Michael: Into The Michaelverse

Blog dedicated to the admiration of Michael Afton/Schmidt in all his forms but mostly Game!Michael because he’s my fave

[the-michaelverse]

When it comes to Michael and the idea of atonement I try to have a take on it that is much more balanced than the majority of fans because while I do think that, realistically, there are going to be consequences for his actions and that it is important for him to take accountability for what he’s done I feel the vast majority of opinions on this goes way too far on what they consider to be his “atonement”

I suppose my main deviation from popular opinion is that I view his “atonement” as being interpersonal rather than individual. What I mean by that is that yes there can and should be consequences for his actions but I view the issue as being something that should just be between him and his brother rather than this being some indelible crime that brands him a “bad person” forever and that he needs to complete the twelve trials of Heracles to atone for. Yes he absolutely owes it to his brother to make it up to him but to be honest it’s really nobody else’s problem over whether or not they need to forgive him because CC is the only one he hurt.

In my time in the FNAF fandom there have been many theories where to be honest I don’t have a very strong opinion on them and one of them is whether or not CC would forgive Michael. I have seen very good arguments to either side and can confidently say that I’m neutral on this matter. I don’t think CC owes Michael his forgiveness so whatever he decides to do would be fine with me and I just don’t feel that I know enough about CC as a character to make a firm judgement either way. Although at the end of the day, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m being cold by saying this but, does it really matter? CC is dead in canon and as we’ve seen multiple times with ghosts in this series they’re not typically able to make sound judgement in their incorporeal state especially CC who is seen in pretty much every source we have of him to be in a state of confusion and dwindling consciousness (Logbook, TWB) And seeing as he is in fact dead in canon what way is there for Michael to actually atone? He can free his spirit, sure, but there’s no way to actually bring his brother back from the dead.

Many people in the fandom tend to view Michael helping to free the souls of the MCI kids as being his atonement to the point where those who don’t believe that he was actually intent on helping them view it as him being “selfish” I disagree with this sentiment as not only has he been shown to have every intention of helping the MCI kids (Ticket to Fun, Happiest Day Minigames) but even if he didn’t how would that make him “selfish”??? He had nothing to do with the MCI and it’s not his responsibility to put his life on the line to help them. Why should he have to atone for the crimes of his father? The mere fact that he is trying to help the MCI kids speaks to his tremendous unselfishness in my opinion.

As to how Michael views his own atonement I believe that it’s actually very similar to public opinion. I think Michael believes that all that he’s doing is to atone for the unforgivable sin he believes he committed several years ago. I believe that Michael has an extremely warped view of himself and believes that he is unworthy of happiness no matter what and the only think he can do is try to make up for his sins by doing whatever he can to free the souls of his siblings along with his father’s victims. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that Michael Afton is Michael Afton’s number 1 hater. (Maybe number 2 hater though because William exists)

In conclusion, while I don’t necessarily think Michael should have no consequences for his actions at all I believe that it doesn’t need to involve anybody except for his brother but that he himself has a very warped view of what he believes he is responsible for which causes him to seek atonement in places he does not necessarily need to.

[the-michaelverse]

It always seemed kind of weird to me that people use this poster to prove that Michael was willingly helping William since the puppet imagery seems to imply he wasn’t the one in control

[the-michaelverse]

HELLO. May I drop a recommendation for you as it involves Michael quite a lot actually and I need your thoughts. Pheyden’s youtube video he posted two weeks ago titled the fnaf theory you’ve never heard. I’m not one to watch newer fnaf theories often but this one is actually new information in my opinion and it is very satisfying story-wise. If you had the time could you maybe watch it and tell us your thoughts about it??

Hello! I’d had that video recommended to me but hadn’t actually watched it until just now.

I thought it was alright I don’t really agree with all of it but it was interesting for sure

As it pertains to Michael I obviously don’t agree with everything (I’ve already made 2 different metas about my opinions on MikeCouch lol) but I really liked the idea that he was trying to help out the missing kids by making sure their bodies were found. Overall I found it to be a pretty refreshing take on him as the public consensus nowadays is mostly that he was willingly assisting his father so I like that there are people that disagree with that notion still.

