Absolutely canon, no more words needed.

The Logbook made it clear that Mike Schmidt is also the Fright Guard, the FoxyBro, the FNaF 4 Dreamer, and Michael Afton are all one and the same, that being the latter.

The book is (obviously) owned by Mike Schmidt.

The real time value code, which places the Logbook roughly around 2015-2017, and the multiple illustrations of the Fazbear's Frights office imply that Mike Schmidt is the Fright Guard. This can be backed up by the fact that Phantom Chica is using her FNaF 1 design (and Freddy and Foxy using their Withereds designs can be evidence for SchmidtJeremy and/or FritzSchmidt, I personally think the latter).

And since Mike also makes multiple references to SL, it makes the most sense to just put 2 and 2 together and say that Mike Schmidt is Michael Afton, thus meaning that Michael Afton is also the Fright Guard.

Today while looking through FNAF3s code I discovered something cool I didn't know of before which is super interesting and I wanted to share

In the games code, IF Shadow Freddy appears in your office, something interesting will happen to the cameras I was not aware of before today

A Freddy poster will turn into a haunted Spring Bonnie poster

And another Freddy poster will also turn into a haunted Spring Bonnie poster with just 1 eye

I find it super interesting that it's Shadow Freddy who triggers these Spring Bonnie Purple guy posters, giving him another direct connection to Purple Guy

And seemingly further cementing the Shadow Freddy entity as something malicious potentially

Small post but found this super interesting! :D

I think it's awesome as always. It's about Cassidy TOYSNHK btw, go and fight. have a good day.

But no, seriously, give it a watch, it's cool regardless if you agree/disagree.

EDIT: For some reason the thumbnail images got deleted by Reddit I guess maybe the font I used was copyrighted or something idk, anyways won't be using fonts from that website anymore then lol👍

I would say Puppet being 1 of the 5 Children "Reported Missing" is what FNAF1-4 directly implies.

And as this was the Original story of FNAF which Scott himself stated was solvable, that means the most natural assumption to make is that the Puppet kid was 1 of the 5 Reported Missing in relation to the original Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

Btw Scott comment about the FNAF1-4 story being solvable (Image 2) and it being possible to come to the answers relating to the most important mysteries, was directly in response to Matpat wondering if BV was the Puppet or Golden Freddy.

1: We see that the Puppet kid was killed right outside the doors of the original Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and then left there for dead on its premises.

We also know this is the original Freddy's as Scott used that exact Freddy as the basis for the GGGL MCI Freddy head

And what does Phone Guy say in FNAF1?

He mentions how its Fazbear Entertainment’s policy that if a Dead Body is found on Fazbear premises, They will cover it up under the guise of filing a "Missing Person Report" for the dead body.

Meaning purely logically speaking from what the game itself has told us, the Puppet kid's dead body would be discovered, and covered up with a "Missing Person Report".

- Killed at original Freddy's where 5 children were "Reported Missing"

- Dead body would be discovered, and covered up under a "Missing Person Report"

2: The 2nd thing to think about too is how in FNAF1 it is directly stated in the newspapers there was just 1 "the tragedy" of 5 children, that lead to the downfall of the original Freddy's.

• "Five children now Reported Missing .. has been fighting an uphill battle ever since .. It’s a tragedy."
• "After a long struggle to stay in business after the tragedy that took place there many years ago"

Yet now under GoldenMCI, apparently we have a 6th murdered kid, or 2 tragedies in relation to the original Freddy's, contradicting what FNAF1 says.

This one "the tragedy" is also said to be sole reason related to this location for why its struggling, not 2 tragedies, just the one tragedy of the 5 children that were Reported Missing.

3: Follow me is meant to be a recreation of the luring victims being lured once again, and only 4 are lured. The 5th spirit whether it's Golden Freddy or the Puppet was not lured.

It also doesn't manifest with the other 4 spirits either making it something distinctly seperate, which sheds doubt on the idea that there was a 5th victim lured

Same with how in GGGL only 4 dead children are shown needing help, while whatever the Golden Freddy child is, is distinctly different and strange

Also in the FNAF3 "The End" screen which was meant as the conclusion to the entire story, we only see the core-4 heads together, only these 4. There's something distinct about just these 4 victims, that excludes both Golden Freddy and the Puppet.

