#dsaf vanny

Born in 1961 (younger than Jack but older than Dee), she had a pretty normal childhood and teen years; She gets a job at a Fazbender's in 1982 - One in which Henry was conducting research on souls. Unfortunately for her, she gets used as a guinea pig for a experiment of injecting tangible soul matter (remnant or whatever you wanna call it) into a alive subject (Dave was an exception with his "Always comes back" thingy, Henry wanted to see what would've happened if used in a normal person); He waited until it was closed (no witnesses + easier to falsify evidence) and nabbed the nightguard.

He'd then take her to a room with the Scooper and it'd inject her head with the soul matter, killing her in the process (an giant mechanical "claw" ramming directly into your skull would do that to you, i'd imagine). She'd stay down for a couple of days, causing Henry to write the experiment off as a failure (the disappearance was noticed by the staff so he'd risk raising suspicion if he stuck around for a chance of something happen, not worth it) and have William hide his tracks and get away from that location.

…Then finally she got up, already unusually rotten (thanks to the soul matter, she rapidly decomposed before it would halt), glowing eyes in the empty sockets (eyes probably popped out of the face with the hit), hair falling off and with a bashed skull; It didn't just stop at that - Vanessa was so disoriented that she couldn't remember anything.

As such, not knowing where else to go, she just got out of that room and kinda stuck around near that restaurant for a few hours (Freddy's has constant cryptid sightings and a bigger issue to pay attention to anyways. Also, that bald zombie hardly looks like Vanessa and was too rotten to be such an recent death so she wasn't recognized)

That is, until Van sees an purple man; She swears she saw him before, maybe he can tell who she is! She goes up to him and just keeps asking questions nonstop, bugging him; "Hey! You seem familiar, you know me? My head's kinda fuzzy… Where are we? What day is it?…" And went on and on.

He considers telling her off or even killing her, until he thinks "Look, the Company's already suspicious over the shitton of strangled kiddies, they're gonna point at me over the nightguard situation… Hey, if i play along with this annoying chick i'll have her take the fall for me if shit hits the fan… Hm…"

And so, Dave starts lying to Vanessa so she trusts him, aswell as manipulating her into incriminating herself over…her own murder (he assumes Henry hid the body and cleaned up the scene, Purps has her contaminate some evidence he falsified).

Truth is, if he weren't lying to her all that he could tell was "A girl was killed by that clunky ass doorhickey". He didn't see it, he's going off what Henry told him happened.

"Good Job! Gotta go now, see ya" as he swiftly noped out of there without a trace. "Y'know, she could've maybe been more useful… Too bad that poor sod's gonna be behind bars"

Luckily for the lass, the evidence was conditratory enough that the charges couldn't stick, but that location closed regardless. Nobody knew the alleged "Zombie Woman" murderer.

And so, an few years go by - not only did 'Nessa remember most details of her life and who she was - but also trying to get back into it, going back to her house but… something was still missing. None of this felt the same. Nobody wanted to be near her, no one knew what she's looking for. Vanessa tried to go back to who she used to be back when she was alive but she just isn't, everyone she was close with believes Vanessa's dead and buried… she has nothing now. She wanted to know what led her to become this… ugly thing … Van gets an idea: "That weird guy SURELY has a reason to be acting like this, he must have the answers i'm looking for!" And so, she expects him to show up at those Fazbender's restaurants and starts enlisting as an employee, hoping he'll be there.

This should've been around 1988 by now, and it took a while, but there he was.

"Why, hello ther- wait… Oh right. So, how did it feel to be behind bars-" "Uh, what are you talking about?" "…Forget it. Why are you here?" "Oh, because of you! you have a LOT to tell m-" "Yeah i know i'm irresistibly handsome, alr-" "NOT what i meant! I wanna know what's goin' on, what was up with that crime setup? What's your deal? Why are you doing this?" "…You don't know the story behind this damn company, do you? Say, what's your name?" "You can call me Vanny!" "That better not a nick of your real name" "It can stand for lots of different aliases" "Name's Dave, and lemme tell you, 'Vanny' - this fast food's chain's cursed , sacrificing so many dreams for some cheap fucking profit… Letting people die and be replaced…" "Huh…" "Just look at you, i'm sure you're like this because of this darn place, and you're not the only one… I had a dream, something to look toward for, me 'n' my partner wanted a place where kids would feel pure joy- and those fuckers tore it all in front of our eyes!" "W-" "Get this, there's so, SO much evil shit these assholes have done through all those the locations and years…"