Thanks for the recommendation I wasn’t really exactly sure what you wanted me to talk about but I tried my best lol

[the-michaelverse]

one question I have regarding MikeCouch is; why would he be talking to his father like that? Practically giving him an order to leave someone alone. It feels a bit ooc for michael but maybe I’m not thinking about this the right way.😭 can you give your thoughts on this maybe?

Hi there thanks for the ask I’m happy to answer even if we don’t agree.

I personally never interpreted this line as an order

Technically all we have here is a just a line. Unfortunately we don’t really know the tone he’s using or how he’s saying it because we’re just reading the text without anyone actually speaking. There’s not even any dialogue blips for us to guess what this character sounded like. I’ve never really interpreted this line as an “order” maybe more like a “suggestion” or even a “plea”?

I definitely understand why it wouldn’t sound that way to most people though, after all it kind of stands in contradiction to the way Michael speaks to his father in the end of SL speech but in my personal interpretation of Michael he would’ve drastically changed after the events of 1983 and his way of speaking, especially to William, would have too.

In my view teenage Michael speaks very directly and doesn’t really use words like “please” because he doesn’t want to appear weak. Michael’s whole thing in my interpretation of him is that he feels powerless so he feels like he has to appear strong to fight that feeling of helplessness. I think he picks on CC specifically because he is a reminder of everything Michael doesn’t want to be and all the traits he is angry at in himself that he once had. So bullying his brother, maybe even subconsciously, is kind of his way of helping him out. He needs to toughen up because he’ll never survive the way he is now. But he personally believes that his bullying is just harmless pranks he doesn’t think he’s going too far which is why he’s against what William is doing here. William, especially in this moment, is scary as hell. He’s just come home belligerently drunk after killing a child and breaking numerous traffic laws. Who knows his clothes are probably still covered in Charlie’s blood as he probably hasn’t had time to change or anything and her murder wasn’t as planned as the others. Michael probably thought whatever he was going to do to his brother he was probably going to die that night and as we know from his reaction to CC actually dying Michael is against that so he tries to stop him. But because Michael is probably understandably scared of William he does the only thing he knows how to do when he feels threatened and tries to act more in control than he actually is and the way he does this is by emulating the most “powerful” person he knows, that being William himself. Talking to him as if he were an equal, in my mind, was his way of trying to gain control in a situation where he felt like he had none.

I also don’t think that at this point in his life Michael is really acting subservient to William. I think part of why he acted out as a teenager was to act in a way that William wouldn’t like on purpose to piss him off. William wants him to be “presentable” and “polite” and Michael is doing everything in his power to be Not That. The teenage Michael that exists in my mind really wants to act like he doesn’t care or isn’t scared of William at all. And this kinda goes back to my interpretation that he doesn’t want to seem “weak”. This is why in my timeline CC never learns that Michael helped him out this night. He is constantly trying to outrun the “caring about his family” allegations on account of it making him seem “soft”.

I don’t know maybe I’m looking too far into it but what I guess I’m trying to say is that there’s more than one way to interpret that line and this is my interpretation of it. Ultimately, I think it’s a really solid theory with a lot of evidence but if it doesn’t fit your personal interpretation of Michael then you are not required to believe it.

[the-michaelverse]

Would like your elaboration on Mikecouch. There's like two people beliving in itat any given day and I Need yuor thoughts.

Anon it’s so interesting that you ask this because MikeCouch is actually one of my favorite FNAF theories involving Michael and I actually had a draft about this I was already working on before you sent in this ask but I was hesitant about sharing it because of how weirdly unpopular it is even though I think it has a very high chance of being true.

I’ll be splitting this conversation into 2 parts the first is why I think it’s true and why I like it because for me those two things aren’t necessarily always connected as I have both hated theories that have a very high likelihood of being true and liked theories that are almost certainly false it just so happens that I both like this theory and also think that it’s very likely

Why I think MikeCouch is true:

My argument for MikeCouch mostly hinges on the principle of Occam’s Razor which is that the simplest explanation is most often true. I think a lot of the problems with Midnight Motorist that allowed it to become so widely argued about is that people often over-complicate it and think it just has to be something different than the most obvious situation but like…y’all…I don’t really think Scott knows how to play 4D chess 😭. Sure he adds hints and things here and there but I don’t think it’s going to be something as convoluted having Midnight Motorist just be about some random family when every other 8-bit FNAF 6 minigame connects to something actually important in the lore. So I think the best way to figure out Midnight Motorist is to find the interpretation with the most amount of evidence.

