty. She later died of cancer, and Dirk no longer has any family.

- Getting angry with his friends for not believing him, Dirk sets out to travel, deciding that he's going to find Felix. He takes a list of places his parents performed in and a list of places where Freddy's used to have a building, and starts checking out all the places that overlap.

- He finds one midwestern town called Forkstop that used to be a big, bustling region before the local manufacturing plant closed down. Now the town is scrounging for money, and tries to capitalize off of the urban legends of a long-dead criminal to attract tourists. (Sounds like what happens in my neck of the woods.)

- In Forkstop, he goes for food at a diner, where he meets three local ladies named Wendy, Agnes, and Dawn. Agnes and Dawn admit to remembering a Freddy Fazbear's location that used to be in the area (Dawn says that Bonnie was her favorite, and Agnes complains about a boy animatronic having a girl's name), and give him directions to the general part of town where the Freddy's used to be, but warn him that the building isn't there anymore.

- To Dirk's surprise and relief, Agnes and Dawn remember Felix, meaning that he's in the right place. But, unlike him, they don't have fond memories of Felix - they were both terrified of Felix as little girls, and Agnes had to go to therapy to deal with the nightmares she had after swimming in the tank. In her nightmares, she got trapped in the tank with the shark and drowned.

- Dirk is confused by this, and insists that Felix was "friendly," and "wished he could leave the tank and play with the kids like the other animatronics." Dawn tells him that, if anything, the robot looked hungry. Everything they tell him about Felix is radically different from his own knowledge of the shark.

- Wendy tells him that her late husband was working as a contractor when the Freddy's closed down. She says it closed because a little boy almost drowned in the tank, and that, when the owner was forced to sell the land the Freddy's was on to a real estate developer, it was under the condition that the developer build around Freddy's, and leave the Freddy's building intact. She apologetically tells him that she's not sure what building is there now, since several new buildings were being built at the time (including a big mall, which I thought was worth noting), but gives him some general ideas.

- Wendy also tells him the rumors about the Freddy's owner. The man has since died, but, while he was alive, people thought he had a weird relationship with the shark animatronic, and it was rumored that he continued to visit Felix even long after the place was closed down.

- Dirk has to ask several people around the town, and even go to the county clerk, to figure out where Freddy's used to be. He eventually learns that a tourist-attraction waterpark was built over/around it (and that the park failed as a tourist attraction, and sits empty and dry most of the time).

- Dirk thinks the unopened waterpark looks creepy, comparing it to "a serial killer hangout, a place where zombies would march en masse, or the start of Gordon's andriod army." Because of its intention as a tourist destination, the place is decorated based on the crimes and weaponry of the infamous outlaw the town tried to capitalize off of, and the front doors to the park look like gravestones and the outlaw's murder weapons. It's been a gloomy day, and it starts to rain and thunder just as Dirk gets in under a gap in the fence.

- Dirk wanders around the park for quite while, "scouring every inch" of the place, but doesn't find the Freddy's building anywhere. Dejected, he returns to the motel room he's staying in. That night he has a dream wherein Felix visits him, begging Dirk to come back and find him, and to keep him company.

- While at the county clerk's office, Dirk got the name of the late owner of the Freddy's building, Aaron Sanders. He decides to try hunting down the man's heirs. From the woman who runs the motel he's staying in, he learns that Aaron grew up in the area, and liked to design mazes as a kid; he married his high school sweetheart, and, by the time he was 20, he was running a local sandwich shop and had a son.

- Aaron was looking into buying the local Freddy's location at around the same time he took his family (his wife, their son, and their daughter) on a vacation to the coast. Sadly, his son drowned on that vacation, and Aaron was never the same again. Aaron said that his son's body should have been washed out to sea, but a shark came along and bumped into the boy's body, sending it back to shore. The motel owner (Maud) tells Dirk that most people don't believe that part of the story but that she personally does, as she thinks it explains a lot about Aaron's later behavior.

- After the loss of their son, Aaron's wife withdraw in on herself and became depressed, dying soon after, while Aaron become obsessed with sharks and butterflies. (His son was chasing a butterfly at the beach, which lead to him falling into the water and drowning.) Aaron pushed hard to include an animatronic shark at his Freddy's establishment, to which the owners of other Freddy's franchises argued that "Freddy's doesn't have a shark character" and "including one would make [Aaron's location] inauthentic."

- Aaron's daughter, Louisa Sanders, is still alive but is a ward of the state. She's mentally not present, and is completely detached from her reality and surroundings. The motel owner explains that Louisa wrote a book once, at the behest of Aaron, and that the book was published shortly after Aaron's passing; since then, Louisa has locked herself inside her own head, and doesn't engage with the world.

- To Dirk's surprise, he realizes that Louisa Sanders wrote 'the Dogged Dogmatist' under a pseudonym, and that he knows her book inside and out. The cover of the book depicts a creature that seems like a combination of a shark and a crocodile, and the story is about a man going on a journey to find this sharkodile creature, led by a "voice of intuition he heard in his head." There are strange, disjointed phrases and words scattered throughout the book, as well as illustrations of butterflies and flowers that don't relate to anything. The book tells a story that actively encourages its readers to pick it apart and theorize about it, and Dirk has had a lot of fun in the past with his friend Leo dissecting the story and arguing for or against different interpretations. (Sounds a little like a franchise I know…)

- Contemplating the book's illustration of flowers and butterflies, Dirk starts to wonder if it's a map of some sort, relating the shapes to the layout of the waterpark.

