alright, let's do this one last time

welllll the answer is mainly no with a very small yes. in a literal sense, there is no circus baby's or funtime animatronics, although like you mentioned the stuff around them Does exist. any mentions of stuff past fnaf4 are honestly just easter eggs/references to the games. even the aftons themselves (and henry and sammy emily) are basically just ocs that happen to have the same names. it's all brand recognition i guess.

also i feel like sister location just doesn't really Work with lucasverse the way it currently is. it's a bit too unrealistic—yes, even in the story about haunted animatronics. but it directly gives circus baby and the funtime animatronics actual Sentience in a directly confirmed way, compared to fnaf 1-3 where the animatronics were much more vague and ambiguous about Why they attacked you. they could be haunted or maybe it's just faulty code. sister location would have to have its fundamental Character taken out to fit in lucasverse, and i feel that's too big a waste to do.

but honestly i'd still say that sister location definitely has a presence in lucasverse especially in regards to themeing and general vibes. i mean lucas's main job of fixing the animatronics was at least a bit inspired by eggs benedict, and circus baby (the animatronic herself as a character) resonates with other characters like beth (obviously) and lucas, too. having done something horrible without realizing what you were doing, and feeling like both victim and perpetrator. i feel like circus baby always has a slight amount of disdain for the other funtimes but in particular ballora, and there's something going on there that i don't quite know how to describe. maybe it's also how ballora is another humanoid animatronic with a more active role as antagonist, "stealing the spotlight" and getting in the way. but i digress.

1. ralph suzumura — 1987 - 1998

aka phone guy. family friend of sammy emily, father of one of the missing children. became a recluse after the incident, took the job that no one else wanted, even if just to pretend he could still hear his child's laughter. he stuck with it until it killed him. nobody really knew him, except for the recordings he left behind. some claim to still hear his voice on the phone beneath the static.

2. mike schmidt — 1998 - 1999

the luckiest one. you know him already: got bit as a kid in 1987, came back as an adult, took the job because no one else would take him, got fired, then rehired, and was kicked upstairs to dayshift for his troubles. not the most sociable either, thanks to his permanent scowl, but the animatronics seem to like him more than most. especially the original fazband. officially the guy in charge of training the new guards, but maybe he isn't doing as good of a job as he should be.

3. "fritz smith" — exactly one day in 2000

responsible for causing tremendous, irreparable damage to the original fazband while "testing out" the toy fazband's security features. nobody likes him and his smug, self-satisfied grin. okay, that's an overstatement: to be specific, lucas hates him with a pettiness that outweighs all the goodwill anyone else could have towards fritz. it isn't even his real name. just a way to keep him off the official records.

4. susie malinowski — 2000

bright and cheery, but it seems she never lived up to her potential. took the job because it gave her downtime to study—or so she assumed. she was the first to see past the facade. left the fazbear family shortly after.

5. gabriel serrano — 2001

his kids never shut up about freddy's, at least on the weekends he gets custody. took the job because it gave him an excuse to quit working at the family diner a few states over, and he wanted some peace and quiet in a small town. the quiet got to him real fast. left the fazbear family shortly after.

6. cassidy miller — 2001 - 2002

when she called home to say she was couch-surfing past her mother's long-left hometown, the line fell dead for so long that cassidy hung up. took the job because why else? she needed the money, and beggars can't be choosers. she followed a crying child through the cameras and opened the box that she shouldn't have. left the fazbear family shortly after.

7. jeremy vanessa fitzgerald — 2002

yep! well its more symbolic than literal, but marigold being the one to ""end the curse"" is very fitting to me. in my mind, marigold has always been a kinder influence to the ghosts, especially compared to lucas who's..... well he's their friend but he's not really Good for them. lucas's laser focus also means he overlooks/doesn't know about other ghosts (namely david and the spirits of the other night guards) that marigold feels the presence of. i don't think marigold ever learns any names or sees any faces but i think she's generally Aware of what's around her.

the fnaf3 arc also is about giving All of william afton's victims closure, and one thing i think i haven't discussed is marigold's biological father, ed. in my story, he's william's scapegoat for the events of 1987, and is blamed for the children's disappearances. he goes on the run and seemingly vanishes into thin air; however, the truth is that he's been stuck in the building all this time... inside springlock bonnie.