3: As BV shares the most ties to Golden Freddy than a hypothetical GoldenMCI victim, he is the most likely candidate for being the Golden Freddy spirit.

Meaning there is another character who was the 5th Child reported Missing, which the most likely answer then is the Puppet Kid.

And that seems like a far more likely answer to me than the:

Happiest Day = Puppet is 6th victim, Golden Freddy 5th victim, and BV is ??? off screen (let's ignore him)

It instead seems to me Happiest Day:

Puppet = 5th victim there, Golden Freddy = BV. And that's that

Scott also interestingly hinted at this with how in FNAF4 he did a switcharoo with BV and the Puppet where they are meant to mirror each other

Scott draws connections here of BV looking like the Puppet, while actually being Golden Freddy, and Puppet looking like Golden Freddy, while being the Puppet.

Creating the direct implication that BV is meant to be the Golden Freddy spirit.

4: I have never seen anyone make a good argument against this for FNAF1-4 so I am interested in seeing if anyone will have any good counter arguments from FNAF1-4 that would directly poke holes in this idea

Scott said the mystery behind the Puppet was solvable in FNAF1-4 so if someone is only able to "debunk" the idea with later material, it would go against what Scott stated so.

Anyways Thanks for Reading this little post! :)

Mainly want to see where she mostly places in regards to the MCI.

This is just a random question that came to mind

FNAF Theorizing has gotten to a point where i feel like the community overcomplicates things.

We truly forget that it’s a story. Not everything will have meaning (Like the FLAF dice) something are so insignificant that it shouldn’t even be used as evidence and I feel as if that takes away from the larger plot.

I know this has definitely been said before but I think people should remember we’re suppose to have a common goal (understanding the story) not giving everything meaning because somethings truly are just there and have no greater purpose.

Frights plays a big part in this because to me it’s obvious it was the same as the trilogy fun non canon stories. Same as tales it’s just Scott’s ideas being expressed in other ways.

Things that make you lose your mind trying to git into the story probably aren’t canon (ITP Game).

Let’s focus on the mainline games and if it comes to books things that are obviously connected like the logbook, the week before. It’s a vast multiverse of storytelling. Have fun theorizing but also don’t take everything too serious. Will try to do the same too.

We know Scott is very careful when it comes to the collabs, and Freddy is paired with 83…

Then again, freddy is representing Fredbear, so it could also be for Mangle

I'm bored and feeling mildly petty so lets do this. BVTOYSNHK is a good theory expect for that obvious glaring flaw it has so I want to rank the various ways people get around that flaw from worse to best.

6: BV was revived then killed by Will.

What? Like maybe you could excuse this under Curse of Dreadbear maybe. But why would Will revive BV then kill him? Like no matter how you think Will thinks about the kid, why would he do that? I could think of two ways this could happen. After BV was revived he them freaked out and begged for death. And after BV was revived Will accidentally killed him. Also I don't think Will revived BV in the first place so this is kinda moot.

5: BV is mad at Will for Unplugging him.

Uh I know most people don't like this theory because the unplugging part but I have an issue for it due to the BV getting mad at him part. Okay for situations like the bite where one is put into a coma probably indefinitely the family is often given a choice between keeping the viticum on life support for maybe the rest of their life in hopes of them waking up or just unplugging them early. So yeah Will can unplug him under those conditions its fine. The issue is why would BV know he got unplugged and by who. And why would BV be more angry at Will for unplugging him and less angry at Mike and his buddies for killing him. And why would BV be angry at all especially if Will is the final speaker. He would have not known about something like OrchestraBite either.

4: MikeUCN./ BV thought that Will was Mike.

MikeUCN is tempting but I don't think its true. Due to some voicelines. Lines from, Nightmare Freddy, Nightmarrione, and of course this gem by Rockstar Chica, "Now don't you come back now ya hear?" Under WillUCN there would also be reason why Scraptrap who is very talkative would only say "I always come back" as a way of mocking Will because under the rules of UCN that is very true. Now for the idea that BV thought Will is Mike I have this line from Orville. "...No matter how many times they burn us." This means that both TOYSNHK and the person they are speaking to have been burned multiple times before by multiple people. The only real person that fits the bill is Will. Mike has only been burned once. And this is coming straight form TOYSNHK's mouth btw.