- Dirk goes to visit Louisa, now knowing that she is both related to the Felix mystery as well as his favorite author. She's a patient in a hospital, where she has full-time caregivers. She's wearing a necklace with a pendant shaped like a zebra longwing butterfly.

- Louisa doesn't talk, but listens to him tell her his story. When he says he wants to find Felix, she smiles, takes off her necklace, and hands it to him, looking pointedly at a copy of her book. She then closes her eyes and turns away from him, signaling that she's done with him, and that he has everything he needs.

- Dirk returns to his motel room, where he has a phone conversation with his friend Leo. He asks Leo to pull out the list they made once of all the points in 'the Dogged Dogmatist' that felt unusual or too pointed. Leo reads them out loud to Dirk while Dirk writes them down for himself, thinking that they could be clues to where the Freddy's building is.

- Dirk returns to the waterpark the next day. The waterpark feels "dinghy and dark," even though it's a clear day out today.

- Now that he knows an illustration in Louisa's book is a map of the park, and that there are clues and directions hidden within the text of her book, Dirk has a pretty good idea of how and where to start looking.

- He gets startled by a rustling in one of the decorative bushes in the park, and sees two "yellow orbs" look at him for a moment, before turning away. He realized he's just spooked an animal of some sort (an opossum, he thinks), and calms down. (I like to think he's being followed by Fetch or the Friendly Face, just because I miss them.) He also hears crickets, frogs, owls, coyotes, and other small animals. (Really painting a picture of nighttime in the Southwest/Midwest region of the U.S., huh, Scott?)

- One of the clues relates to something special happening at 3:33 (whether AM or PM is not specified), so Dirk waits around for the hour to reach. (It's also an important time in numerology thought, but we're outright told that's not what's important right now.) At 3:33 PM, Dirk spots a shadow from one of the waterslides that's now shaped like an arrow, pointing at a spot in the pool. The tiles on the inside of the pool right where the arrow is pointing are shaped like a zebra longwing butterfly. Putting his ear to pool floor, Dirk can hear running water somewhere nearby. Following the sound, he finds a handle at the bottom of the pool, with a strange keyhole next to it.

- Louisa's pendant fits into this keyhole, and a hidden compartment opens. The compartment holds a key, and Dirk uses the key to open the door to the pumphouse, which he hadn't been able to get into before. A door inside the pumphouse leads him to a maze of tunnels beneath the park.

- Eventually, after searching through the tunnel maze, Dirk finds the front door of 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza,' along with the rest of the restaurant. He enters the place, and can see Felix's tank, which is full of murky water. He doesn't see Felix, but he sees that the water in his tank is moving. He can hear the water pumps for the tank humming nearby, noting that the water is being both filtered and heated, and that the machines are still running and fully operational. He approaches the opening to the tank, idly recalling that the type of handle used on the opening is called a 'dog' (explaining Louisa's book title).

- Satisfied with this knowledge, Dirk decides to swim with Felix. He undresses and puts on the diving equipment, complete with a breathing apparatus that still works. He climbs right into the tank, and the tank hatch closes behind him. (… I know exactly what's about to happen, and you probably do, too.)

- Felix appears to join Dirk for a swim, and Dirk freaks out, terrified by his former friend. Time has not been kind to the underwater animatronic, and parts of him are missing, rotted away. Dirk doesn't believe this terrifying monstrosity could have ever been his beloved Felix.

- Felix swims in circles around Dirk, and Dirk panics and screams, feeling distraught.

- "Felix's stare was empty and dead."

- Dirk rushes back to the entrance hatch of the tank, only to belatedly realize that there's no way to open the hatch from inside the tank. Trapped in the water tank, Dirk becomes stuck in the current of the water, with Felix literally nipping at his heels. Dirk realizes that he got what he wanted, he found Felix and proved that he didn't make the shark up, but that his victory is meaningless since he's going to die here and no one will even know what happened to him. . . . … That was kind of an abrupt let down of an ending, tbh. I dunno, I was expecting more fanfare rejoicing over the rediscovery of Felix, or some drama of some kind. Like Felix was possessed by Aaron Sander's dead son, or Dirk climbed into the tank and found Aaron's corpse in there or something.

… I was going to say "if this story had been used for the 'Pizzaplex' books, the title would be 'Submechaniphobia' or something," as a smarmy comment about all the '-phobia' titles in those books, but then I remembered that that literally is the title of a story in that series.

But maybe it could have been 'Galeophobia' (fear of sharks) or 'Thalassophobia' (fear of drowning) or something, idk.

Anyway.. I don't really have much in the ways of theory fodder for this one. Partially since it's """""not canon""""" and I don't know whether to try taking anything out of it or not, and partially just because everything in it seems very straight-forward, or at least compounding things we already know. Sure, I could draw parallels between different points (relating Foxy to a purple superhero = Michael being a purple character who draws himself as a superhero and is related to Foxy) (Dirk and his friends being arranged in the opening scene = the animatronic lineup in FNAF1) but like…. I don't know that those are consequential or meaningful.

During the story, I kept trying to relate Felix to Golden Freddy. Which is ridiculous, but here's my chain of thoughts: -- Dirk and his friends reminded me of the FNAF1 animatronics in the opening scene, with Jenny and Chica being the only female characters in their respective groups of five. And of the males, Dirk feels like an outsider, even among his own friends. In FNAF1, Golden Freddy is a wildcard, and feels very separate from the others: an outsider among his own group. -- A popular conception about Golden Freddy is that he represents the younger Afton boy, being both his favorite character and the cause of his death, and possibly where his spirit ended up. Felix clearly represents Aaron's son, on some level, and is specifically described as old, withered, falling apart, lifeless, and having only one eye. These are words that could also be used to describe Golden Freddy.