Obviously, then, we have to operate under the assumption that the yellow guy is almost certainly William. Five laps at Freddy’s basically confirms this and like I alluded to before it makes no sense for this minigame to inexplicably be about some random family or even about Henry/Edwin when the Aftons are literally the main focus of the games (at least in the ScottGames era which is when Fnaf 6 takes place)

Now that we’re done with the Yellow Guy who are the Runaway and the Couch Person most likely to be?

The reason I think the character most likely to be the couch person is Michael because out of all of the theories for who the couch person could be, the theory that it’s Michael just has the most evidence whereas the evidence for the other theories is mostly just guesswork. Let’s look at the evidence for MikeCouch

1. The couch person looks very similar to Michael in terms of character design (grey shirt, tan skin) 2. Both characters text colors are a shade of grey

3. The couch person is pictured as watching TV which could allude to the Sister Location end of the night segments where Michael watched The Immortal and the Restless on his TV

4. This may just be my interpretation but it seems to me that the person on the couch in MM seems to be in some sort of “caretaker” or “babysitter” role to the runaway kid similar to how Michael was presumably often left alone to take care of CC during the FNAF 4 minigames

And then obviously, if Michael is the couch person this would leave CC as the only possible option for the runaway.

Oh by the way and for anyone thinking “but tumblr blog the-michaelverse! You’re using couch persons appearance as evidence while saying that yellow guy is William even though William doesn’t look anything like the yellow guy at all everyone knows that William’s signature color is purple not yellow”

Y’all…

William is, in fact, heavily associated with the color yellow. The games go out of its way to call attention to the yellow color of the SpringBonnie suit, which is heavily associated with William to the extent that he becomes one with it in his death. In fact, in the movies he’s referred to almost exclusively as the Yellow Rabbit. He is just as much associated with the color yellow as he is purple if not more.

But anyway I understand if you may be thinking that this isn’t much evidence at first glance but I would argue that it is much more evidence than any other explanation for who the couch person is.

There are a couple of other theories for who the couch person is but I’ll go through a couple of the most common to give you some idea of what I’m talking about (keep in mind I’m only using the theories that could still be true if the yellow guy is William)

The two most common theories I’ve seen for who the couch person is other than Michael are HenryCouch and MrsAftonCouch however neither of these have as much evidence as the clear parallels between Mike and the couch person. Allow me to elaborate:

1. HenryCouch: This may just come down to my personal interpretation of Henry’s character but this one has always seemed a little far-fetched to me because why on earth would Henry be at Williams house babysitting his kids during his own daughter’s birthday party????? Like, I understand he wasn’t the most attentive father but from every iteration we have of his character in the Games, Movies and Books it seems to me like he actually loves Charlie he just is kind of neglectful to her for the sake of his work so you’d think he’d be doing something more important than watching TV at his business partners house if he was skipping out on his daughters birthday to do it. Also if he’s too busy to watch his own child than what is he doing babysitting William’s kid? I guess it would make more sense if you think Midnight Motorist doesn’t take place the night Charlie died but I’m sorry but I find that very unlikely. The minigame is called “Later that Night” in the FNAF 6 code and that in addition to the similarities between it and the “Take Cake to the Children” in FNAF 2 (i.e. William’s purple car, the rain etc.) and the fact that the other minigames with lore importance in FNAF 6 (Fruity Maze and the Security Puppet) both depict important events in the timeline it doesn’t make sense to me that it could be just some random day. Regardless of anything I’ve said here, the fact that the couch person sprite resembles FNAF 4 Michael as well as the TV connection means that there is more evidence tying Michael to the couch person than Henry. The only connection I could think of to tie Henry to the couch person is the grey color of the couch person’s shirt potentially tying back to the grey man in FNAF World. But that would mean that the only evidence for this theory is another theory with very little evidence and I’m sorry but I just don’t believe that that’s very conclusive.