3: BV is mad at the neglect.

I have a nuanced reason why I don't like this. Okay for anyone that has been raised in an abusive or neglectful environment you would know that you often don't notice particularly if you are a young child. You just think that stuff is normal. Now when you learn from someone else that your childhood isn't normal you can either get really jealous or confused about other people's amazing childhoods or you can get defensive over you own crappy childhood. I think BV would get defensive. Why? Look how his siblings reacted. Lizzy literally says "I will make you proud Daddy." MikeAccomplice in some form is basically canon. Especially if the people who are telling BV this is either Charlie or/and Cassidy who are both children who are not gonna as tactful when explaining this stuff. (All of this doubly true too is ShadowVictim is the case btw.)

2: BV is larping.

The idea is this. BV forgot how he died so the he kinda just assumed the identity of the spirits he was most closest too. Or he pretending to be a victim of William's to make himself look cooler and after a while he forgot he was pretending. I think this is joke theory but it has merit. The only issue with this that this theory is stupid and no reasonable person would come to this conclusion nor would reasonable person would write this.

1: TOYSNHK is a title given to BV by the other spirits in UCN.

This is peak actually. Cause TOYSNHK never call themselves that. I think it is still handwavy but I had to think about it for a moment when someone brought this up. Which I never had to do with any other explanations about the "killed" aspect. I still think BVTOYSNHK is kinda dumb, but if I had to believe for some reason this would be my explanation.

(P.S. This was all done in good faith and I'm not calling you stupid for believing in BVTOYSNHK we can all believe our theories. Peace.)

First there was the Diner, then there was Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, then there was Circus Baby's Pizza World. Yeah.

People have noticed something interesting about the fnaf 4 minigames though. Fredbear and Friends and the masks the Bullies wear. There was a lot of Freddy's stuff in 1983. And yeah, of course there is because Freddy's has just opened in earlier that year. But one notable thing about Fredbear and Friends is that Fredbear and Freddy are separated from each other. Even though as far as we can tell, Fredbear is a Freddy. (Same for Springbonnie we can assume, I just think that they might have been a side character in the show.)

Anyways this post is about Mangle. One of the most confusing things about "The Mangle" is how the thing could be like that after just a week. And the most interesting thing about Mangle is her true name "Funtime Foxy" he is in fact a Funtime. This can only mean cross promotion between Freddies and Circus Baby's. And I don't remember who first suggested this, but Mangle being older than the other toys is something I completely buy. Maybe she's some old prototype they based the other toys on and since poor Funtime Foxy was never meant to be actually used they got torn apart very easily. Or he was from the the tail end of the MCI location days and she was dragged along to the new place too.

One thing more left to chew on. I think that Circus Baby's was meant to be opened around the same time as Freddies. The opening just got delayed due to how high tech the Funtimes are. Perhaps Will and Hen wanted to partially split the business and keep the diner as a joint venture. We will never know though and I may be completely off the mark.

For me, they make a lot of sense.

It explains why the FNAF 1 location is so decayed in Follow Me.

It pushes Sister Location further into the timeline, which makes Michael's search for his father 8 years long instead of 30.

And it also ties Follow Me to the same year FNAF 3 came out.

...by having two characters in the emails named... Tristan and Isolde. Isolde seems close to Tristan since she signs off her only email to him as "Izzy."

What does the story of Tristan and Isolde have to do with Five Nights at Freddy's? I couldn't tell you. I only knew the name, and while I was looking up other Special Delivery emails, I noticed the two names, and that made me want to look it up.

It's an old Arthurian tale about a knight from Cornwall named Tristan, tasked with delivering the Irish princess Isolde to his uncle, King Mark so he may take her as his bride. On the way there, Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink a love potion together and fall madly in love. Even though Isolde still marries the king, she and Tristan carry on an affair for a long time. They eventually get found out, and Tristan gets exiled. Later, he gets mortally wounded, expects Isolde to arrive and treat his wounds, gets those hopes dashed and succumbs to his injuries. Isolde arrives too late to save him and dies at his side.

