THE AMAZING ANIMATRONIC CIRCUS!
I did a bunch of designs for it, so here we go!
Please ignore his funky ass hand
I imagine Bubble as being similar to Cupcake, an animatronic connected by Caine's Bluetooth or something or other. It could be like how Puppet controlled the toys in the second movie
Caine, just like back in TADC, is the only true AI in the crew. He is still the ring leader of the group, and his "adventures" could either just be him programming new animatronics using the scraps of animatronics in the back rooms, or coming up with games during the day time with the guests.
Its hard to see, but he has an endoskeleton base to hold his eyes and a hinge for his teeth
I decided to change her shoes to Mary Janes, and I was on the fence about giving her patches. I forgot the dolly cuffs so I I didnt add them until after her outline. Excuse her awkwardly big nose.
Loosely based off the toy animatronics
I decided to base Pomni off of the Sun and Moon animatronics in Security Breach, although I was originally going to base her off the funtime since they have more of a clown-ish look to them. The pose was loosely inspired my the original Frogni sketches by @gooseworx!
Jax may be my favorite out of everyone here rn. He was actually the easiest to do, surprisingly. He's the only one who isnt based off of some original fnaf characters.
I decided to base Kinger off the little map guys from Securuty Breach. I needed to find a logical way for his movements and hands, but I didn't want to drive him away his original chess piece design. I think he's adorable like this!
I imagine him to be the equivalent of Henry if he became an animatronic as well. Like, he helped design the animatronics / the circus palace of the story, but isn't directly responsible for everyone being trapped.
Gangle was surprisingly hard to do as well. I was gonna base her off of Mangle before I decided that Zooble would be a better fit. So, instead, I made her based off of the puppet. I gave her the body of an endoskeleton and covered her with the ribbon, so she isn't driven too far from her original character.
And now, Zooble as Mangle
The proportions are a bit wonky, but that makes sense considering botch characters. I legitimately wanted to kms drawing this ngl. My head hurts. They're still the take-apart-and-put-back-together attraction.
The general idea for this AU is that all the people of the Digital Circus became animatronics (obviously) but the method on HOW can depend heavily on the show or uses of this universe. I like to think that they don't quite realize that they're dead and think they can be reunited to their real bodies.
I haven't done any of the abstracted yet, and I don't plan on doing them for a while but I feel like, in order to abstract, they lose themselves to their characters. Their remnant gets overrided by the animatronic coding, so the animatronic itself and the soul it belongs to have to fight for dominance, leaving them to a state of insanity where they'll harm themselves and anyone in their path without realizing it. It would be a lot like how we originally imagined abstraction before episode 7 where its more of a struggle instead of some sort of drug trip.
Instead of being "abstracted", they're withered. Caine would have the ability to temperorarily shut down these animatronics using the same bluetooth-esque technology I mentioned before and alert any staff workers about the withered, where they are transferred to a warehouse or something or other.
All of the mannequins in the series would probably be replaced by endoskeleton, and the NPC's could be "purchased" and designed by guests for future adventures, which will also be shut down and transferred to the warehouse with the cellar unless there's a reason to use them again.
As for how the animatronics are created, they could just be npc's repurposed as new cast members with the remnant in them.
In case it hasn't been done before, it's an open AU to anyone who wishes to use it as long as they credit me.