A few days ago I read the Fazbear Frights short story "Step Closer." It's about Pete, an older brother with a bad habit of chewing gum, who has been forced to care for his younger brother, Chuck, after their parents got divorced. As a result of frustration, Pete has become cruel to Chuck, often bullying and pranking him.
This is obviously meant to parallel Michael and Crying Child. I think many people are aware of this, because it is probably the biggest piece of evidence for Mikebro. You could argue that it straight up confirms it.
Considering that the situation is so similar, I feel we can take a lot of things from this, such as characterization and reasons behind Pete's actions, and apply it to Michael, or at least analyze it through that lens. So I wanted to do an analysis of Pete and what he says about Michael and his relationship with Crying Child.
Trigger warning: There will be a few mentions of self harm, but there isn't any graphic depiction/description.
Pete prefers feeling empty over feeling too many emotions at once, which is how he normally feels, so he looks for outlets to purge that.
He only started to feel this way after the responsibility of taking care of Chuck was shoved onto him at 16 years old after the divorce. He lost his drive to do anything else, so Chuck became the outlet for those emotions which manifested as aggression.
Pete does love his little brother, and things weren’t always this way.
Pete feels conflicted or uneasy when he has to see his dad because he always feels like he’s disappointed in him, and like he’s always at fault in his dad’s eyes. (The dad's name is Bill by the way... Do what you will with that).
His dad (incorrectly) assumes than an injury on Pete's wrist was from self harm to cope with the divorce. He later reflects on the comment saying that he has thought of escaping his parents in other ways.
Pete trying to scare Chuck with Foxy starts a chain of unfortunate events that eventually lead to his death. I think the theme of Foxy is good, because it’s ironic that he ends up horrified and having nightmares about the thing he used to scare his little brother with. It's pretty self explanatory how this relates to Michael, since Foxy is what Michael always used to scare the Crying Child.
The ultimate tragedy of this story is that the conclusion is a reversal of what happens between Michael and Crying Child. The older brother dies in a freak accident, and the younger brother is left changed, depressed, falling behind in school, and wishing he’d done something differently.
Not everything is identical to Michael’s story. The relationship between Pete and his dad is strained, but it’s clear his dad does love him, and this definitely isn't the case with Michael. But because of the differences, I’ve wondered if things that don’t happen here are implied for Michael, like maybe self harm.
Anyways, that's the end of this analysis. There are many things about the story that aren't mentioned here because they aren't relevant, but I'd check it out. It has a lot of potential personality for Michael and Crying Child, but also it's an interesting story overall and I'm sure you can appreciate Pete and Chuck on their own.
I'm always thinking about how Pete's last moments were calling Chuck and leaving a voicemail telling him he was right and he was sorry for doubting him, and that they could face it together. I know he'd been mean to Chuck and scared him with the Foxy animatronic, but I do not think he deserved that. The theme of karma is like... Okay, to learn a lesson, maybe, but to die? Especially because the whole story really centers around how even though their relationship has been damaged because of the divorce and how Pete had been struggling with his emotions from dealing with it and having all these responsibilities shoved onto him (I can't help but think about the scene where Chuck thinks to himself how he understands why Pete hates him half the time since he's forced to look after him in the place of their mother) they clearly still love each other and long to go back to a time before the rift formed. And you can very much tell they care about each other. And Chuck is the one that tells Pete what he thinks is happening, and nearing the end Pete decides to confront the issue head on. You would think Pete reaching the conclusion that it was because he was wrong and he needed to make it right, and going to face the Foxy animatronic, would be him learning the lesson he was meant to learn that week, and facing it together would be what finally helps them come back together and it would be the happy ending. But then he just get hit by a truck and dies. It so unbelievably cruel and it's an extremely common thing with the Fazbear Frights stories. A lot of it is just cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Like Gumdrop Angel. She ate her sister's gumdrop because she was upset at how Ophelia got all the attention, how no one cared about her, how her extremely rich step dad wouldn't pay for her to go to college but WOULD buy Ophelia a pony, so at the end, because she ate the gumdrop, she gets eaten alive. And this one is so messed up because she didn't even do anything that bad. But I wouldn't say the story is necessarily trying to tell you that she deserved that, because I think the point of a lot of these stories is that it IS cruel and tragic. I think Angel is a character that a lot of young readers could relate to. Especially since through her point of view you do see how unfair all of it is and are meant to feel bad for her. I'm not sure these are the types of stories where there is always a moral of the story. But still. After she ate the gumdrop and Ophelia started crying, her step dad started banging on her door and screaming and she wondered if he would hit her and considered calling the police. Like... Hello?