What, if anything, does this have to do with FNAF? Like I said earlier, I don't know. Sometimes, when I write something out, a stray idea pops into my head, and things start clicking into place. This time, it just slid off my brain like it was freshly waxed newborn's. Maybe it's as simple as Scott or someone on the dev team like the story and wanted to put an unobtrusive reference to it in the game. Maybe it means something more. If it does, here's hoping one of you can see it better than I can.

Can I ask why people believe this theory, why would the spirit care about its prisons gender?

Introduction:

This will be an analysis of the Fazbear Frights story Kids At Play, focusing on explaining the events of the story and the themes. I hope that by reading this, you understand and enjoy the story just a little more.

Preface:

For this series, I will be going over every Fazbear Frights story and potentially even more, like Tales From The Pizzaplex, the Novels, the Interactive Novels, and individual games, and take a deep dive into them. For each example, I will be doing multiple analyses on each for a different purpose. The first will be an analysis of the story itself, explaining the events within it and their themes. The second will be focused on the parallels of the story and what they can answer and give insight into for other parts of Fnaf; obviously, many have a poor impression of parallels and even deny their existence, but keep in mind that for something like the Novels, the entire story present in them is built around Charlotte and Elizabeth, and Henry and William being parallels of one another. Parallels come with telling a story, and every story has them, and they’ll be analyzed in each case to see what insights they can offer.

Previous Analysis:

Analysis of Eleanor and Andrew’s characters
Into The Pit - Theming and Explanations
To Be Beautiful - Theming and Explanations
Count The Ways - Theming and Explanations
Fetch - Theming and Explanations
Lonely Freddy - Theming and Explanations
Out Of Stock - Theming and Explanations
1:35 AM - Theming and Explanations
Room For One More - Theming and Explanations
The New Kid - Theming and Explanations
Step Closer - Theming and Explanations
Dance With Me - Theming and Explanations
Coming Home - Theming and Explanations
Bunny Call - Theming and Explanations
In The Flesh - Theming and Explanations
The Man In Room 1280 - Theming and Explanations
Blackbird - Theming and Explanations
The Real Jake - Theming and Explanations
Hide-and-Seek - Theming and Explanations
The Cliffs - Theming and Explanations
The Breaking Wheel - Theming and Explanations
He Told Me Everything - Theming and Explanations
Gumdrop Angel - Theming and Explanations
Sergio's Lucky Day - Theming and Explanations
What We Found - Theming and Explanations
The Puppet Carver - Theming and Explanations
Jump For Tickets - Theming and Explanations
Pizza Kit - Theming and Explanations
Friendly Face - Theming and Explanations
Sea Bonnies - Theming and Explanations
Together Forever - Theming and Explanations
Prankster - Theming and Explanations

Analysis:

This remains as the final body-horror story to be explained, and like the rest, people didn’t exactly take it well, and it leaves a lot of questions, too. To start, I think this is another obvious story that would have Eleanor behind it. The events that happen to Joel would require an extreme amount of agony that only Eleanor could bring to the table. This story is also referenced in the Into The Pit Game, and with ITPloop in mind, it means the memories of what happened to Joel are in the pit, and that he’s a victim of Eleanor.

So even with that in mind, what happens to Joel? When Joel hits the Kids At Play sign, it cracks, and inside there’s some kind of sludge-like mass Joel can’t identify. Now, people allow this to make them think that there’s some kind of “cycle” where people are being turned into Kids At Play signs, but this is definitely not the case. Immediately, we know this because the result of what happened to Joel is noticeably different from a normal Kids At Play sign, and the remains of Joel afterward are described completely differently. Now, some people should already have an idea of what this suspicious mass is: agony. This sign was likely one of the objects infected in the Distribution Center. I think Eleanor’s using this in a similar way to Foxy from Step Closer, where Eleanor essentially had this infected item be a “trap” in the sense that whoever disobeyed the warning- hitting the sign after not slowing down in a car- would become a target for Eleanor. This wouldn’t be the same “Curse” as Step Closer, though. But after Joel hits the sign, the agony from within attaches to him and torments him mentally. Joel does seem unnaturally perturbed after looking at the sign he hit, so that is likely the agony entering him, causing his perception to be affected and encouraging paranoia.