But ultimately, I don't think there's anything here. I don't think the characters are really connected at all. I think it's just an example of story points and imagery being reused in the franchise.

And speaking of reused imagery.. This is not the first time we've seen evidence of a father sneaking into underground tunnels to observe an animatronic that represents his dead child (William keeping tabs on Circus Baby in Sister Location), nor the first time we've seen a Freddy's building built over/around by another business (the mall in 'the Silver Eyes,' another restaurant in 'Find Player 2,' and even the Mega Pizzaplex itself in the Security Breach game).

It's possible that the idea of a Freddy's franchisee building a special robot after the death of his child, burying the Freddy's building with another business but keeping Freddy's intact, and leaving the special robot to rot hidden beneath the new place… and the robot calling someone to it with promises of friendship, saying that it's sad and lonely… It could connect to the Mimic. I don't have much to go on, but… there's a skeleton of a connection there.

(Side note: I just want to tell you that every single time I tried to write Gordon's name, I wrote 'Gorgon' instead. XD )

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"The Scoop"

- Mandy Mason is our hero of the story, a young woman with heterochromia (one brown eye and one green eye), who dyes her hair fun colors (this week it's cotton candy pink) and wears it in space buns, skateboards, and writes FNAF fanfic. She has a habit of bouncing and fidgeting, and crosses her ankles when she's nervous. She goes to a fancy prep school for girls, where she gets bullied, both for her appearance and for her hobbies and interests.

- It's specified that FNAF is a game series, seemingly without any books as part of the franchise.

- Mandy runs a blog called "the M&M Scoop."

- Mandy's parents both work, with her mom's job often taking her out of town; despite all the travel she does, Mandy's mom still makes time to video chat with her teen daughter almost every day, and fusses over Mandy's school grades and hair colors.

- Mandy has a stuffed blue elephant called "Mr. Happy," who used to belong to her brother, Bobby, who died as a baby. Picking this little friend up, Mandy settles into her bedroom, pulling up FNAF3 to play and forget her real-life problems. She also has a framed photo of her brother as a baby, which she talks to as if he's present and is her friend.

- (I'm listening to the audiobook, and the narrator insists on spelling out "FNAF" every time she says it. I'm used to hearing people say it as a single word, "fuh-naff," and hearing "Eff-en-eh-eff" throws me for a loop every time.)

- Mandy's been getting involved in the FNAF theorist community, and has been exploring the lore of the game series by herself. Right now, she's scouring the game code of FNAF3, wanting to see if she can find anything interesting in it herself. This version of the game code includes picture files of an old rundown building (which to my knowledge don't exist in the irl game code) with titles like "looks_haunted_now.jpg."

- A real life missing child's report gets posted to a FNAF theorist subreddit Mandy is a part of, detailing a 5-year-old boy who went missing 17 years ago, supposedly being taken by a man in purple. Mandy connects the mental image to fictional purple guy William Afton.

- Mandy posts the image of the house to the FNAF subreddit, asking if anyone has any ideas for what it could mean. She doesn't get any responses until the next day, and the responses she finally gets are mostly rude; no one else can find the image when they scour the game files, so they assume she's making it up for clout.

- When heading to bed, Mandy sees something red dart through her room out of the corner of her eye. When she looks for it, she doesn't see anything.

- Mandy has breakfast with her dad the next morning. Her dad calls her "cupcake" and "Mandy-bear," and teases her about staying in bed late. When she tells him about her findings in the FNAF3 code, her dad warns her that sometimes programmers leave junk files in code, placeholder words and random images, and sometimes they don't really mean anything. He suggests that the picture of a building was something the game developer used as inspiration for the in-game building design or for the story or something, which Mandy admits is a possibility. Her dad then heads to work, telling her to have a good day at school and jokes "Don't get arrested!"

- At school, Mandy gets green slime thrown over her by Melissa, the primary bully she deals with. Melissa is pretty but also on the shorter side, and Mandy thinks the mean girl looks like an evil doll. Melissa also steals Mandy's skateboard, and Mandy has to walk home.

- After scrubbing the green gunk off of her face, Mandy realizes that whatever was in it has stained her hair and her school uniform and backpack. She decides to deal with it by re-dying her hair, deciding to go with purple this time.

- Mandy doesn't want to tell her parents about the bullying, because she knows they'll take time off from their jobs to try to help her, and she would feel guilty about taking them away from their work. (Oh the emotional struggles of an only/oldest daughter…)

- Mandy's friend Lindy (a bespectacled black girl who lives in Utah, and who also hangs out on FNAF forums and writes fic) video chats with her. Lindy listens to Mandy complain about the mean comments about the picture she found. She suggests Mandy try reverse image searching the picture, to see if that tells her anything about the photo itself, or the building in it.

- The two girls talk for awhile, and play 20 Questions with each other. Lindy mentions that she's a middle-child who has one older brother and one younger brother, and she complains about her brothers being annoying, wrestling constantly, and smelling bad, and that her older brother once stole her diary and read it out loud to the whole family; they fought for a week after. Mandy listens and wishes her brother had survived, or that she had other siblings.

- While longing for her deceased brother, Mandy is startled to see a blue child-sized shoe appear at the top of the stairs in her home. The shoe promptly vanishes. She is currently home alone. The teenager picks up a baseball bat and goes to investigate, but doesn't find anything unusual in the house.