so yeah! springtrap is another vengeful ghost that needs to be put to rest. i think the fnaf2 arc closes with william (and lucas)'s crimes being revealed insofar as the missing children and the other nightguards (actually have i mentioned them before? i'll make a post about it later) but this all happens Outside of freddy's and the closing of the doors and abandonment of the ghosts within left them confused and angry. doubly so for ed, who's been walled-up for decades and has no idea what's going on. rip

waaaaait this intrigues me. i don't think i've said anything on this blog about my version of fnaf3 but especially given kane parsons' backrooms concept/lore this is incredibly appealing because the whole fnaf3 arc is a culmination of lucas's inability to stop retreading the paths of memory that are already worn into his mind. if freddy's had backrooms it would be a crystal clear fnaf2 location (in my au fnaf2 exists chronologically after fnaf1) and a constantly warping fnaf1 location with every path looping back to the back room (ha!) where the children went missing. i am also deeply concerned about whoever lucas's remembered self turns out to be.

actually in a way the plot of the backrooms movie (i don't want to spoil it because i highly recommend you watch it for yourself) aligns loosely with the plot i have currently for fnaf3. what generally happens (subject to change) is that by 2003-04, the original freddy's is completely demolished/hollowed out following a "bizarre and unexpected" incident that results in lucas getting sent to prison and fazbear entertainment completely washing their hands of the hurricane location once and for all. life moves on, fazbear entertainment becoming even more of a household name (think disney), and everyone has tried to leave hurricane in the past... until, on the 30-year anniversary of the day the children disappeared, marigold emily gets a call from her brother asking her to come home.

foxhound status?

foxhound status report: in any universe mike will find a way to yiff the robot fox o7 <—for legal reasons this is a joke don't sue me fazbear lawyers. OH NO IT'S LUCAS WITH THE STEEL CHA—[dies instantly]

explanation for well-adjusted sane people: ummm. okay so if you remember this au's roots in the parlourverse (which itself is rooted in the reborniverse) the animatronics were entirely separate from the ghost children, and had their own robot consciousnesses/personalities/etc etc. foxy in particular has an extremely tragic but compelling dynamic with mike given their roles as the bite of 87 perpetrator and victim respectively, as well as foxy being possessed by violet, who hates mike the most. we like our doomed yaoi here okay platonic or otherwise.

given lucasverse's slightly more realistic bent i don't think it would be possible for fazbear entertainment to give the animatronics incredible levels of artificial intelligence in the 1980s, so the animatronics just don't have that. Yet. which is to say i believe in the power that people give to their own immense belief. when you believe in something, it can feel real, and that's practically indistinguishable from it Being real in your mind. you think, therefore it is. this goes doubly for the imagination of children, who bring tinkerbell back to life if they believe strongly enough, and the imagination of the fearful, who can manifest monsters under the bed, in the closet, down the darkened hallway.

so given that whole spiel there's kind of like. two main roads to foxhound. the first and somehow more sane option is my human fazband au where foxy is a 7ft tall depressed pirate named rodrigo. he's not like an actor or anything. just manifested into existence by lucas's inexplicable reality-bending mind powers. the second option makes mike a strange guy who just gradually becomes more and more. not really obsessed. captivated by a broken-down, malfunctioning robot. and i think that's beautiful.

live violet (hates mike) and lucas (jealous as fuck of foxy) reactions

like most of the story is centered around the still living characters interacting with the paranormal and the horror coming from what you don’t know. So saving stuff concerning Faith, Violet or William, where we directly interact with or treat them less as forces of nature for more significant moments might be the move. Btw this isn’t a “you should write it this way” kinda thing, I’m just throwing shit out there.

I’m ultimately interested in whatever you come up with

no problem! honestly yea you make a good point. it's been a while since i've been in the lucasverse headspace so i'm still getting used to writing it again. i guess my whole problem/issue/deal is wanting to hold onto my cake but still eat it too... i tend to go back and forth on decisions a lot unless they spark a certain amount of. joy? creativity? not sure how to describe it. william and faith being alive spark that in me whereas the idea of completely removing ghosts doesn't really do the same.

i agree the ghost horror should be highlighted in special moments. despite it being called lucasverse, the real pov characters are actually mike and nessa, so the horror has to be experienced through their eyes. given they don't really have the insight into the goings-on within freddy's as lucas does, yeah they're definitely way more (likely to be) affected by the hauntings.

