HOWEVER. It's a bit messy.
It has some unnecessary parts, some redundant parts, some annoying parts. SAVETHEM, for example, serves very little purpose, and its existence and subsequent irrelevance undermines the MCI a bit. Why do the MCI kids get so much attention, but the SAVETHEM kids are never even alluded to after FNaF2? I think that the story would be better without SAVETHEM.
FNaF has, at this point, been adapted into multiple new mediums, each adaptation reconfiguring the story in its own way. This, combined with the incredible vagueness of the original story, and the proliferation of fan content on the internet, means that FNaF resembles something like a "myth" or "legend" moreso than a usual narrative. There is no consensus plot, only a million retellings, converging and diverging, usually only overlapping at key points (the MCI, Springtrap, Baby, etc).
So, like any FNaF fan, I must contribute to this tangled mythology by constructing an AU of my own. I must streamline the story, preserving the important good parts, and ditching the parts I dislike, like picking mushrooms off a slice of pizza. The problem is that many of the good parts are coupled with bad parts, so there's no simple way of removing the bad without losing something of value. The mushroom flavor has soaked into the cheese, so to get them off properly, I'll have to be more thorough.
I think the story would be better without the FNaF2 location. However, the FNaF2 location gave us Mangle, and leaving Mangle behind would be absolutely unacceptable. So, ideally, I should extract Mangle from FNaF2, delete FNaF2, and then reconfigure the remaining timeline to fit Mangle in somewhere else. The FNaF story must be deterritorialized, collapsing its current structure, pulling all of its parts away from their original context for analysis and sorting, and then reterritorialized, constructing a new timeline out of the remaining pieces, growing new parts to fill in blanks when necessary. The novels, for example, gave Mangle the role of Funtime Foxy at Circus Baby's.
In this post, I will be doing the deterritorialization. In another post, I may do the reterritorialization. As such, this is really just a large collection of my opinions toward different elements of the story. I am doing this for my own pleasure, to construct a version of events I find personally satisfying. You may or may not feel the same way. This is also going to be dependent on my estimation of what the canon timeline actually is, of course. It could be that I "remove" something which was secretly never canon to begin with, for example. So, y'know, bear with me.
Also note that, though I like the Mimic, and Security Breach desperately needs a redesign, I will be focusing on the pre-Steel Wool story for this post. I'd like to at least let the modern story finish before I go meddling with it.
EDIT: The "reterritorialized" AU story has now been realized not as a text post, but as an in-universe wiki. I thought this was a nice way to explore all the concepts in a relatively straightforward explanatory way, while still creating a work grounded within the AU, rather than just explaining my ideas outright. See: FAZBEAR CONSPIRACY WIKI.
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What exactly do I like and dislike about the FNaF story? What do I personally want to preserve, and what do I want to leave behind?FNaF1
The general structure of FNaF1 I like. Freddy's, the haunted pizzeria, with the core four animatronics, attacking nightguards out of a confused sense of revenge against their killer. The elements of the building are all intertwined, the lights flicker as the animatronics move, the drawings and posters change randomly, machinery activates and deactivates in response to the children's emotional state, their memories seeping into the dreams and hallucinations of the employees (especially security guards). It's all connected... like some sort of network...The movie makes some subtle changes, and I like its take as well. The children are not seeking revenge; rather, they are influenced by Afton, the yellow rabbit, who is manipulating their memories with drawings.
The springlock failure, and subsequent birth of Springtrap, is another constant across all iterations of the story, but the details are different each time. Follow Me, in the games, has the ghosts attacking William after the animatronics are dismantled, their remnant harvested (And Shadow Freddy is involved, randomly). The novels sort of split Follow Me into two scenes, the springlock scene (where the locks are triggered by Charlie), and the "ghosts turn against Afton" scene, which happens in The Fourth Closet. In the latter, the children's souls are shattered across the Funtimes and the Classic endos, which all conglomerate into a central mass (resembling Molten Freddy) to drag Afton into a furnace. The movie has a simpler version of Follow Me, with the Classics surrounding William after their memories return, the springlocks triggered by the cupcake.