- Mandy goes back to scouring the FNAF3 game files. To her surprise and confusion, the strange picture file of the building is no longer there.

- Running the picture through an image search is helpful, pulling up many possible places for where the photo could have originated. While she looks through them, she gets suddenly cold - she turns around to get a sweater, and comes face to face with a small, 5-year-old ghost boy, wearing blue shoes, blue jeans, and a red shirt. He has messy brown hair. He looks at her from her bedroom door, then disappears when she blinks.

- Thoroughly spooked, Mandy closes and locks her bedroom door.

- Mandy has a dream during the night. In the dream, she "wakes up" to find herself lying on the floor of a warehouse of some kind, with "a dim, yellow light," "grimy walls," "a box of animatronic parts," and "a black and white checkered floor." She recognizes it as the FNAF3 location. She's visited by the ghost boy, who stands over her and stares at her "despondently."

- When Mandy tries to talk to the ghost boy, he turns and runs away. She chases after him, and he leads her through the building. She follows him into a storage room, where she finds him against the back wall, curled into the fetal position. He looks up at her, and there are no eyes in his eye sockets. When Mandy tries to talk to him again, the boy lunges at her, his mouth growing and filling with huge, sharp teeth.

- The jumpscare makes Mandy wake up from the nightmare, and she sits up in her bed, clutching her elephant friend. Her bedroom door is still closed and locked, but it doesn't make her feel better.

- Going to school with her purple hair and lack of sleep the next day, Mandy feels like a zombie of some sort, or a "bruised and beat-up punching bag." The bullies airdrop a video of herself getting slimed from the previous day, forcing her to relive the event, and joke about "breaking" her. Trying to ignore them, Mandy tries to research about ghosts and hauntings.

- Returning to her image search, Mandy finds the building on Google Maps. It's a movie theater in Peace Valley, Utah.

- Mandy mother comes home, and mentions that the next place she has to travel to is Cedar City, Utah. Mandy gets excited, because that's where her friend Lindy lives, and works to convince her mother to take her with her. She lies, telling her mother that she has a homework assignment that involves writing about the history of a small town in Utah near Cedar City.

- Mandy, about something that inconveniences her: "But that's not important." Her mother: "Don't say that. Everything about you is important!" (Finally… some good f*cking parenting.)

- After talking for a bit, her mother agrees to take Mandy with her, looking forward to spending a few extra hours with her daughter and happy that Mandy will get to spend time with her friend.

- On the plane ride to Utah, Mandy thinks she sees the ghost boy run toward the aisle of the plane. It turns out to be a normal child, flying with his family, who just happens to look similar. She relaxes again, but continues to see strange flashes of red in the corner of her vision.

- Once in Cedar Point, Mandy's mother sets her up in their hotel room. Mandy pulls out the picture of her brother from her luggage, setting him up at the window so he can see the view. (The moments with the picture of her deceased brother are sad, but also extremely sweet.) She then calls Lindy, and they arrange to meet up the following day.

- Mandy gets on a bus and goes to the Cedar Point city hall, where she learns about the mysterious old theater in Peace Valley (which she's learned is only 20 minutes away from Cedar Point, and seems to act like a suburb of the larger city). She learns that the theater used to be "Sideshow's Snack Shack," which was a family diner that was only open for 3 years; it closed 17 years ago, when a boy was kidnapped at the diner.

- Mandy sees a police composite sketch of the assumed kidnapper, but all she sees are "dark eyes and hair, straight nose, flat mouth. … The man was just so… ordinary." The sketch was printed in purple ink, for some reason, and people involved in the case referred to the kidnapper as "the purple man." Alarmed, Mandy connects this information to that post she saw on the FNAF subreddit. She feels like she's stepped into a FNAF fanfic.

- Later that night, Mandy has another strange dream. This time, she's in the FNAF1 location, and she's dressed "like a security guard from one of the games," which includes a long-sleeved button up shirt, slacks, and boots. (This is just mildly interesting, because saying "like from the games" implies that Mandy can see the security guard character/s when she plays FNAF, something that we definitely can't do in the games irl.)

- She feels like she's being watched, and soon runs into the ghost boy. She gets a better look at him, and can see the picture of a bear character on his red shirt (she doesn't recognize the bear, so probably not Freddy), and she can see how thin and sad the boy looks. She feels bad for him and tries to talk to him, but the boy hisses and growls and bites at her with razor-sharp teeth. He chases her through the restaurant, eventually chasing her into a room marked 'employee's only.'

- "She had a feeling [the ghost boy] was there. He was always there."

- Entering the 'employee's only' room, security guard!Mandy finds herself trapped with the boy, who attacks her. She feels "corroded flesh" when he touches her.

- Mandy screams in her sleep, and her mother is quick to wake her up. Mandy tells her mother a little about the nightmare, and her mother is quick to blame it on the horror games Mandy plays so much. When Mandy's feeling better, her mother leaves the room, and Mandy is horrified to see the ghost boy standing in the open doorway behind her, just watching Mandy. Once again, the boy vanishes when she blinks again.

- Now very scared, Mandy climbs into her mother's bed, sleeping with her mother the rest of the night.

- The next day, Mandy and Lindy meet up, and are happy to see each other in person for the first time. The girls decide to go to Peace Valley themselves, and take a look around the small town, then go to the mysterious old theater.