2. Mrs. Afton has never been directly mentioned in any other piece FNAF media so there’s nothing to tie her to the couch person. Sure you could say that it’s her but it’s not really something that you can prove one way or the other. At least it makes more sense for her to be there taking care of William’s (and presumably her) child but once again the resemblance between the couch person and Michael is just way more evidence than anything this theory could have

Pretty much all other theories are more of the same. None of them really have as much evidence as MikeCouch so my question is why do more people not believe in MikeCouch? Well, for some of them, I can probably guess why, it’s because they don’t want to.

One thing about me is I actually really enjoy watching FNAF theory videos. I know some people don’t because some FNAF theorists (not all but some) can get pretty opinionated with their theories and weirdly aggressive with people who don’t share their extremely inconsequential opinions on the lore of a video game series about haunted animatronics but when they’re normal and chill about it I actually really enjoy seeing other people’s interpretations of FNAF even if I don’t agree. And although maybe this is just me, one thing I’ve noticed is that throughout a lot of the videos I’ve watched about Midnight Motorist there’s been an underlying theme of people desperately trying to prove their theories as right for no other reason than that they don’t like the alternative. I’ve seen people utterly lose their minds over the prospect that Midnight Motorist was probably about the Aftons the whole time even though it’s been fairly obvious from the beginning in my opinion. It’s too simple a solution for them to get behind and because they prefer an alternate explanation, then AftonMM must be untrue. It’s the same thing with MikeRunaway, because they want Michael to be the runaway they will accept no other explanation.

Another thing is the death order problem. For some reason, FNAF fans are obsessed with finding out the correct answer for who died first in the timeline despite the answer not really mattering that much in my opinion. But people get really really mad about this to the point where it causes them to reject certain theories in favor of other ones that may have less evidence just because they want their view on the lore to be correct. It’s the same with Midnight Motorist. See the problem with Midnight Motorist to them is that it’s heavily implied to have taken place the night of Charlotte Emily’s death and if MikeCouch is true than the only person who could be the runaway is CC and that is unacceptable to them because, in their view of the timeline, CC dies before Charlotte. Any theory that implies CharlieFirst to be true has to be false because they’ve already decided that BVFirst is true. So they reject any possible theory that could dispute what, to them, is indisputable fact.

But it’s not only theory opinions that people treat as undisputed fact but character opinions as well. Because they’ve decided that Michael was just 100% a bully all of the time and wanted nothing to do with his brother ever at any point, then MikeCouch must be out of the question because it would be “Out of Character” or at least out of the character that they presume that he has. It’s the same thing with CCRunaway, arguably even more so because there’s this ridiculous notion that the runaway breaking his window and running away from his home while his abusive father was actively hunting him down to “make him pay” was an act of “delinquency” and ummmmm last I checked running away from a dangerous situation isn’t delinquency that’s like normal self-preservation I fear. What do you want him to do just stay and potentially get seriously hurt or whatever William was gonna do to him???? It’s equally ridiculous whether it was CC or Michael. The runaway didn’t break a window (in his own house mind you) because he was a vandal he broke it because he felt like he had no other option to escape his situation. It wasn’t an act of delinquency but of desperation. But since only a “delinquent” character can be the runaway it has to be Michael the no-good rapscallion rather than pure sweet innocent CC because anything else would just be “OOC”

Why I like MikeCouch:

Listen, for all my yapping about people refusing to believe in MikeCouch just because they don’t want to I honestly couldn’t care less. Because, truthfully, it doesn’t matter if you reject theories just because you don’t like them, in fact I do it all the time. It’s completely harmless and it really doesn’t matter because at the end of the day this is all just about forming your own personal opinions and theories about the timeline of a video game series that is not real. All you have to do is admit that that’s what you’re doing and not be a jerk to people who don’t have the same opinions as you. Don’t take your subjective interpretation about a piece of media and try to force people to believe it just because it’s what you personally believe and we’ll be fine. I really hope I don’t come off as someone who’s doing just that in this post. If you don’t like MikeCouch, or if you aren’t convinced by the evidence I just laid out, that’s completely fine. I don’t even believe that’s the only reason people don’t like it, I just mean some of them don’t like it for that reason. You are not obligated to believe any of this. You can believe whatever FNAF theories you want and that’s ok. Because truthfully? The reason I like it is actually kind of similar to the reasons people might not like it. I like it because it reinforces my personal interpretation of Michael.

