I Am FREAKING OUT Right Now!!!

I am FREAKING OUT right now!!!

Last summer/early autumn, I was drawing some FNAF stuff, and that spiraled into me writing a whole fan letter to Scott Cawthon (yes, I sent him the drawings, too; I hope he liked them). I wasn't sure if he'd even read it, given how busy he is nowadays, but I figured it was still worth sending. I put a lot of emotion into it, so it would have been pointless to hold on to it.

Well, he read it.

I don't know if I'll really be able to articulate how much this means to me. I've been a FNAF fan for just over 8 years now, and it's ROTTMNT levels of special interest for me. This is basically a childhood dream come true.

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this isn't about the merch. It was an awesome surprise, don't get me wrong, but what spoke to me the most was the letter he sent back. It wasn't long or personal, but it didn't need to be. It was there. That's what mattered.

Okay, so, I got this coloring book from my aunt today (the same aunt I was dogsitting for the other day)...

...and then I flipped to this page.

Do you know what my first thought was? "I can put turtles there." The brain rot is real, guys.

Me: Have any of you ever seen Ballora and Donnie having a dance-off?

You guys: Uh-uh.

Me: wOULD YOU LIKE TO?!

Inspired by that weird dream I had over the weekend.

Also, this was my first time drawing Ballora in true animatronic form. I'm pretty proud of how she turned out. :)

Oh my banana pancakes, this sounds awesome! And it's for charity? For sea turtles??? Cowabunga, I'm in!

Booyakasha dudes!

  We’re coming to you live from the sewers: The Turtles Together INTEREST CHECK is now LIVE! It will be open from now until Jan 28th @ 11:59 PM CST, so don’t delay! Help us bring this project above ground!

FORM HERE <-

Stolen from twitter bc I need to see everyone's answers

Guys, I had this dumb hypothesis at 5:00 a.m.

FNAF is just Vaporwave: The Video Game Series.

Hear me out.

Vaporwave may be known for its weird environments and use of pop culture/products from the 1970s-2000s, but it has a satirical edge. Vaporwave often focuses on motifs of soullessness and false grandeur to poke fun at capitalism and consumerism.

What about FNAF?

The weirdness has always been there with the hallucinations/Easter eggs (Golden Freddy, secret death screens, etc.), even if the environments aside from the Pizzaplex don't lean too hard into the 80s aesthetic. The characters do, though. ShowBiz Pizza Place, which operated between 1980 and 1992, was known for featuring a group of animatronic animal characters. Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre followed suit in 1981. The FNAF crew may not be entirely realistic, but their theme fits right into this relic of the 80s.

Then there's Fazbear Entertainment. Fazbear Entertainment was greedy from the start, paying Mike minimum wage to fight for his life with limited electricity and no access to the restrooms. Help Wanted kicks it up a notch by having the company actively try to cover up the murders that have happened at their restaurants, and Security Breach bumps it up to cartoonish levels. VIP-only fire escape? Needing a pass to enter the building, then one to enter the atrium, then one to visit one of the attractions? Only selling Faz Cams in Monty Golf, where flash photography is banned, just so you can confiscate them and sell them again? Fazbear Entertainment might just be run by Mammon.

Let's not forget about the soullessness and false grandeur. The FNAF 2 location, for example, looks all shiny and kid-friendly, but the employees can't even be bothered to fix Mangle anymore. Some people believe that the bodies from the SAVE THEM minigame may be hidden just out of view of the cameras, too. FNAF 3? Fazbear's Fright capitalizes on the rumors of the murders and hauntings instead of treating the matter with respect. Sister Location? Shiny and futuristic animatronics, but there isn't even a pizzeria. It's just a dark, empty warehouse. Security Breach? The Pizzaplex is basically a monument to Fazbear Entertainment's properties and profits--four stories of neon lights and wall-to-wall Freddy Fazbear. There's also a room perpetually on fire, a slew of generic S.T.A.F.F. bots in place of actual employees, and a mountain of forever-ignored complaints. They aren't hiding anything. They're too rich to care.

In short, FNAF features strange imagery and characters reminiscent of 80s pop culture. It also heavily criticizes corporatism through its story and darker humor. If that isn't vaporwave, then...well...it isn't vaporwave. I just kinda wasted my time. But this was still fun to pick apart.