- The theater is still operational, and the girls buy tickets for today's matinee. They overhear a maintenance worker complain to the woman at the ticket booth about flickering light system in the building, specifically stating that it "hasn't been reliable in 20 years." Mandy realizes that, if the man has worked here for 20 years, he must have worked for the previous business as well, and decides to question him about it. The maintenance man, Jim, tells her that there was a kidnapping incident at the place, and that they were forced to close due to most customers shying away from the area after the incident. He tells her that he was among the search group who looked for the missing boy, but they never found him. Jim agrees to talk more if the girls buy him a soda.

- Jim tells the girls about Stevie, the boy that went missing, citing that the kid always came in with his mother and spent hours playing pinball. Whenever his mother collected him to go home, Stevie would hide from her, wanting to stay and play more; on the day he went missing, it took the adults a bit to realize that the boy wasn't just hiding look usual.

- Mandy asks "What about 'the purple man?'" and Jim answers "You mean the stranger?"

- Jim tells them that the police were called, alerted to the boy going missing, possibly in trouble or taken. When the police questioned the bystanders from the restaurant, several people claimed to have seen Stevie talking with a strange man, and they all described the man in the same way. Jim admits that he never saw the man, even though he was working in the building that day, and doesn't know what any of the witnesses were talking about.

- Mandy wonders if the FNAF game developer (who isn't Scott in this universe) hid the photo of the theater building in the game files as a way of getting someone, anyone, to look into this missing child case.

- Mandy returns to the theater the next day, and asks Jim about the building layout, and how much it changed between business owners. He tells her that a few of the original rooms have been closed off since then, and aren't used anymore. She convinces him to show her these rooms.

- While they're talking, Jim greets a woman that enters the theater. After she passes through to the next room, he tells Mandy that the woman was Mrs. Robbins, the mother of the missing boy.

- Jim takes Mandy to a storage room, where everything from "Sideshow's Snack Shack" was stored; apparently the owner didn't know what to do with the stuff, so he just had it shoved into storage. Jim has to leave, but lets Mandy look through everything.

- The "Sideshow's" business had a brown bear mascot, called "Sideshow." She finds what appears to be an animatronic of the bear, and notes that its mouth has been sewn shut; it gives her an uneasy feeling to be near, and it smells terrible.

- Mandy is intrigued by the idea that FNAF could be based on a real world tragedy, but she also feels terrible for the real world victims. She talks to the picture of her deceased brother that she carries around, talking through her conflicting feelings about this development.

- The ghost boy appears in the storage room next to her, now resembling a "hungry" corpse more than anything else. Mandy panics and tries to run from him, but he follows her, chasing her around the storage space. He disappears near the bear animatronic, and a newspaper clipping is left in his place.

- Her curiosity getting the best of her, Mandy looks at the newspaper clipping. It's an article about Stevie Robbins' disappearance, and includes a photo of him; Mandy realizes that the ghost boy is the missing Stevie Robbins. She wonders why he's haunting her.

- Mandy feels like Stevie is trying to lure her somewhere, like he often does in her dreams.

- Stevie's ghost shows her how to open the bear animatronic, then vanishes inside it. Mandy mimics his actions, turning the bear's head to the side, and the head pops right off. Inside the bear's torso, Mandy sees Stevie's corpse. She panics and runs away.

- Mandy tells Jim, who calls the police. Jim sits with her while the police scour the building, and thanks her for finding the boy's body, so that they can put Stevie to rest and so his mother can have some closure. Jim assumes that Stevie must have climbed into the bear animatronic himself, playing his hiding game with his mother, but couldn't get back out; the coroner later says that he thinks the boy must have broke his neck when he climbed into the bear. Jim also seems to feel bad that he never thought to look inside the animatronic, and that he's been working in the same building as the corpse of his friend's son all these years.

- Mandy's mother comes to get her, very frantic and concerned. As they talk, they're approached by Mrs. Robbins, who thanks Mandy for giving her the peace she needed. Mandy's mother comforts the woman, then takes Mandy back to their hotel room, comforting her daughter as well.

- Mandy, who hasn't cried since she was a toddler, and is a pro at hiding her negative feelings from others, cries on the entire ride back to the hotel. She doesn't stop crying, even when her mother arranges for them to fly home early. She just sits around, clutching her stuffed elephant and crying, unable to stop. At home, she cries so much, her parents become extremely worried about her, and do what they can to comfort her.

- Unable to hide her feelings anymore, Mandy tells her parents how lonely she is, and how sad she feels so much of the time. She tells them all about the bullying at school, and how much she misses her brother, and how much of a freak she feels she is. Her parents listen and hug her. It takes a few hours, but Mandy finally cries all her tears, and falls into a dreamless sleep.

- Days later, Mandy wonders if Stevie's ghost came to her because he was incredibly lonely, like she often is.

- She chooses not to talk about Stevie, or the building, or anything related to it on her blog, or on the FNAF subreddit. She cites "I think if the creator wanted us to know, he would tell us." She drops the subject online, and starts talking more with Lindy.

- The girls wonder how the picture got into the game files, and what the real life missing child case has to do with FNAF anyway, but they decide they don't need to know.

- Mandy's parents keep her out of school for a week, giving her some time to decompress. They talk with her, and, since she's already a junior, Mandy chooses to finish at the prep school.

- On her first day back at school, Mandy puts the mean girl Melissa in her place, towering over the other girl and telling her that she isn't allowed to speak to Mandy anymore. Many of the other students watch on and applaud her. Later that day, her skateboard mysteriously reappears at Mandy's locker. She also makes a new friend in a classmate named Theresa, who shyly admits that she skateboards, too.

- Stevie Robbins visits Mandy's home one last time. He no longer looks like a scary corpse, and instead looks like a happy, healthy little boy. He smiles and thanks her for finding him. As he turns to leave, he adds "Bobby says 'hello.'" He vanishes after this, never to be seen again.

