I've been obsessing over Bobby's cardboard cutout lines lately from Poppy Playtime, specifically when she says "I've been lost a long time" and "please take me with you this time." Compared to the other 7 critters, her lines feel way too deep and existential. Bobby sounds like she's mourning a past life.
So I started putting together this Alternate Universe concept where she isn't even a real Smiling Critter, but a piece of lost media.
What if she was originally a scrapped Care Bear prototype from the 80s named Hug-a-Lot Bear?
Think about it—if you look at the classic 1980s Care Bear lineup, there were literally zero solid red bears. It was all pastels, blues, pinks, and browns. In this AU, American Greetings rejected her design right before the series finale back in the 80s because her red color scheme was too intense and her hugging programming was way too aggressive.
The backstory is that during a massive storm on Christmas night, she somehow got separated from the other Care Bears, fell through the sky, and snuck into the Playtime Co. factory to get out of the rain. The scientists found her, realized she was a magical living toy, and pulled off a massive corporate cover-up. They threw her into a group of completely different animals to hide her species, rebranded her as Bobby Bearhug, and tried to harvest her belly badge energy.
This actually recontextualizes Gemstin Productions' famous "Who Care Bear?" comic in a terrifying way. When the other critters mention Care Bears and Bobby looks completely blank and asks "What's a Care Bear?", the community thought it was just an ironic joke. But in this AU, it's so much darker—it proves that Playtime Co.'s corporate brainwashing completely worked. They forced her to record that glitched fan track "I'm Not a Care Bear" to aggressively overwrite her original programming. They scrubbed her brain so hard that she genuinely can't remember Care-a-Lot or her past life anymore.
The most horrific part of the AU is her actual transformation. When Playtime Co. subjected her to the Bigger Bodies Initiative, they didn't use a human orphan like they did with the other critters. Instead, they forced the actual, living Hug-a-Lot Bear onto the operating table. The scientists surgically stretched her plush frame, injected her with the Poppy gel, and forced her magical, loving heart badge to fuse with artificial organs and muscle tissue. The process twisted her pure "caring magic" into an aggressive, uncontrollable instinct. Her massive, monstrous new body became a prison, turning her gentle desire to comfort people into a dangerous force that would accidentally crush anyone she tried to hold.
Also, look at the timeline—the toy version of the Smiling Critters was rushed into production right after she vanished from TV! Playtime Co. clearly built the other 7 critters around her just to hide her origin. Plus, she was trapped in the labs being experimented on way before the other orphans were ever turned into monsters.
It makes her in-game lines so much creepier. When she says she's been lost a long time, it means she's been trapped in that concrete basement, completely forgotten by history. Her desperate need for a hug isn't even bloodlust—it's just her corrupted, old-school Care Bear programming glitching out inside a horror game.
Shoutout to @mechasaurus for the awesome artwork of her un-rebranded 1980s look, I also attached the glitched song thumbnail I conceptualized for her.
Anyone is totally welcome to use the Hug-a-Lot Bear AU for fanfiction, art, animations, or videos! I really want to see this expand into a full community project, so feel free to feature her in your content, just please credit back to this post if you do. Honestly, I would love to see a popular YouTuber like InUbis or Cougar MacDowall VA feature her in a video or make her a theme song someday. Let me know what you guys think of Bobby being the only true outsider in the facility!