i guess what i'm flip-flopping between is the nature of the hauntings. does it manifest more like the games where only the animatronics are the source of the horror, or is it more like... i guess the backrooms (watched it just yesterday, i really enjoyed it but i can see some not favoring the slow pacing) where the haunting is more. cerebral and directly caused by the characters's minds made manifest into this incomprehensible space. it's hard for me to put into words. it's like an exterior ghost vs an interior ghost. the ghost as an outside force vs the ghost that you have brought into this world. the cake-having/eating part of me feels the two can still be combined in some way in lucasverse (not that i'm adding a pizzeria backrooms or anything. although that would be a fun concept for another au.......)

i'd say it's more of a horizontal shift. i decided a Long time ago that i wasn't going to consider any game past like. fnaf 4/sister location as "canon", so i'm 95% sure i won't be expanding anything. (just for context, i consider everything in the games as less of a literal snapshot of events happening and more of... i guess an extended nightmare sequence that filters real events/characters/etc through the mind of lucas. which is to say a lot (i'll get into it all at some point.))

as for the aftons... yeah they'll be sticking around! i'm genuinely fond of my versions of them (and also removing them would mean yet another structural change. and i'm lazy 😭) i like how they ended up fitting into lucasverse and they really made the themes i was going for (with family sins and grief) much more uhhh interconnected in a way. the thing with the emilys vs aftons as parallel/mirror families to each other is also something that scratches a certain itch in my brain.

but as for that horizontal shift i mentioned... okay it's going to sound kind of insane considering this is a fnaf au. but i'm kind of debating whether or not to remove the ghosts? what i mean is like. so basically all of the ghosts i have right now (especially william, faith, and charlie) are pretty limited storywise by them Being ghosts. they've become no greater than a mcguffin or a talking dog sidekick. there's only so much i can do with an animatronic-possessing ghost. so if they can't really be characters........

i'm dividing the ghosts into two categories. those that can just. not die in the first place (currently just william and faith) and the rest who are. potentially nonexistent or at the very least it's incredibly ambiguous whether or not they're real or just another manifestation of the other characters's overwhelming grief. i feel like it works a lot better for lucas's story, where he's laboring and doing all these worse and worse things for an end goal that might as well be impossible. but at the same time fnaf is the Haunted Animatronics story. so i likely won't get rid of them entirely

however as for bringing some characters back to life, i think that's a much easier decision to make. i remember kind of regretting making william a ghost because his dynamics with beth and michael and especially lucas and mike were very interesting in my mind and it was a shame that only lucas got to really interact with him. plus ghost dementia really translates easily to real life dementia which. considering william would be nearing 80 in my timeline, is definitely possible. it also adds a kind of despair to things where this nice and sweet old man is responsible for so much of your pain and no one will ever believe you. and he doesn't even remember what he did.

as for faith! i've always had this idea in the back of my mind with her being the daughter of the phone guy, and her younger brother (also) being one of the missing children. faith's dynamic with lucas is one of my favorites and especially how it intersects with both of their relationships with mike. i love faith's struggle with identity and depersonalization and i feel it could have so much more going on if she was Alive and got to grow up too. it's all a little fuzzy in my brain at the moment but i just think it could work really well.

damn this is a month old uhhh 😭 as a preamble for anyone interested, i haven't been on this blog for ages bc of college and i just haven't been in a fnaf headspace for a while. so yeah 👍 but to answer your question uhhh

short version: probably watching the fnaf movie for the first time? matthew lillard was good in it 👍 and then i read his empire of dirt by pearlandpine on ao3 and all related fics by them. and i already wanted to make my au more original and more of My work as opposed to sticking very closely to the parlourverse by @/fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction

long version: as someone whose tastes are pretty "oldschool" when it comes to fnaf and fnaf aus i sort of ended up avoiding the movies. i like the ambiguity and freedom, as well as the complete-feeling story, that fnaf 1-3 have. plus i have something of a kneejerk aversion to the almost. stereotypical "william afton" concept (it's hard to describe. i just don't prefer him or michael afton being the main character tbh). the idea of remnant also just flat out does not interest me, because i feel it's pulled fnaf away from a horror and straight into paranormal-science fiction. but i digress.