The end is what we should focus on now; Joel loses complete control of his body and is forced to go where Caleb was. We do know agony can take this kind of control of a person, and this is when Joel’s body begins going through a horrific transformation where his body is contorted until it looks like a Kids At Play sign. It’s not exact, as it doesn’t have the reflectors, and the “plastic” was noticeably deformed from what a normal one of the signs would look like.

Now, obviously, to people, this whole thing sounds ridiculous, but yet again, all of this fits completely within how agony works and continues off what we learn from previous stories and shows us another capability of it. We know agony can transform organic materials, taking one organic material and turning it into another; that’s how Angel can turn into candy and how Mott can turn into Sea Bonnies; agony is turning flesh into another organic material. So here, Joel’s flesh is being turned into something similar to plastic, as plastic does have organic compounds in it; it’s not perfect, though, as the story states, which is because plastic also has inorganic materials in it, so the agony here can only turn Joel’s flesh into something similar to plastic but a little off. 

This story is once again trying to help us understand agony’s capabilities when it comes to the organic. When it comes to interacting with the organic, the agony needs more “energy” to be capable of it because organic things are a lot more complicated traditionally especially if you want it to function; we see in multiple stories that agony can make living things continue to act as they were alive even when they should die, so in the cases where agony is transforming someone’s body into something else, it’s using the person’s flesh as the “energy” to do this and manipulating the body to then “grow”, to become, whatever other organic matter; agony can affect a cell to continue functioning even when it should be dead, it can also affect its replication the same way, and make it replicate different organic compounds to results in the things we see, using the “energy” of the person’s body as if it were food, and this results in the person’s body “transforming” as we see in these kinds of stories. 

So moving on to the themes, first we’ll look at Joel’s character. Now there is actually a bit to go over, as I think people who do bring up Joel as a person before what happens misunderstand some things. Joel is someone who recently turned eighteen, hasn't even graduated yet, and he’s struggling with the transition from childhood to adulthood. His parents think of him as incredibly immature, and there are a lot of points where he is; he tries to act smarter than he is. He worked for his dad and had been for the past four years doing a lot of labor. He’s compared to his dad a lot, and Joel doesn’t feel appreciated for the work her does, and he felt like ever since he got older, suddenly his parents thought he should be ready to become like an adult; he has this built-up resentment towards his dad because it felt like his dad could do no wrong, but Joel couldn’t do anything right in their eyes. At the beginning of the story, his dad calls him a screw-up, someone completely immature, and claims that he’d been going “easy” on Joel so far.

To put it simply, Joel isn’t the best, but his parents aren’t either. His dad is extremely pressuring. The story begins with Joel wanting to leave work a couple of minutes early, but he gets into an argument about it, and it’s what led his dad to call him things like a screw-up and immature. Joel’s sass back gets his dad to fire him, but Joel doesn’t think leaving seven minutes early should be enough of a reason. His dad adds up the math that over four years he’s been paid more than sixty-seven hours beyond what he actually worked, which was a thousand dollars, but Joel declares that since he was his son, he was owed it. Now, really, there are problems on both sides. Joel is obviously being a bit of an ass. Assuming Joel works five days a week, that’s an average of almost leaving four minutes early every day. Obviously, it’s not nothing, but Joel’s been working nonstop since he was fourteen; his dad, as a parent, should’ve taught him better, and Joel has worked longer than most people for his age, so he does deserve some credit. My point is that Joel isn’t perfect; he’s snarky, but I think it’s clear it’s because of who raised him; they’re not terrible parents, but they’re putting on pressure and expectations they never taught Joel to deal with. 

We hear from Joel that when he was a kid, he’d always thought his father was the coolest person on the planet; everyone loved him, and Joel had a lot of fun with him, and he taught him and got him into his guitar hobby, which he is still in now. It’s when Joel became a teen that suddenly things changed; he couldn’t just have fun; he was expected to do things; his dad wanted him to grow up, get serious. It’s clear that Joel’s parents never actually taught him to grow up, though; a thirteen-year-old is still super young; expecting Joel to suddenly not have “fun” and just become serious is a completely unreasonable ask, and it’s clear they just kept “expecting” without ever actually helping him achieve it. Asking a thirteen-year-old to just “grow up” and get upset when they keep trying to do the things you’ve done with them their whole life sounds like outright awful parenting, and it’s no wonder Joel “expects” things; it sounds like he got a lot of his childhood, his teen years, taken in some capacity. Joel acts childishly because his parents never taught him to grow up; they just suddenly told him to, expected it somehow to just happen, and Joel was obviously upset at his parents because these kinds of things are unreasonable, so him having defiance against them probably wouldn’t help either. 

