perfection is the enemy of creativity.

all ages art blog for bruisedmessenger. 🎗️

[goosebumpsbm]

cw for dark goosebumps discussion under the cut

Going into the 'slappy the dummy' tag and among one of the posts I see is about how slappy is a predator because he tried to marry jillian in 'bride'. Im not linking this post, Im not here to put the person on blast nor am I here to totally argue against slappy being a creep. i actually agree with that statement, but at least in the context of the original text, its pretty heavily implied that slappy is doing a bit.

mary ellen was the one who made it seem like slappy was alive. she was the one doing the damage up to the final birthday party. mary ellen explicitly says that she brought him to life for her. slappy very clearly saw the situation she made and decided to subvert it to rub it in, which is why he insults mary ellen so heavily when she reveals that she was the one who brought him to life. why do i believe this is the case? because he did the same thing to jackson in son of slappy. he calls himself slappy's father and jackson his son despite the fact that it makes him uncomfortable. he does that shit to fuck with people. am i saying it isn't creepy? of course im not. the fact that he's doing it *consciously* is what *makes* it creepy, imo

same thing kind of happened in 'my friend slappy'. the main character tried to do a bit where he tried to befriend slappy, and at first even slappy was like "that's a load bull, you don't want to be my friend". but at the kid's insistence, he was eventually like "all right, you know what? you want to be my "friend" so badly, I'll be your only friend and I'm gonna fuck with anyone that comes close to you", and the protagonist ended up dropping that ruse *really* fucking quickly.

as for the television episode? yeah all right, sure. if anything the television version of slappy fits the bill more but I think that's a spin the writers chose to take with that episode and i consider it different from the 'canon' if you can even call it that. it's an adaptation for television based on the story they were given

im not denying that slappy is fucked up and dark. he regularly assaults kids, he has on multiple occasions done things that WOULD kill a kid(like chasing the protagonist of Slappy New Year with a pair of shears/throwing him into the back of a dumpster or causing a pot of hot boiling spaghetti to fall onto the girl in Slappy's Nightmare to name JUST A FEW) and he has extremely fucked up relationships with the protagonists because, you know, he's a dummy looking for human slaves and children are generally 'easier' to get a hold on. but to say that he's a full on predator(at least the kind of 'predator' thats being implied) in my opinion is grasping at straws. free my man, he did all that but people can't even call him a creep for the right reasons lmao

[butyoutoldmeiwasfunny]

[evillordzog]

[madonees]

[sleepingpowder]

[abri-chan]

24 hours left to do crimes.

[titkoks]

[goosebumpsbm]

let's hear that Slappy's Nightmare theory!

So my theory on Slappy's Nightmare, without any of my specific headcanons for the story or characters tacked onto it, is that it's just that: A nightmare. There is no "Wally", nor is 'Wally' Mr. Wood's first name, he's only a product of Slappy's mind. My reasoning for this line of thinking comes a combination of the backstory written for Slappy in the 2008 re-release of 'Night of the Living Dummy', the fact that this backstory lines up with the brief bit of exposition in 'Slappy's Nightmare', and the prologue to 'I Am Slappy's Evil Twin'.

In Nightmare, Jimmy reveals that Slappy was created by a sorcerer out of coffin wood. Jimmy makes a passing comment on the sorcerer being 'evil', and Slappy tells him 'not to call him that.' We get a more detailed version of this backstory in the 2008 re-release of NOTLD1, which is included in the back of the book. A sorcerer creates two dummies out of coffin wood, the wood is cursed and imbued with powers. When the first dummy is destroyed, it only makes the second one "twice as evil and a thousand times ruder", and also hints that he may have been kinder before the other dummy's death. We know that this is a direct reference to NOTLD1, where Wood is crushed by a steamroller and the twist is that Slappy is alive as well. In the prologue to 'Evil Twin', where we learn that 'Mr. Wood' is actually the name given to the red headed dummy by his creator, Franz Mahar. (We also learn that 'Slappy' is Slappy's given name, which opens up the question of how exactly Lindy picked up Slappy's name in NOTLD1 without ever having met him first). Franz was a ventriloquist sharing a stage in England with a magician named Kanduu. Kanduu brought Wood to life in order to intimidate Franz, and Franz instead left for America. We know Franz learned some magic from Kanduu, because he uses this magic to bring toys and dolls to life. We also know from this book that Slappy's original purpose was for a less evil reason: he was meant to be a companion to Franz, along with Snappy(though I don't really acknowledge the rest of the book because it's so tonally different from the prologue). All of this to say that 'Slappy's Nightmare', when I take all of this into account, seems more likely be a mishmash of Slappy's own thoughts and experiences than a recollection of events, as dreams often are.

Dreams are the mind's way of compartmentalizing or bringing attention to your experiences, whether in a day or over the course of one's entire life. Definitely seems like the right combination for a really funky nightmare to me. Jimmy makes a comment on Slappy's creator which is swiftly rebutted(hinting at his and Franz's origins in 'Evil Twin'), Slappy is given a task to complete three good deeds(another direct reference to his original purpose, and how he's kind of 'lost' that), but is sabotaged by "Wally" at every turn("Wally" being Wood or maybe even just a representation of the evil magic that corrupted him).

Keep in mind that this is just my interpretation of a story in a saga of books that are wildly inconsistent with one another, especially across different runs of the series itself, and I also see the irony in trying to make something consistent with it lmao. But I hope this was fun to read!

Edited 5/30 for better phrasing

[goosebumpsbm]

I loved your Mr Wood design but what about slappy or Wally

Slappy doesn't have a set design right now, but as for Wally– I don't think he exists. Might post my 'Slappy's Nightmare' theory to this blog to share my thoughts

[goosebumpsbm]

Rough design for Mr. Wood

[candyredterezii]

Toys Are Very Loyal.

Dolls (1987) // Dead Silence (2007) // The Boy II (2020) // May (2002) // Magic (1978) // Goosebumps Bride Of The Living Dummy (1995) // Child’s Play (1988)

[goosebumpsbm]

I've missed these kids so much.

[probablyok1]

Out of context spoilers for Slappy in Dreamland

[goosebumpsbm]

More spoilers without context:

[goosebumpsbm]

Purple lizard bully solidarity 🦎

[unsolvedbois-deactivated2023041]

just found out that disney is making a new goosebumps tv show and i started crying i’m so excited

this is literally all i’m going to think about

[demon-firebreath666-deactivated]

I hope they make some extra episodes for the books that never got one.

Also, I hope they don’t fuck up slappy.

[ivegotgoosebumps]

THIS!! ⬆️

Personally, I want to see some of the villains from the horrorland series

[goosebumpsbm]

OOC: Well, I needed a reason to start posting Goosebumps again! It looks like this reboot is going to be a short series set in the movie verse, according to this article: https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/goosebumps-new-live-action-tv-series-lands-at-disney-plus-exclusive-1235172324/