Pretty much all of these have some aesthetic elements that I love, and some that I don't. I'm not a big fan of the movie's cupcake. I don't think Shadow Freddy needed to be involved in Follow Me. But I like Molten Freddy, I like the imagery of the machines all conjoining into a mass of parts which marches toward Afton. I also like the original idea of Afton being scared by the ghosts, using the Spring Bonnie suit to hide/assert authority, and the locks going off accidentally. Springtrap being locked in a room after dying is another constant element, which is shared by all iterations (though it's a different room each time).
FNaF2
The FNaF2 location isn't very important. The Toys don't do much. The SAVETHEM murders are generally irrelevant. They could be given relevance, or they could be removed; I will do the latter. The Bite of '87 is fundamentally just a thowaway line, elevated to iconic status through pure fandom fixation. I can take it or leave it.Mangle, however, is essential. So are the Withereds. I'll have to find another place for them.
The Shadows are interesting, though I think that giving them some enhanced relevance would be a mistake. They work best as mysterious side characters, vaguely wrapped up in the story, but not pivotal to it.
The Puppet and Charlotte are here to stay, of course. Though, the details of TCTTC and the Security Puppet minigame are not important to me (they were rewritten in Silver Eyes, anyway).
FNaF3
FNaF3 does a bunch of MCI-related worldbuilding, which I like. It introduces the spring suits and safe rooms, establishing Fredbear and Spring Bonnie as the original two animatronics. The thematic relationship/duality between Fredbear/Golden Freddy and Spring Bonnie/Springtrap is interesting and satisfying, especially under VengefulCassidy. The movie especially emphasized this with its redesigns, giving the two antisymmetric withering. This is all good stuff.I already talked about Springtrap and the springlock failure scene. But what FNaF3 uniquely does is put Springtrap in a context, the context of Fazbear's Fright. When I can look past the ugly green, I quite like Fazbear's Fright. The idea of all the lingering memories from Freddy's past being brought back together in one place is cool, and the aesthetic of the location (as seen on the cameras) is nice, with the stained drawings, arcades, and hollow suits of the Classics used as decoration. It has been likened to a stitched-together corpse of Freddy's history, long dead but forcibly revived by Phone Dude's team, particularly with the introduction of Springtrap as a "heart" of sorts. And then everything burns away in the fire. There's something really satisfying about this conclusion. Scott seems to think so anyway, considering we'd essentially rehash the same concept in FFPS, after SL had invalidated 3's status as the proper ending by throwing in a new collection of unresolved "pieces" to the story.
The Novels put Springtrap in a different context. He escapes Freddy's, and uses his Twisted animatronics to kidnap Charlie. I don't care much for the Twisted ones.
Movie Springtrap's role has yet to be seen.
Overall, Springtrap is a fan-favorite character, and an important one, but a common criticism of the series is that it doesn't do much with him. Even the first movie barely gave Afton any screen time. I would prefer that Springtrap, y'know, accomplish something. What that should be is unclear. Springtrap comes off animalistic, and aggressive, like a predator. On the other hand, he's still Afton, and Afton is more the shadow scheming type, a role that Springtrap is not really fit for. So... What do? I'm not sure.
FNaF3 also gives us the cake minigames, culminating with Happiest Day. Most of the details are unimportant, but Happiest Day itself is perfect.
FNaF4
So, FNaF4 has 3 main parts. There's the experiment chambers, Mike's nightmares, and the bite. It also generally introduces the Afton family, though that's more Sister Location's purview.I generally subscribe to ShatterVictim and MemoryVictim, in case you hadn't noticed. I think that BV's trauma and memories leaked out from him and soaked into his environment, putting a "curse" on Fazbear Entertainment. Specifically, the main 5 "pieces" of his soul ended up in the main 5 animatronics (plus or minus the Puppet), his "friends", which are then "put together" in Happiest Day. Happiest Day is, metaphorically, the Box. (Well, several things are metaphorically the Box, like CBEAR and FFPS, but I think Happiest Day was the original.)
I like ShatterVictim! It is a nice way to tie everything together, and it mirrors Fazbear's Fright (and later FFPS) as a singularity point where all the suffering converges on the timeline. Though, like Springtrap, it isn't very well utilized by the story. And unlike Springtrap, it doesn't (yet?) have multiple adaptations to compare. ShatterVictim is intriguing, but it's barely acknowledged by the games at all. This could be because it's wrong, but more likely, I think, is that Scott just didn't know what to do with it, or wanted to keep it hidden, or whatever. There is some value in keeping BV's role hidden, as it feels more like an underground conspiracy, linking all the events in the story in such a subtle way that it feels like a proper mystery, and creating a lot of sudden satisfaction for those who figure it out. But in doing that, you're forced to play coy about everything, and you aren't really able to capitalize on the idea's potential. Anyway, I would like to do something with BV.