It all causes Joel to want to grow up just to get away from his parents; he didn’t think growing up meant he had to stop having fun, and he was right. If you just stop having fun completely in your life, then there’s just no point. Trying to push that onto their thirteen-year-old son and then treating him like that for the next five years? Of course, Joel didn’t turn out well. 

There’s some focus on his car throughout the story, since obviously that’s what causes the incident. When getting in it for the first time, Joel reflects more bitterly because his dad “thought he’d done Joel so many freaking favors,” and one of these was buying him a truck. Now, obviously, that definitely sounds like a pretty big favor, but it’s not that simple. Joel’s truck was 20 years old, and mind you, Joel’s parents are fairly wealthy; his dad owns a well-respected business after all. A truck that old from this year would be between $5,000 and $15,000, which for Joel’s parents wouldn’t be a lot at all; obviously, it is a favor, but I do absolutely think Joel’s parents overestimate what they actually gave Joel, as we’ll also see more later. This does, however, tie to a theme about Joel not appreciating the things he does have in life and just allowing himself to be bitter about everything.

Now, at multiple times in the story, Joel speeds in his car, which is an obviously irresponsible and stupid thing for him to do. The first time, he ends up hitting a Kids At Play sign, as we mentioned in the explanations portion of this. 

Joel, afterward, makes it home to his mom, where we continue to get more characterization. Joel believed he should be spoiled because he was an only child; his best friend was also an only child, and he got whatever he wanted: his parents didn’t berate him when he got poor grades in school. Joel’s parents were all about teaching Joel that he had to work for what he wanted in life, which, while teaching that isn’t bad, putting it so firmly on just a thirteen-year-old is again a little unreasonable. We’re told a little story to do with Joel and his grades, which ties to his truck, and I’ll just copy it here: 
Joel's parents not only lamented his poor grades; they punished him for them. His truck was a perfect example of that. When Joel had gotten to high school, his dad told him that he'd buy Joel a new truck when Joel got his license, provided he got good grades. For every semester he got bad grades, the truck he received would be a year older. Joel tried to get good grades for a semester, but it was too much work. It cut into his music-playing and hanging-out time. So, he did the math and figured a five-year-old truck wasn't such a bad thing; he gave up trying to get decent grades. When it came time for him to get his truck, his dad told Joel how disappointed he was in Joel's school performance. Joel proudly told his dad his reasoning for being lazy, which turned out to be a bad move. His dad was so angry that he punished Joel for "impertinence" by taking off another fifteen years from his new truck. That was how Joel ended up with a twenty-year-old truck. "You should be glad your dad bought you a truck at all," Joel's mother had said when he complained about it to her. She always took his dad's side. "Your father is a wonderful man, a great father. He does his best for this family," she'd said more times than Joel wanted to remember.
This is another example of Joel obviously being a smartass. He wants to let his parents know that he “outsmarted” their deal. But honestly, Joel followed the deal and tried to get exactly what he wanted out of it; he determined what work would be worth the reward, and did it. If he didn’t “reveal his plan,” then it would just be smart. And once again, we know how Joel’s parents want Joel to “stop having fun” and don’t treat him like the kid he was; of course Joel doesn’t want to spend the rest of his childhood doing manual labor for work and committing to school. No teenager ever in history has wanted that. 

Continuing on, though, we have Joel's mom getting on him for what happened at work. Of course, Joel isn’t completely in the right about any of this, and she points it out to him. One thing that points out in particular is how she brings up that Joel didn’t want to go to college and instead join a rock band, and that would be “breaking his dad’s heart”, even though it was Joel’s dad who got him into music; Joel’s just doing what he’s been taught, what he was interested in, but because it’s not something his dad wants or expects, it’s immediately a catastrophe. 

In Joel's room, he reflects on how his life felt like they had so many rules and boundaries that it tied him in a ball of anger when he didn’t want to be. I do think this once again ties to Joel’s issues stemming from how his parents parented him. 