I love MikeCouch because I love the juxtaposition between his behavior in the FNAF 4 minigames and his behavior in Midnight Motorist under MikeCouch. Confirming that he wasn’t always awful to his brother all the time adds a lot of complexity to their relationship that I can’t help but adore as a lover of nuance and moral ambiguity.

And if you disagree with the theory or with my interpretation of Michael or of his relationship with his brother? That’s totally fine. As long as they’re chill about it I really don’t care if people disagree with me, in fact I rather enjoy civil discussions and debate around differences in opinion over minor things like FNAF theories.

[the-michaelverse]

hwait you might be the first utterly based mike fan account ive seen. wait highkey you are Cooking. wait.

Thank you very much for the kind words anon!

I sometimes get very self conscious about my opinions because I have a lot of beliefs about Michael that don’t really seem to fit the popular perception of him, especially since the movie came out so it’s really nice to know that there are some people who like hearing what I have to say

[the-michaelverse]

Ok so since I’m giving my hot takes on teen Michael I think it’s time for society to accept he was not a nerd in any way shape or form

Older Michael? Huge nerd. Anyone who creates an entire bucket of popcorn every night so they can sit in front of their tv and watch their favorite vampire soap opera and then writes in their work-required activity book that they relate to the main character of said vampire soap opera has to be a major nerd

But teen Michael? The only child of William (or Henry for that matter) who was confirmed to have had friends when he was younger? Who is pictured as being the leader of said friends? Who was not bullied but was in fact the bully-er (in the 80’s I might add) Who is so strong and presumably athletic that as a 14-16 year old he (and one other strong and presumably athletic kid) were able to lift his 7-9 year old brother above their heads? Who from what we know was seen as someone cool and popular? He was something closer to a jock and we as a society have to accept these hard truths sometimes

[the-michaelverse]

Having a nuanced take on FNAF 4 Michael is so hard when the two prevailing opinions are that he’s either a misunderstood baby or evil incarnate

Most of the time when I see people reducing Michael’s character to being pure evil it’s because they’ve forced him and his brother into these narrow roles where Michael can only be seen as the ‘Abuser’ and CC his ‘Victim’

And because Michael is in the ‘Abuser’ role he’s apparently not allowed to have a single redeeming quality. He’s not allowed to be sympathetic. He’s not allowed to have actually cared about his brother in any capacity. And he certainly is not allowed to have been a victim himself. Looking any deeper at his character is a luxury he can never be afforded due to him being written off as a ‘Bad Person’

And while I understand the propensity against thinking about characters you dislike I believe there’s a difference between that and the downright refusal to acknowledge nuance.

It also seems that recently people have become so quick to brush off Michael as being an intrinsically evil character because of a perceived lack of information in the actual canon itself. A belief that is easily proven to be false after looking into it for more than 3 seconds. With the survival logbook alone you could actually make the argument we know more about Michael’s personality in the games than over half of the other important human characters in the franchise. And that’s not even counting other information we have about him which is NOT as few and far between as people would have you believe. And while, yes, there is still plenty of room for interpretation (every Michael fan I’ve seen has a different interpretation of him) the same could be said for literally every other character in this entire franchise including William who we’re allegedly supposed to “know the most about” according to popular opinion but despite that people still can’t agree on what his motivations even are.

But anyway, let’s look at what information we can uncover about Michael from this “lack of evidence”

Firstly, it’s obvious to me that he was abused by William, this much is evident not just from his speech at the end of SL but also from other materials such as What We Found being a clear parallel for Michael. Given this it’s logical to assume that he was acting out due to his treatment at home.