Should BV die before or after Charlotte? The benefit of putting him first is that it emphasizes his role as the initial spark of the story, the nexus singularity that everything else emerges from. But by putting Charlotte first, you could give BV a legitimate reason to be afraid. I used to think the "it's just a misunderstanding" explanation for BV's fears was lame, but I've grown to like it more recently. It plays well into the theme of self-reinforcing trauma, or the "vicious cycle", the way fear and tragedy can spiral out by simple feedback processes even if it's initially 'unfounded'. It also, once again, emphasizes that BV is the starting point. His fears manifested danger, not the other way around.
Plushbear is a wild card, nobody agrees what he is anyway. Canonically, I think he is mostly likely William (at least on Night 6), which motivates SparkVictim and is important to William's character... That's all great, but I'm not a huge fan of William specifically being the Fredbear plush. I think I'd prefer the plush be paranormal. His promise to "put you back together" is interesting, iconic, etc, and I want to keep it. I also want to maintain that the promise be fulfilled.
The nightmares are weird. I kinda like them. But they're sort of unnecessary, so I'll probably leave them behind.
The experiment chambers are similarly unnecessary, but they're a bit more interesting. They're very... intense, disturbing in a way which is unique from most of the tragedies in FNaF. The fact that we physically see the chambers on camera in Sister Location is very spooky. The details can be changed, but the overall idea I would like to preserve.
Sister Location
I am a fan of the absurdly large high-tech ghost torture bunker. I like the flesh disemboweller slash spirit injector. Thumbs up.I talked at length about the Funtimes, including how I felt about different ways they could be haunted, in a previous post, so I won't repeat myself here. I will briefly note that I prefer SL's story under a "pure ShatterElizabeth" interpretation, without the missing children involved.
The Elizabeth/Baby situation is important, I think. Though, I also like the movie's presentation of the Aftons, with Vanessa as William's only daughter. I don't know how, or if, the movies will try to adapt Baby, but I'm interested. Will Abby be related? Honestly, the fact that Abby didn't become Baby in the movie feels a bit like a twist, like they were intentionally subverting expectations, especially with the fake-out Ella scene. They seem to have other plans for her, sinister or otherwise. Personally, I am a big Abby fan, and I hope she can survive through the trilogy (survive within her regular body, that is). I think I will be legitimately upset if she dies.
I mentioned the Nightmare experiments, but I haven't spoken much on Afton's characterization and motivations at large, which are most clearly presented in SL (though they build off of his established actions in 3 and 4). I like the idea that his interest is sparked by BV's shattering, which prompts him to start killing people and experimenting with spirits and emotions. His stated goal of putting BV back together is a bit odd considering how little he actually does to achieve that, and the question of why he would want BV together anyway. I am vaguely interested in his ambitions from The Fourth Closet (which likely applies to the games, I think?), where he wants to unite the spirits of the missing children into a single vessel and become one with his creation. The general idea is, of course, that he wants to be immortal, but the specific route he takes is interesting.
What to do about the Afton family...
Game Mike is the security guard of FNaF1 (and some of the others), but his intentions aren't entirely clear. It's commonly thought that his investigation of Freddy's is largely driven by guilt over his brother's death. Movie Mike is clearer: He wants to keep his sister safe/happy, and he wants to find the guy who took his brother. I vaguely like Mike, but honestly... I don't care about him very much?
As I said, I like the simplicity of the movie's Aftons (at least, as things currently stand). Personally, I think the family dynamics attached to William have always felt weirdly unfitting, post-hoc even. Scott seems to agree, considering the way the novels and movie treat the subject.
Here's a minor complaint with Sister Location: Ennard only wears their iconic mask for like, a few hours, at most. What's the deal with that??
(Also, Ennard and Molten Freddy should definitely be they/them.)