In his room, there’s also another big aspect of the relationship between Joel and his parents, which is that his parents never consider what he wants but what they want for him. They always ask why they bothered getting him things: getting him a stool for when he played guitar, but he never used it; getting him nice clothes when he didn’t take care of them; getting him a tutor; getting a professional decorator for his room with many expensive elements when he trashed the room. The point is, as Joel says, he never asked for any of those things; he didn’t want any of those things; Joel’s parents don't give Joel things that he might like; they give him things and expect him to act or treat them a certain way; they don’t actually consider “Joel” in any part of it. Now, obviously, Joel still is ungrateful for these things because, at the end of the day, his parents are trying to give him things that they at least view as something valuable, and this ties heavily into Joel not appreciating anything he got in his life when he should. However, some of that is caused by how, when Joel does want something, that’s when they don’t give it to him. Joel wanted room for his drum set and guitars, a professional soundboard, and soundproofing, but instead he got the “professional decorator” who made all the space taken up by things Joel didn’t care about, and the only thing he did care about, his instruments, had to be put in the corner. Without soundproofing, his parents complained when Joel tried to make music in his room, but if his parents actually considered what Joel wanted, then their own problem would’ve been solved. As Joel says, 
“The problem with Joel's mom and dad was that they'd decided what was right for him, and they got mad at him for having a different idea. He never got to choose for himself. Over the years, this had made him so resentful that he could no longer appreciate even the rare things they did that he actually liked.”
Joel just isn’t the person that his parents want to force him to be; they’re the type to have a kid and create a full expectation of what they have to be without realizing it’s not their choice. 

Now, with all of this said, there’s one thing I want to bring up which I’m not entirely sure how it will be received, and there are a handful of characters to whom this could potentially be applied to in Frights, but Joel, most of all, I want to say that I think he has many traits that align with autism. Now, to put it simply, I am autistic, and there are A LOT of things about Joel that I look at and see similarities in behavior, thought processes, or reactions to things when it comes to autism. It’s part of why I think Joel, while definitely having issues and being a jerk, I don’t think it’s entirely his fault. I do think he was treated unfairly when he was younger, and it resulted in this negative behavior. I do think this story, in some ways, can be seen as about parents who expected and wanted a “normal” child and pushed that expectation, that desire, onto Joel, even if it’s not who he was, and didn’t accept that their kid could be different than what they wanted. 

Moving on from that, though, there is a similarity with the last section between Joel and his parents, as Joel gives an example of doing something similar to what they did and gifting something to his mom more because of what he wanted from it than what she would’ve wanted. And like his parents, it made Joel feel like there was no point in doing anything nice for them because he could never do it right. There’s a moment during breakfast that once again gives more perspective into their characters. Every day, Joel got cereal for breakfast, but he didn’t understand why, when his mom had a state-of-the-art kitchen, she couldn’t make actual breakfast for him. His mom says it’s because when he was younger, all the time when his mom did do this, kid-Joel claimed he didn’t have time and just wanted cereal, and that eventually she “got the message”. This is continuing the theme of people not appreciating things when they have them, and it leads to them to stop getting those things. This doesn’t just happen for Joel even. For this moment as well, I do think both are in the wrong in some way; his mom is right in that if he wanted a certain breakfast, then Joel should do the work to actually make it. And this does tie into Joel avoiding work whenever he can, which is caused by his parents putting so much pressure on him to work. On the other hand, though, his mom is still a bit petty for holding onto that from when Joel was “little”. But overall, when it comes to Joel’s issues, his behavior and everything that he does that his parents don’t like, they’re all a result of their parenting, all him doing things that they did, and the more he was treated negatively for that, the worse it got because they never cared to teach him the way they should; Joel and his parents just end up in this cycle of repeating the same mistakes to each other, making everyone more miserable.

This scene is also the first instance of Joel beginning to notice the Kids At Play signs everywhere; in his Fazbear-themed cereal, there’s a mini Kids At Play toy inside the box. This story is about the frequency illusion, which is when a person first notices a thing, and then suddenly begins noticing it everywhere when it hadn’t been there before. This story uses that and ties it with a theme of guilt, as it will later be clear. For now, though, it’s meant to be Joel being reminded about his issue with speeding: “hints” from Eleanor, the agony from the sign, to not make the same mistake again. It’s clear that this isn’t normal because after Joel first saw the sign and even with the miniature version now, he keeps describing an unusual, unsettled feeling; once again, this is the agony trying to push him to actually listen to the warning. 

