#thefourthfixed's headcanons

[thefourthfixed]

FNAF 6 job interview where Henry realizes it's Mike and Mike realizes it's Henry and then Henry is all like "my god, Mike! How have you been?" and tries to engage in small talk and is talking about what all has happened since then and Mike is gritting his teeth and heavily breathing doing everything in his power to not leap over the table and beat the shit out of him.

[thefourthfixed]

I feel like no one Michael went to school with could form a solid opinion on him because his behavior was so flip floppy. Sometimes he was the guy with the funniest jokes that made class not as boring, but other times the jokes and pranks would reach a point of only being funny to him (he’s aware of this) and would annoy the shit out of everyone. So I’m saying that sometimes he’s trying to make other people laugh, and other times he’s trying to annoy people which he finds hilarious. If you tried to talk to him, sometimes he’d be rude and tell you to fuck off, but other times he’s the most charming talker ever. Sometimes he sits around looking dull and troubled, like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, and other times he’s running around doing a bunch of shit and laughing as he does. When he’s at P.E. or participating in sports he clearly loves it a lot, but then he’ll skip for like a week straight, then reappear acting like nothing happened and avoid the question if you ask him where he was. He gets into fights a lot, but then sometimes he’s the one stopping a fight between two other people. You can’t say “oh that’s Mike, he’s an asshole and nothing but trouble” because he has lots of things about him that are appealing, but you also can’t say “he’s the perfect guy” because he has a lot of glaring issues too. Even the people that hate him are probably gonna end up laughing at one of his jokes.

[thefourthfixed]

Dude I'd always headcanoned that a lot of the design choices for the puppet were made with Charlie in mind but her black and white striped shirt here kind really supports that idea because maybe it was a pattern she was fond of. I also think L.E.F.T.Y. was because she was left handed. And My Grandfather Clock was a lullaby he used to hum for her.

[thefourthfixed]

The amount of change I think Michael would undergo in a universe where no murders happen but William is arrested for another reason or loses custody is so funny to me. In 1983 you have a troubled teenager dressed like a punk with anger issues who gets into fights in the school hallway all the time. Skip forward to 1993 and you've got a really chill and joyous Utah State graduate with a useless art degree who has a love of button up shirts and always has a watch on even though he never looks at it.

[thefourthfixed]

When it comes to how I think the Afton siblings view William, it's funny, because it's a spectrum. Michael fucking hates him, Elizabeth loves him more than anything, and CC is kind of stuck in between that.

The reason for their differences in how the three of them view their father is a direct reflection of how they're treated.

William does not even attempt to hide from Michael the fact that he hates him. He is held to an impossibly high standard, and he receives most of the physical stuff, because I do think William's feelings about Michael are different than CC and Elizabeth. This is why Mike had grown to be so angry, misbehaving, and troublemaking.

CC admires him and enjoys attention and affection if he can get it, but the angry outbursts if he does something created some fear and anxiety. I think this is the reason he is so jumpy and easily startled by loud noises. He'd been growing more uncomfortable and indifferent as he got older because he's more attentive than Elizabeth, particularly when it comes to Mike. Mike can lie and avoid/change the subject all he wants, and he can enact damage control in an attempt to create as much normalcy and ignorance for his siblings as possible, but the emotional affect it has on him is visible to CC through the guise.

Elizabeth gets the most positive attention and the least negative behavior from him. But make no mistake, she may be less neglected than her brothers, but is still neglected nonetheless. It's bare minimum really. She can't see it that way being so young and naive, but she thinks he's there for her more than he actually is. This creates an increased longing for his attention, and extreme loyalty to him. This also makes her extremely desperate for attention from other people in her life. In other words she had early abandonment issues. She was the type to freak out if a friend of hers decided to play with someone else on the playground for a single day. Anything negative she gets from him she views as negligible. Or if she's upset, it's quite easy to console her with an apology, framing it as necessary, or an I love/care about you similar to what we see with Vanessa in the movie.

[thefourthfixed]

Whenever I imagine Mike in an au where no murders happen and William is out of his life around 16 (hopefully by CPS but maybe he died or something idk), I think for a while he'd be having some sort of crisis because this brooding abusive presence that's shrouded his whole life is suddenly gone and it's just so weird that it's almost scary somehow. But after a while everyone starts to notice the change like the anger kind of vanishes and he's smiling at people he hates at school and stuff. And then by his 20s I just imagine him being the most joyous guy ever. He changed and cuts his hair at this period just like he did in the canon timeline but this time instead of a depressed and avoidant creature with blindingly white skin and dark circles under his eyes, he does that walk in the SL cutscenes unironically. That's the sort of vibe I'm envisioning. (People forget that was Ennard controlling his body. Literally "Hello fellow humans! I'm walking like people do!" No way Mike walked like that. I just know he looked down and dragged his feet.) But no Michael just finished college as the 90s hit and he's just whimsical as fuck and radiates the chill uncle energy even though he's not an uncle. And he's like "don't get me wrong I still love AC/DC and all but I've been really into The Backstreet Boys lately. "

[thefourthfixed]

I love comics and videos of stuff like Michael telling Springtrap about 9/11, hilarious banter born from the sheer beef between the two of them, them getting into a fist fight in the parking lot, etc. I come up with my own funny little scenarios and conversations in my head all the time.

But in reality FNAF 3 was probably more like Michael shaking and crying because being yelled at by William and feeling his murderous hatred again is bringing back bad memories and resurfacing old trauma, some of which he thought he’d gotten over.

[thefourthfixed]

Can’t stop laughing at this moment from one of the Fazbear Frights story “The Real Jake.” This isn’t Michael Afton, but I’m always looking for parallels in these.

The characters in this story said that this Michael is so bad at human interaction that he seems like a robot. This is a lot like I image 90s pre Sister Location Michael. In my head, after the death of his family he lost a lot of his ability to socialize like he used to. He used to be really good at making people laugh, or pissing people off, or getting whatever reaction he wanted out of someone and was a natural at it. Not awkward in the slightest. But then he just forgot how, and watching him speak to someone during that time period would just be like. Sharp inhale.

And if you take the thing about Michael’s neighbors liking him at face value, this explains exactly why I think they would. The awkwardness is funny. It’s not malicious or anything but he ends up being unintentionally funny. I’ve been in this position before, where a group of people really like you even though you’re very awkward and not social at all. You’ll say something very awkwardly and the reaction is “that’s SO like you to say.” Strange. But a good feeling. (I thought all of this before I started reading this story by the way. But the way the characters have made an inside joke about something he said one time kind of aligns with exactly how I saw it, if his neighbors liking him is actually the case, and I do think there are alternate explanations for why they waved like that).