anyway the fnaf 2 movie came out and it was kind of a "why not?" thing. despite my previous paragraph i do actually find newer fnaf to be fascinating from a distance, seeing how it evolved. i don't hate it; it's just never been for me. but i watched the fnaf 2 movie for my 10 year old self and honestly it was a decently fun time! but it was like a solid 6.5/10 for me so i figured that some points were lost because i didn't have the extra context from the first movie.

so i watched it. and then it was SO much better that it dropped the fnaf 2 movie down to a 5/10. let it be said i am a huge sucker for sibling dynamics in fiction, especially when they're kinda dysfunctional about it and/or one has to raise the other. AND when the caretaker also hung up on the death of a previous sibling and blames himself for it. it's so lucas it's crazy. ahem. also vanessa took a bit more time to digest for me but when she did. holy fuck. oh my god. [explodes]

and the novelization was even better than the movie (i process things easier through reading compared to watching) and it made me start kicking myself because i could've gotten here much much earlier if i opened my heart to it all. etc. and also like i said earlier matthew lillard did a pretty good job and i like how his face moves. he added a bitchy pettiness to steve raglan that i enjoyed. i still dgaf about william afton though but it made me more receptive to new ideas.

and then at some point, thanks to some gorgeous fanart that i can't find anymore, i stumbled across a link to his empire of dirt by pearlandpine on ao3 which is a fic where michael time travels to his father's past and tries to change things. you should absolutely give it a shot if you like michael and/or william afton. i did not start out fond of either but i ended up incredibly endeared to michael nonetheless and his struggle to come to terms with the fact that he still deserves love despite everything. and william's own struggle to become a better person really resonated. the flashbacks to the "original" timeline and seeing the intersections between the future and past williams were also very interesting to me.

anyways all this to say these things warmed me up greatly to the concept of william afton. and then like i said i was also wanting to change lucasverse to be more original in concept/story because i was and have been largely piggybacking off the work of the parlourverse. i mean i grew up with it and lucas has always been an oc from there, and i've just been nostalgically fond of the characters and everything. but it's always felt very Awkward building lucasverse with the parlourverse blocks because i was using someone else's original characters and breaking them apart and twisting them to fit my mold. with fnaf as a whole, scott cawthon isn't going to see what i do with the outline of his story and also i don't respect him. with the parlourverse... i mean i know and have talked to avec before 😭 it just feels awkward to use someone's oc as free real estate. yk how it is.

lucas (mandatory faztech training at afton robotics): why does your dad's ghost call me michael

lucas: well. Yeah. the problem is i don't think he can actually See ghosts apart from what they're attached to (classic problem tbf)

mike/faith: ghost agnostic. mike believes in Lucas's belief in pizzeria ghosts and agrees there's some weird shit going on but doesn't know if that's enough for Proof exactly. faith also believes in lucas's belief but doesn't really want to confront the fact that she's dead

nessa: categorically no (ghost atheist), chalks up the original fazband's strange behavior to decaying hardware (partially true) and the toy fazband's to a severe software bug (also true). everything else might be a carbon monoxide leak (certainly possible)

marigold: categorically yes. in fact she's got a bit of a theory that every classic "monster" archetype is basically just a ghost. zombies? ghost. vampires? blood ghost. werewolves? wolf ghost. think about it

afton: you'd think it'd be straightforward since he's. yk. a ghost. but i don't think he's realized he's dead yet. besides, "ghost" is a silly word anyways.

violet: yes but she didn't know actually Being a ghost would be this boring! at least she gets a cool robot suit

charlie: what's a ghost? everyone who is here is alive. she gave them that gift

sammy: no but sometimes memories are capable of bringing back the dead, even just for a moment. that's a bit like ghosts, isn't it?

garrett: no because if ghosts were real that would be fucking terrifying. could you imagine??? he ends up pretty superstitious "just in case"

fritz: generally no but he's willing to believe if it's interesting enough. and freddy's is Plenty interesting

beth: i think she's flip-flopped over the years but settles on a tepid "no" because she prefers quantifiable proof before she believes in anything (but david IS a ghost and is haunting her forever)

michael: no because ghosts go against god's natural order (but david IS a ghost and is haunting him forever)

henry: not ghosts exactly but he likes to believe that his loved ones are watching over him from heaven (and his enemies are scowling up at him from hell)