Also looking closer at his character reveals that there are multiple things that suggest a more nuanced view of his relationship with his brother such as Step Closer, Midnight Motorist if you’re a MikeCouch believer (which I am) and the TV scene from the FNAF World drowning ending. Things like this make me hesitant to believe that he was nothing but horrible to CC all the time. It’s more complicated than that.

But with that being said he wasn’t blameless either. And this is where I’m afraid I’m going to lose those of you that were following my logic up to this point. Because on the other side of this argument you have the people that have taken these sympathetic qualities to the extreme, using them to effectively eliminate his guilt in the Bite. Because while everything I’ve said up until now is true that still doesn’t make it okay. Because at the end of the day the way he treated his brother was objectively terrible and I’ve seen a lot of Michael fans struggle to acknowledge this. He was a bully and he was cruel to CC and I’m sorry but that’s the truth and it is still the truth no matter how sympathetic he may have been. None of this should be an excuse for his behavior just an explanation.

I understand sympathy for a character can sometimes blind you towards accepting they weren’t always the best person and I do think that this is intensified by the fact that some people seem to over exaggerate Michael’s treatment of CC. Some of the things people say Michael did are just straight up fabrications but that still doesn’t change the fact that he was in the wrong for the way he acted. For example: I don’t think Michael intended any physical harm to come to his brother with the bite but that doesn’t change the fact that he planned to upset and humiliate him on his birthday.

And honestly, I think I’m just as annoyed with the sanitization of teenage Michael as I am with him being overly villainized because they both destroy what I believe to be the most interesting thing about his character which is that he has an arc. He grows. He becomes a better person. This is just as impossible if he was always evil as it is if he was always good. Denying that he bullied his brother feels wrong to me because it removes his nuance just as much as if you said he was only evil the whole time.

I sometimes think of both extremes of the conversation around teen Michael as being two sides of the same coin. I think that at their cores both stem from the annoyingly prevalent idea that you absolutely cannot like a character who has done anything bad. You either need to condemn them in their entirety or try to cover up or excuse their mistakes thereby effectively destroying any nuance they have by making these two ridiculously rigid moral extremes the only two things they can be.

The appeal of Michael to me is that he was an unpleasant jerk who made a lot of cruel and impulsive decisions that ultimately end up going way too far which leads him to experience the crippling guilt that will be his main motivator for the rest of his life. To me this guilt is the most interesting thing about him and completely loses its weight if you deny the gravity of what caused that guilt in the first place. I kind of don’t get the appeal of his character without it. But at the same time if you make him too ridiculously evil then his redemption doesn’t feel like it’s something that could really happen. His growth has to be plausible and if Michael is this purely irredeemable monster then why would he even feel guilty in the first place? And you absolutely cannot deny the guilt he feels because that just removes his entire character motivation. You have to acknowledge his nuance in order for his apology in the ending of FNAF 4 to have any weight. The denial of his guilt is, in my opinion, just as bad as the excusal of it.

[the-michaelverse]

Sir, your obsession with Foxy is out of control

[the-michaelverse]

I don’t know if we’re supposed to be at each other’s throats or something but to be honest I feel really bad for Crying Child fans

Like, damn, your guy really hasn’t been relevant since 2015 huh 😭

[calid1ty]

gum addicts

im forgetting to reupload on here

[thefourthfixed]

Ever since the movie came out and movie Michael had been getting criticism and backlash, I’ve seen a lot of people defending him by going after “fanon Michael Afton” and making all these claims like “he’s barely a character in the games,” “you guys are just mad that he’s not the sad and depressed man the fandom thinks he is.” Even going after the mullet, which may be a fanon idea but it’s an idea founded in realty. Saying that like a preteen/teen in the 80s having a mullet is ridiculous 😭

He absolutely does have a character in the games. You just have to look for it. People will say “oh he doesn’t have a character” but ignore things like the logbook and Step Closer and P.J. Heywood’s insight about him. Like I know the pieces are scattered, but it’s fairly easy to look at all of them and put together a cohesive idea of who this character is. I mean, if we’re being honest, there are so many FNAF characters we don’t have that much content of and are therefore required to fill in the blanks. The only reason Michael seems different to people I guess is because of the lack of direct appearance or mention. But need I remind you we literally play as him in several of the games (I would personally argue all original six if you include Fritz Smith), but absolutely without a doubt we play as him in FNAF 1, FNAF 4, Sister Location, and FNAF 6. He is there. WE’RE LOOKING THROUGH HIS EYES!