Mind you, Vanny only worked for Fazbender's for a very brief period, not enough to be aware of it's bloody history and has no idea he's a child murderer; She's being swayed by him that the company are - in fact - the evil ones in from his perspective.

Dave sees that she's believing him and thinks back about the idea of having an lackey since he doubts Old Sport is going to show up at this location, last time he snuck in his house he seemed busy fixing some "special" arcade cabinet. Dave helped him but apparently only an soulless entity could use it, so he left Jack trying to figure it out while he went back to doing what he does best: "There's still plenty of locations just waitin' for me out there, catch ya later Old Sport"

He continues to tell her about the incidents and part of his backstory to nail in that idea.

"(…)So… What do you say, wanna help me shutdown Fazbender's?" "Sure!"

…Vanny has no idea what she just signed up to lmao. There's not an whole lot going on her undead life, he's pretty much the ONLY person she encountered so far that seems to want to put up with her so might aswell assist. Still, not gonna give her too much of the workload, just screw with some cameras, tamper with the robots, that's about it. In the meanwhile, the aubergine man kills some kiddies, hide the bodies, etc, a part of the plan he omitted from her as it could've lead to her backing out if she knew, as it's an more drastic measure. His handy-dandy plans succeeded once again! Not only that, he quickly distracts Vanny whenever she thinks about those missing kids rumors that maybe aren't the company's fault.

"Not bad, you still have a lot to learn though" "It was SO fun!!!" "Sure was…"

Would you look at that, Sportsy's temporary substitute wasn't so bad afterall. He started to warm up to her even (while making her worse)!, maybe he'd bring her along for more antics, and so he did;

She even made her own bunny costume inspired by the Springbonnie suit! (which embarrasses him quite a bit, admittedly)

By this point, he already skewed her morals by a little bit, making the idea of killing kids less distant (still makes her deeply uncomfortable but by this point she's too far deep into this mess to call it quits - besides, he's the only person that seemingly sorta cares about her, if she backed out Van would've probably be utterly alone again); Eggplant man can have his fun with that instead, she'll hide the bodies if she has to.

Dave doesn't realize how much he's indirectly harming her because all of this has become second nature to him (and he's straight up unable to tell that his debauchery is evil, thanks Henry), he just believes he got himself another friend - and Vanny feels like she's being pressured into into having to follow in his footsteps, gradually turning her into a Dave 2. Van goes along because he's the only "Friend" she currently has (not to mention that she does actually like him), she'd also think she's doing it to take down an even more evil foe (which he gaslight her into thinking THEY were the ones to do this to her, encouraging her to take revenge), it's just that he goes WAY too far to get the job done, and that puts an strain on their friendship.

This culminates in him being proud enough to encourage her to kill the kids herself and officially become Kiddie Strangler V3, but she's not ready for that; If Vanny did it she would feel extremely guilty and NEVER forgive herself over it 'cause she still has a heart and wasn't lobotomized.

A location or two shutdown (caused by Vanny Accidentally Intentionally blowing it up) later, Old Sport finally shows up to one that has the two; Dave introduces her to him and Jack notices on how far he's influenced Vanny's attitude; Depending on the route he'd try to distance her from him, do nothing about it or push her further down the child murderer rabbit-hole:

-Good Jack would sympathize with her, bringing Dee up (as there's a lot of resemblances between the two) to try to snap her out of Aubergine Man's path before she does something she'd REALLY regret (again, Davey's fine with killing kids BECAUSE Henry rewired what's left of his brain to think it's okay, Vanessa didn't go through that);

-Neutral isn't bothered and ignores the situation entirely, not getting involved;

-Legacy actively manipulates her to be more malicious, and make her kill a kid or two. He'd notice Dee parallels but REFUSE to acknowledge them (he never got over it and the fact that he's essentially turning a overly naive & happy girl into a unhinged killer doesn't help). Because of the regret, guilt and trauma, Vanny becomes more cold, serious and overall sadder.