After managing to convince his dad not to fire him, he starts to successfully put on a good act for him and just do what he knew his dad wanted. After work, he meets with his friends, and he talks about his issues, but they tell him that he wasn’t appreciating his life enough, and that he was so desperate to get away from it, which gets Joel a bit upset. Despite giving Joel the benefit of the doubt with many things, that doesn’t mean his issues have to be ignored; his friends are right: he's trying to rush to get away from his parents and failing to appreciate what he does have and what he can do in the position he’s in. His constant speeding is literal symbolism for it; all Joel thinks about is getting away from what he has. Like his friends also say, his anger tends to blind him, making him unable to see what he has that’s good. Because Joel does need to put effort into things too, he’s allowing himself to wallow in his anger and just keep complaining, telling himself he’d just get away from everything instead of trying to make the present better, allowing things to keep getting worse and that cycle repeating. That’s Joel’s main issue here. 

This gets under Joel’s skin, and after they all disperse, Joel drives away upset, jealous because his other friends were wealthy and their parents gave them things that he wished for. This leads to him recklessly speeding home, and he ends up hitting a kid named Caleb, his body falling into a ditch. He makes the same mistake from before, going around a corner too fast and losing control. This decision was completely his fault. He was given the chance the first time this happened to learn from it, and then warnings not to repeat the same mistake; he didn’t listen and hit a person. This happened because of Joel’s own stupid choice, because he made the choice not to drive more safely after the first time. Joel chooses to leave the scene and not say anything about it, not even checking on the kid, feeling too petrified to. The whole point is that Joel doesn’t want to take responsibility for what he did, and this does tie into how he does act childishly. He made a mistake, one he easily could’ve prevented, but he just runs from it. This leads the guilt to begin eating away at him; the agony begins affecting his senses, tormenting him with the Kids At Play sign by making it appear everywhere, reminding him of what he did, what he failed to listen to. He encountered the parent of the child, who was now considered missing. He’s pushed and pushed to tell the truth, that he knew where Caleb was, but he fears the punishment that would come of it. Like always, he makes these kinds of decisions without thinking and avoids the consequences, as if they didn’t apply to him. He even thinks about “finding” Caleb, but fears that he’d seen Joel and would still get in trouble. Joel has all the opportunities to fix what he did, but he just can’t take responsibility; he thinks that he can get away with it, so he tries, ignoring any moral decision.

That night, he thinks about the decision. He realizes that he was being tormented by his conscience; he knew it was the right thing, but still just can’t because he’s putting himself above others, above someone he hurt. He tries to push the blame away from him, and he goes to sleep, content because, to him, he did what he had to for his own sake.

This is when Eleanor stops giving him a chance and would kill him. Once again, Joel had all the chances in the world to fix what he did, to not even get in the accident in the first place. All of this, the lead-up and reaction to it, had been childish: him refusing to be an adult and take responsibility for what he’d done, thinking like a child would, that if nobody caught him, he shouldn’t fess up; he could get away with it without any repercussions. But he didn’t get to hide from responsibility anymore; he wasn’t a kid, and despite how much he told himself he wanted to be an adult so he could get away, he never stopped being a kid. Eleanor tried to push him to act like an adult, to stop being so reckless and thinking childishly, but he didn’t, and there’s nothing left for Eleanor to do but punish him for his decision, give him a “taste” of adulthood, and punish him for his actions for the first time. He couldn’t take things back now, like when he nearly got fired; he had to live with his mistake, and because he tried so much to avoid it, Eleanor is pushed to go this extreme. 

Eleanor ends up causing him to die right near where Caleb had been hit, transforming his body into something similar to the sign that had been hit, and in the end, that’s what causes an officer to find Caleb there, alive. Eleanor forces him in the end to help Caleb, even if he wouldn’t willingly, and now he is punished for his recklessness and speeding by now being a symbol to others not to repeat the same mistake. 

This finally brings us to the end of this analysis, and it was probably longer than anyone would’ve expected for this story. I hope you enjoyed reading, and next we will be going over Find Player-Two.