. I don't really have much to say about this story. There doesn't seem to be much to question or theorize about - it all seems pretty straightforward. Mostly I'm just disappointed that a story called "the Scoop" didn't have a S.C.U.P.R. machine in it.

That "if the creator wanted us to know, he'd tell us" line is such a bold-faced lie! Like... Scott. My guy. You can't even be bothered to tell us character names, or who we're playing as! You tell us jack all!

I don't live in or near the state of Utah, so I pulled up Google Maps out of curiosity, and there is no Peace Valley, Utah. However, Cedar City is a real city, and New Harmony and Hurricane (the two primary locations of the "Silver Eyes" trilogy) are within about a 30~ miles radius of it, which I thought was interesting. There are other small towns in the area with names similar to Peace Valley, so I think this was a made up location. Strange when all the other Utah locations in this series are real, but this one isn't.

Back to the story, I found Mandy's nightmares interesting. In the first one, she's in the FNAF3 building, being led from room to room by a little boy with brown hair and red and blue clothing. The image made me think of how, in the game, you use Balloon Boy's voice box to lead Springtrap around the building; Balloon Boy is meant to look like a little boy with brown hair, and, while the outfit doesn't match, he does wear red and blue clothing. In FNAF3, we also see versions of Balloon Boy with no eyes (his head sitting in the box of spare parts) and with a wide, gaping mouth (during his jumpscare). I made this connection while listening to her dream, but I honestly don't know if the similarities mean anything.

Plus, if Stevie is Balloon Boy in this situation, Mandy is Springtrap, which doesn't seem to fit right.

Her other nightmare features her as a security guard in the FNAF1 location, with the little boy running from her. Since I'd already thought Mandy was being put into Springtrap's position, at this point I wondered if she was being literally put into the position of William Afton, and that's part of the reason why the boy is running from her and hiding from her. Ultimately, I don't think so -- I think Stevie is just giving her dreams where she's in situations she's already familiar with. But it was a thought that crossed my mind.

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

"You're the Band"

- This story opens on Sylvia Collins, a woman who is waiting for her son at a therapist's office. Her son, Timmy, has been behaving strangely lately, and she's been forced to take him to a child psychologist to figure out what's going on with the boy.

- The psychologist, Dr. Munroe, shows Sylvia a drawing that Timmy made. The drawing depicts the animatronic characters from the Freddy Fazbear's line, characters he can name easily; Timmy insists that he saw them perform as a band "when he went to Freddy's." This is troubling to Sylvia, since Freddy Fazbear's closed 30 years ago, and her 8-year-old son has never seen it. But Timmy's been drawing them a lot recently.

- Sylvia says that Timmy's been acting strange lately, referring to memories that he couldn't possibly have, acting like he's living in a past time period. "He seems like a different person … It's like he's two different people. The Timmy I've always known, and then some kid [Sylvia doesn't] know."

- Sylvia feels like a strange child has taken over her son, and that her son is slowly disappearing, being replaced by a stranger. (Honestly, sounds like she and my mother could commiserate together. 🙄 )

- We learn that Sylvia was a kid when the incident happened at Freddy's, and it sent her mother into a panic at the time. Child!Sylvia wasn't allowed to go anywhere but school and church for awhile, where she was accompanied by an adult.

- She worries about this Freddy's phase her son is in. Timmy keeps watching videos online about Freddy's, but most of them are conspiracy theories about the murders and the killer, which Sylvia thinks her son (age 7-8) is too young to hear about.

- Sylvia tells Dr. Munroe about the past week with Timmy. We learn that, the week prior, Timmy's 8th birthday came, and he expressed interest in having a Freddy Fazbear's themed birthday party. Unsure of how to create one, since the place closed 30 years ago, Sylvia went online and bought a few Freddy's themed items off of Ebay.

- One item she bought was a Freddy Halloween mask, sold by someone with the username "Retro Merch." It's a full Freddy head, which fits over a person's entire head. Impulsively, she buys it as a birthday present for Timmy.

- Timmy sits at the breakfast table, wearing a Freddy shirt that Sylvia found at a thrift store. He asks his mother who her favorite character was at Freddy's, and Sylvia, not having thought about the place very much in years, cites "the bird?" as her favorite. Timmy tells her that the bird is named Chica, and then rambles about how much he loves Freddy.

- Sylvia thinks about Timmy's father, James, who died in a construction accident only a month before Timmy was born.

- "Sometimes I feel like, as a single parent, I work twice as hard and do only half as good a job."

- She goes online to see if "Retro Merch" has other Freddy's items for sale, only to find that the seller doesn't exist. The mask she bought from them arrives a few days later anyway. When she opens the box, Sylvia notes that the mask smells like mothballs.

- The day of Timmy's birthday party comes, and Sylvia has their house decorated as much like Freddy's as she could make it. Timmy opens his mother's gift to him and excitedly puts on the Freddy mask, noting how heavy it is. He and his friends (Miles and Isabella) put on a singing show, pretending to be Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica.

- Sylvia, to her son and his friends: "Look at you! You're the band!" (Insert audio of James A. Janise saying "Title card!" here.)

- The rest of the birthday party goes without a hitch.

- That night, Sylvia puts Timmy to bed, only to hear him screaming before long. Timmy says there was something in his room. Sylvia looks under his bed and in his closet, but finds nothing unusual. She talks him down, then gets him settled back into bed. She feels like the Freddy mask is watching her.