“You guys are just mad he isn’t sad and depressed like the fandom has always portrayed him.” Okay so I’m gonna hold your hand when I say this… but Michael IS a depressing character. He literally jokes about his own death, and like… just listen to him? He sounds depressed, confused, hurt… All I’m saying is that this “fanon” Michael people keep talking about comes from what we know about him. Like people didn’t just make a lot of this stuff up.

Now I’m not saying some fanon interpretations can’t be annoying or anything. I think the fandom, especially years ago, sometimes did reduce him to just a sad boy and did a lot of projecting and babying. Sometimes I think people make him too kind and wholesome and forget about his bitterness and sarcasm. His age is often forgotten too, which leads to something I’ve called gen z-ification. Like I understand fandoms have a problem with reducing characters down to their most basic parts, getting rid of flaws, infantilizing, etc - and that’s been a problem in all fandoms - but I don’t think what these people are attacking when they talk about fanon Michael are fan made concepts. I swear I’ll see something criticizing “fanon Michael” and there’s a drawing of him as a security guard chewing bubble gum and I’m like… what about this is “fanon” exactly??? All of those things are 100% canon. And also everyone’s interpretation differs a little bit. And the same is true for a lot of FNAF characters because again, a lot of them we don’t see that much of! So interpretation is often necessary.

By the way, I feel like I’m losing my mind at the amount of times I’ve seen people say “you guys are acting like he was ever a good person in the games” and I’m just like…. Huh? I’m so convinced that every person who says this is either someone who is a newer fan, or someone who has never put much thought into Michael until now. It really baffles me how you can look at everything we know about game Michael and come to the conclusion that he’s a bad person. And I swear I know I’ve gone on this tangent before but this whole villianization of game Michael (which I’ve seen happening before the movie came out by the way) is a recent phenomenon. For years Michael had always been considered hero of FNAF, and his appeal came from his tragedy and his willingness to do good and put a stop to his father. And like, if you don’t want to take the word of someone who’s been there since he was introduced as a character, then you can go back and look at old videos. MatPat’s theories would talk about how he’s determined to undo William’s sins. In Dawko’s interview with P.J. Heywood, he says “Michael to us is like the hero.” I don’t know what happened, because from 2016-2021 Michael was treated as someone who wasn’t perfect and had messed up, but someone who dedicated the majority of his life to doing good and cleaning up William’s mess. After Security Breach came out, I fell out of FNAF for years and had little to no involvement with the fandom. Then I come back in June if 2025 and now everyone’s talking about how he willingly did his father’s bidding, followed him without any questions until Sister Location where apparently he only then decided William was bad after he personally was harmed. People are taking about how Michael was an evil kid who was just like his father and hated his brother. And something I actually did see someone say not too long ago is “Michael’s appeal comes from what a shitty person he is.” And I’m just like hold on, this is so backwards. I don’t know what the hell happened while I was gone. My friend who’s been in the fandom the whole time told me he noticed it too, how there was this “sudden wave of Michael villainization and MikeAccomplice.” If I had to guess, that last one may have had to do with the first movie in 2023 and Vanessa’s involvement with the murders or something. And look, I understand that MikeAccomplice is a theory that has existed since 2016. I remember hearing about it. But people who believed this were 100% a minority. I still have no idea how you can look at what we know in the games and come to the conclusion Michael was a knowing helper, but I’ll at least say that factoring in the first movie, it’s feasible if like Vanessa, he felt threatened and terrified while doing it. Like I can kind of understand that. But there’s also so many people who say he was legitimately loyal? That he admired William and thought he was a wonderful person and father? That he didn’t view William as doing wrong until Sister Location? And that I cannot understand. Wishing you were loved and longing for approval is not the same as admiration and obedience. I swear it’s either one or the other when people talk about it. You can resent someone and find them deplorable while also wishing they’d love you or feel even a tiny bit of love for them you’re ashamed of at the same time. Because. That’s how emotions work and Michael’s also a victim of abuse.