Pizzeria Simulator
The big finale, the final fire, with the epic return of Henry. It's pretty cool.It is true, however, that FFPS is largely retreading FNaF3. 3 was the finale, bringing all the lingering memories together and burning them away for good, freeing the spirits as well. FFPS is... the same concept, again. It has a stronger narrative than 3, I think, with the fire being an intentional act by Henry. The parallels to Charlotte's death is a nice touch, But aesthetically and thematically, it's not quite as interesting as 3, as it doesn't lean into the idea of all the memories and emotions brought together, and the paranormal effect that has. Ideally, the two games' events could be merged together. Gameplay-wise, FFPS's tyccoon premise is arguably in conflict with 3's setting, but since this is just an AU and I'm not remaking the games themselves, this isn't an issue.
Obviously, Scraptrap is a disappointment. Lefty is fine, I don't really care about him. Molten Freddy I really like, as I mentioned earlier, though I wish they were more FNaF1-coded. Scrap Baby I also like.
There is a common complaint I should address, however. Though this is a good end to these characters' story, it also feels premature, in some cases. Because, again, the characters didn't get much of a chance to do anything. That's the common complaint, anyway, and a part of me agrees.
Sister Location is all building up to Baby's big escape. Finally, she succeeds, so that she can go do... something, offscreen. Then she's lured in by Henry and dies. The end. Is that a satisfying character arc?
I'm not going to bother with Midnight Motorist.
Ultimate Custom Night
I am of the popular (?) opinion that UCN is very good under VengefulCassidy, but Andrew ruins it. See: My previous post on the subject.The vengeful spirit aside, UCN is the ultimate manifestation of some of FNaF's themes (repetition, conglomeration, and refusing to let go of the past), and it's a great ending for Afton. Forcing him to relive an endless nightmare, being repeatedly killed and reborn, is a clever play on his "I always come back" shtick.
Fazbear Frights
No thank you ^_^I do think the story can continue after UCN, even with the same characters, and the way the Frights do this is interesting in some ways. Using soul shattering with Afton/Andrew to create many haunted objects which kickstart their own standalone stories was a good idea, I think, and Trash Afton is kinda cool. But overall, this is not my preferred direction for the main story.
Though, I do find the idea of Afton shattering and leaking out MemoryVictim style during UCN very intriguing. I've written a post about this as well.
Miscellaneous Notes
The existing FNaF timeline is oddly compressed. It seems to have large time gaps where nothing really happens, filled in with occasional bursts of activity, where lots of important things happen in a short time. 1983, for example, is packed full of major events, while 1984 has, to my memory, never even been mentioned. Another example is the FNaF2 location, which is compressed into just a couple of weeks, and then it's all scrapped, leaving no room for the characters or setting to do much of interest to fully establish themselves. I would like to change this.The box is an object with a dubious in-universe presense, but a lot of apparent importance. It has appeared metaphorically several times, but its only literal appearance is floating in a void at the end of FNaF4. It'd be nice for the box to be a physical in-universe object, with some importance.
It's been speculated, mostly unseriously, that Afton's children are not his children at all, but rather, kidnapped children who've been brainwashed. This is a very cool idea, and it feels fitting of William's character, so maybe I'll utilize it.
I like Vanny. It may be interesting to work her in somehow, but I'm not sure how. We've yet to see how (or if) the movies will do it. If Vanessa is used, it'd be weird for Vanny not to appear at all, seeing as Vanny is essentially game-Vanessa's entire character.
There's lots of little oversights that could tidied up. The pizzeria layouts in FNaF 1 and 2 are very strange. Jeremy uses his flashlight through the cameras, somehow. The whole premise of FFPS's office segments is bizzare. And so on.
Plushbabies! They are weird, it's unclear why they exist. They came out of nowhere, and were randomly the hardest challenge in Help Wanted. I like Plushbabies.
I am particularly interested in exploring the mechanics of FNaF's supernatural. So I'm inclined to give special focus to remnant, soul-shattering, memories, emotional absorption, and so on. On the deeper end is the Network, which I would like to incorporate in some form, though the fact that details need not be consistent with the games leaves a lot of freedom to explore which ideas are more or less interesting.
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That's all. Look forward to part 2, where I put the pieces back together (if I ever get around to it).EDIT: As mentioned, I did in fact get around to it, though not in exactly the form I was imagining. Again, see: FAZBEAR CONSPIRACY WIKI.