- The next morning, Sylvia hears rustling in the backyard while she's making breakfast. When she looks outside, she sees a strange man looking through her window from outside. The man in young, in his early 20s, and apologizes for scaring her. Deciding that the man "didn't look like a serial killer," "dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and [looking] like a college kid," she opens the door to see what he wants.

- The young man claims to be looking for his dog that got off its leash on their walk. Sylvia immediately notes that the man isn't holding a leash, and grows rightfully suspicious. The man comments on the remnants of birthday party decorations around her backyard, noting that they're Freddy Fazbear themed. He seems weirdly excited that some kids still have an interest in Freddy's. Deciding their conversation is over, Sylvia wishes him good luck in finding his alleged dog and closes the door on him.

- Timmy comes in for breakfast. He mentions that the murdered children at Freddy's were there for a birthday party, then says that their bodies were found lined up against the wall. When Sylvia assumes he learned about this on the internet, Timmy tells her he "was there." His voice sounds different from normal when he talks about it.

- (Remember, we're dealing with a different timeline of events in this series. In this timeline, William Afton killed 6 kids at Freddy's one night, but didn't hide their bodies. The kids were found the next day, and, while we don't know if Afton was caught or went to jail or anything, everyone knew he did it and discuss this information openly.)

- Timmy to his mother, in the strange voice: "Don't worry. You're nice, so there's no reason to hurt you." ( 0_o !!)

- Timmy goes to a friend's for a sleepover that night, leaving Sylvia with the house to herself. She doesn't feel like she's alone, though; she expects something to jump out at her from an air vent. She then hears scraping in the ceiling above her; fearful that she has racoons or something, she gets a stepladder and takes a look in the attic, where the sound was coming from.

- While standing on the ladder, she feels something grab her ankle. Thankfully, it's only Timmy, who tells her that his friend fell asleep early, so the other boy's mom brought Timmy home early. The mom also calls Sylvia on the phone to let her know that Timmy was behaving oddly at the sleepover, acting like he'd never seen a game console or a tablet before, and how he kept talking about the murders that happened at Freddy's. Timmy's behavior was so strange, it upset his friend, so the other boy's mother sent her son to bed early and took Timmy home.

- While grocery shopping the next day, Timmy speaks in a different voice, requesting foods that he claims he loves, but foods that Sylvia knows for sure that he hates. When she questions his food choices, not-Timmy yells and throws a temper tantrum. His manner of speech and movements are so odd, Sylvia becomes very scared, and she decides then and there to take him to a psychologist.

- "Why was [Sylvia] so nervous? A person's child should not make them this nervous!"

- (While not directly addressed by this story's narrative, I like that Timmy and not-Timmy have different speaking patterns. Not-Timmy sounds older than Timmy, and seems to have a broader vocabulary.)

- Sylvia does the dishes after dinner, and screams when she sees a strange face looking in through the kitchen window. She dials 9-1-1, telling them that someone is stalking her home. After hanging up the phone, she hears movement in Timmy's room, and she runs to see if her son is okay.

- Timmy is sitting on his bed, talking to an adult-sized shadow. When Sylvia enters the room, the shadow turns to look at her with beady eyes, then slinks up the wall and into an air vent.

- Before Sylvia can process what she just saw, two police officers arrive. She tells that she saw a "young, Caucasian man" peering into her house through a window, and the officers go to check out the area outside.

- "Sylvia had lied. It was not okay. In fact, nothing was okay." (Mood, tbh.)

- This brings us back to Dr. Munroe's office, as Sylvia finishes telling the doctor the whole story. The child psychologist thinks Timmy is upset about something, possibly missing the dad he never knew, and is dissociating. She wants to keep seeing him, so she can help figure out what specifically is bothering Timmy, and then help him work through it.

- Sylvia takes Timmy to stay at her parents house for a few days, not feeling safe in her own house.

- At dinner, Sylvia's father makes steak for the family to eat. When he sees Timmy is unable to cut his piece of meat, the older man picks up his own large, sharp knife and approaches the boy to help him. Timmy sees the knife and flies into a rage, attacking his grandfather and tackling the man to the floor, yelling at him "Don't hurt Timmy!"

- "'I just saw the knife,' Timmy said, 'and I had to protect the others.'" He doesn't tell his mother or grandparents who 'the others' are.

- That night, after Timmy is sent to bed, Sylvia's parents talk to her about her and Timmy's problems, expressing concern for their daughter and grandson.

- Going to bed herself, Sylvia hears a chorus of dogs barking outside. Her parents' dog, Boo, is on alert, barking and growling at something. When Sylvia goes to check if the barking has woken Timmy up, she finds his bed empty, and the window beside it wide open. She looks out the window, and sees Timmy walking across the yard, holding hands with a tall shadow.

- Panicking, Sylvia runs out of her parents' house, chasing after her son. Timmy doesn't hear her call his name after him, or at least seems to ignore her.

- Sylvia is grabbed by a man, who she recognizes as the young man who showed up 'searching for his dog,' and also as the face that peered in through the window at her home. She yells at him, wanting to know why he's followed her and her son to her parent's house.

- The man answers her screamed questions with gentle tones, telling her he just needs her to listen to him for a minute. He introduces himself as Mike, the security guard at the old Freddy Fazbear's Pizza building. (M… Michael?!) He tells her someone broke into the building a few weeks ago and stole the head off of Freddy. He thinks that Timmy's Freddy mask may not be a mask, but rather the real Freddy's stolen head, and expresses concern for what Freddy's head could do to Timmy.

- Sylvia: "How do I know I can trust you?" Mike, nonplussed: "You don't."