And that's where i left her story off for now, a lot still keeps developing but it's decently complete currently. Still, there's still some dynamics i wanna talk about:

Assuming she goes to the Flipside, Will would feel remorseful over unintentionally pushing her to be a worse person, and she'd forgive him (she'd see it more as her fault rather than his); Their dynamic is mostly the same except he's not as unconciously malicious so they'd get along better (turns out your friends like you a lot more when you're not insisting them that they should strangle toddlers, who would have thought?)

If she comes across the Puppet i'd feel like Dee would resonate with her because she'd actually see/overhear how Vanessa's getting pushed into this and isn't as unapologetic (she let go of her grudge against William once she heard his backstory, and she's seeing something similar with 'Nessa who has lesser crimes so far, so-), i said before but i feel like these two would be BFFs if they got an chance to talk with each other, even if Van becomes a killer part of her still wants to atone for it - it's just the others want her to keep going down this path (Dee and Vanny could spend HOURS talking to each other, whether it'd be about trauma, the boys or just girly stuff in general - they both really need an friend to vent about their emotions)

As for the phoneys, both them and Van see each other as nuisances (she's a annoying, unreliable employee for them & she'd get the gist of them from Dave out of all people so-), the Scotts still consider her a threat, just lower on their priority list.

TLDR: Vanessa gets injected with the memory erasing soul juice™ and turns into an immortal zombie - as long as her head (soul juice container™) is intact.

Dave runs into her, she follows him thinking he could help her remember who she is - Dave idgaf but keeps her around as a backup meatshield. Dave realizes "Wait, why don't i convince her to help me out" so he takes Van in as his apprentice and tries to turn her into Dave 2 (without the use of lobotomies though) Overtime he slowly gets attached and genuinely starts caring about her (she does too but her morals clash with his goals, which he's unknowingly stripping'em away little by little).

Later he reencounters and introduces Vanny to Jack who notices he's influencing her; Depending on route he'd get her away from him (Good), help corrupt her even further (Legacy) or not give a shit whatsoever (Neutral). His interations with her would range from sympathizing, manipulating & gaslighting or apathy and annoyance, aswell as others outside the main routes.

She sees the phones as non human nuisances because the eggplant hammered down her brain over and over that's all that they are (she's not as bothered by them as much as Davey is though)

Both Van and Dee resonate with each other, they'd become besties if they get an chance to talk to each other.

Vanny's a overly optimistic, energetic, frenetic, oblivious and gullible dummy personality-wise (although it can change drastically in a few endings), her death just made her unhinged and wackier.

I still have some ideas to flesh out -mostly ending specific stuff - but also moments that actually play off her being somewhat immortal + her knack for explosives (just couldn't fit it as much into the story parts above)

For example an idea for an (later) Legacy Route scene is for Jacktrap to wait until Dave gets the most attached to Vanny (assuming she makes it that far) that he's ever been… Then he kills her in front of him; For Legacy Jack he did this as sadistic revenge over Dee ("he killed my little sister so i'm doing the same to the closest thing he has to one") For Henry he did this to really drive in the idea that William's entire existence is so pitifully pointless that he doesn't deserve anyone's care and affection.

… On an much lighter note, also thought of an "Premature Ending" with Vanny (gonna make an comic out of this soon enough): She tries blowing up the sealed Saferoom to free Davetrap, busting an hole large enough… Except that the explosion also seriously damaged the infrastructure - causing the corridor's ceiling to fall off; Not only did this fully crush her (actually fucking dies with an cartoony "Splat!" sound btw), now there's rubble all over the way through the corridor, meaning EVEN MORE stuff barring him. Just wonderful (He's not even mad or sad, he's just dissapointed and mildly annoyed).

This was also an fun opportunity to dust off some old art for this, (maybe i'll edit to add more later)