- Smiling sheepishly, Mike admits that he broke into Sylvia's house while she and Timmy were out earlier today, and that he stole the Freddy mask from them. Sylvia is angry, but is more concerned about her son being taken by a shadow creature. Mike implies that he know who or what the shadow is, and tells her that he knows where they're going. Mike convinces her to come with him, and to get in his car, where he drives her to an abandoned part of town, parking the car outside of Freddy's.

- Sylvia is constantly aware that Mike may very well be a serial killer leading her to her doom. She becomes especially on edge when he stops outside the old Freddy's building.

- When she asks about it, Mike admits that this building is the very place where children were murdered. Taking the Freddy head, Mike leads Sylvia into the building. Inside, they see Timmy standing on the stage, right between Bonnie and Chica, singing alongside them.

- Sylvie rushes toward her son, intending to grab him right off the stage. She's stopped by "black and white striped tentacles" that shoot out of the walls and wrap around her arms, legs, and waist, stopping her in her tracks. Another tentacle wraps around her neck, almost strangling her. (*opens mouth* … *closes mouth* Nope. I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to leave that image where it is.)

- Mike yells at the tentacles in surprise, seemingly not knowing what they even are. Sylvie begs him to save her son, and Mike tells her that he has to wait a minute first, strangely knowledgeable about dealing with a child possessed by another child.

- During a certain point of the song, Mike climbs onto the stage with Timmy and the animatronics, depositing the Freddy head over Timmy. After the bear's eyes start glowing (I assume this means the spirit of Gabriel returns to Freddy, and separates from Timmy), Mike pulls the bear head back off the boy, then removes Timmy from the stage.

- The Puppet lowers from the ceiling, and Mike cries out in panicked fear. Simultaneously, the Freddy animatronic, sans head, walks across the room; he climbs up on the stage, puts his head back on, and joins Bonnie and Chica in song. (I love everything about this scene.) The Puppet looks at Freddy and the others, then releases Sylvia from its tentacles, its entire body retreating back into the walls and ceiling of the building.

- Mike runs out of the building with Sylvia and Timmy. They all climb into Mike's car, and he offers to drive them home.

- On the ride home, Sylvia asks Mike for more information about what happened, and Mike tells her that "something was alive in that Freddy Fazbear head, and when Timmy put it on, that something alive went inside him." Timmy pipes up, saying that he was aware that something was in his head with him. Mike also says that he thinks the shadow was helping, and trying to "get [Gabriel's spirit] out of Timmy." Mike swears both Sylvia and Timmy to secrecy about the whole incident.

- Sylvia and Timmy go home and crash, sleeping soundly all night. They get up the next morning and have chocolate chip pancakes. Both are very happy to have their week of horror behind them, and look forward to never engaging with Freddy's ever again.

. Me, during the second half of this story: "Finally… Canon Mike content."

Mike introduces himself as the security guard for Freddy's, and takes Syvlia to the FNAF1 location, confirming himself as Mike Schmidt. We're told a lot of specific things about him: He's very young, only in his early 20s, and seems to just wear casual clothing all the time. He's bad at acting and lying, and comes off as creepy when he doesn't mean to. He solves a problem by stalking a stranger and breaking into her house. He's very knowledgeable about the ghosts, understanding that they exist and how to contain them to their animatronic bodies when they get out, and doesn't seem to be scared of most of them. He's terrified of the Puppet though, and there's a point where the Puppet approaches him and he's so scared he can't speak.

(And I'm one of those people who thinks Mike Schmidt is Mike Afton under a different name, so I appreciated all of the joking comments about Mike looking/not looking like a serial killer.)

Speaking of… canon content depicting the Puppet in the FNAF1 location? Very interesting…

(But I keep saying "canon content" like this story wasn't scrapped, thereby confirming it as """"""noncanon.""""""")

I actually wonder if it was scrapped because of the Puppet's presence and behavior, because it's described in very similar ways to how Eleanor is described in many of the epilogues, and it would have made it sound like Eleanor and the Puppet were the same entity when they aren't and confused people.

I think the tall shadow thing that Sylvia sees her son with is meant to be Jake, a spirit who goes around helping Fazbear's victims in this series, but it could also be a spiritual projection of the Puppet. I'm basing this off of its appearance (tall and thin, shaped like something akin to a human, with beady eyes) and its behavior (it's very gentle with Timmy, and fiercely protective of both the boy and the spirit within him).

This story also shows us a version of the FNAF1 building where the Puppet is present, haunting the very building itself. The Puppet hasn't shown itself to the security guard yet, since Mike is terrified of the thing and has no idea what it is, but is able to manipulate the walls, ceilings, and other items attached to the building. It reminded me of how the various wall decorations in FNAF1 constantly change by themselves; possibly, this story was meant to retcon that, suggesting that the Puppet is in the FNAF1 building and constantly changing the wall decorations.

Since Eleanor is the main problem throughout the majority of this series, it's possible that she was the one who broke into Freddy's and stole Freddy's head to sell on Ebay… Which is a hilarious concept, ngl. Can you imagine a scaryass robot doll with claws and Agony tentacles, breaking into an old pizzeria and just… walking out with Freddy's head? And then setting up an Ebay account to make money off of it? Ridiculously funny.

And Mike... sir, you literally have one (1) job! You're supposed to keep people from breaking in and stealing anything! You failed at the one thing you're supposed to do! My man, you are going to get fiiiirred!

#five nights at freddy's #fazbear frights #a brief analysis #my thoughts #yes this is how I chose to spend my labor day weekend

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