And now the movie has exacerbated the whole obedient loving follower idea and it’s so frustrating. I understand they’re an alternate universe, I kind of see what they’re trying to do with him, but it’s inevitable this would happen as a consequence because the alternate universe thing is not understood by some and becomes very pick and choose for others. And it’s just. Veryyyy frustrating.

[the-michaelverse]

I have kind of an unpopular perspective with FNAF (and with most fandoms opinions truthfully but this blog is about Michael Afton from FNAF so that’s what we’re going to be talking about rn) where I truly do not care what theories or headcanons you want to believe as long as you don’t insist that your view of things is canon when it clearly is not.

Because, truthfully, nobody really knows what’s going on so imo everyone can basically just believe whatever they want. But that being said there are some theories that are incredibly unlikely. And guess what? You’re still allowed to like them. If that makes the story better for you then I don’t really see a problem with having a view/rewrite of the timeline that’s probably not canon. Go crazy.

The problem for me is when people start insisting that their view is the One True Canon and everyone has to subscribe to it. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen one of those Canon vs. Fanon comparison things with FNAF that pisses me off. Like, bro, is the Canon in the room with us????? This is FNAF we don’t do that here. And you always look at their supposedly completely true and infallible “Canon” information and it’s like HudsonGuard or something. That’s when I will start dunking on people’s theories, when their attitude about it is just a bit too insane. But otherwise I’m pretty much fine with whatever people want to believe.

I am the last possible person to start getting all upset about other people’s theories because I have several theories that make no sense whatsoever but I like them anyway just because I think it would be interesting. Do I think that they’re true? Almost certainly not but the idea is intriguing to me, sometimes more so than what probably actually happened and that’s ok. The difference is, I don’t go around acting like my interpretation is canon, especially when it can be easily disproven. Even with theories I do have sufficient evidence for I would never say with 100% certainty they’re canon and I’m pretty much always gonna respect when others have a different point of view. Usually my arguments come from a place of annoyance because if I’m even making an argument in the first place it’s because people have grown too arrogant about their theories being true and I think I kinda get in this mindset where I feel I have to correct them. I’m working on it, guys.

However, I am also a massive hypocrite at times because there are some theories I just truly believe are just not true or have very little evidence and sometimes when people assert them as fact I can respond a little too authoritatively with my opinion. I really try to be civil and respectful but with some of the things people are saying are just “objectively true” regarding Michael especially nowadays does get on my nerves a bit and I do admit that it makes me feel the need to “correct” them by giving all the evidence I have to the contrary. Also, although we can’t say anything for 100% sure, not all theories are created equal and I do believe there are some theories that are as close to canon as we could possibly get. So when people come for those theories it does in fact upset me a little, I am only human after all. I shall try to work on this but just know that I’m going to contradict what I’ve said in this post due to emotions sometimes. I do think it’s mostly some people’s attitude of superiority towards their theories that upsets me more than the theories itself but I won’t lie I do have the tendency to want to side-eye people who believe certain theories. Again, I’m working on it and I usually don’t think it’s worth getting worked up about but it does happen from time to time.

[thefourthfixed]

I feel like Ticket to Fun being released a few months before the movie can’t be a coincidence. I’m starting to think that it was Scott’s attempt at clearing up any confusion regarding the game timeline that the movie might cause by making Mike Schmidt and Michael Afton two separate people. I mean think about it. This book hard confirms that Michael and Mike are the same person. On the cover you’ve got a security guard wearing purple.

There’s someone who writes in the book who identifies as Mike Schmidt.

In their writings they try to provide information and warnings to whoever gets it next. The writing style is extremely similar to Michael’s writing the logbook. They also draw pictures like Michael.

And in regards to the “Michael is evil” stuff that would inexplicably spawn from the movie, you have this drawing of the children that I think really shows that he’s someone with good intentions.

But this book just… flew under the radar? Like no one gave a fuck which is so weird. I only saw a handful of people talking about it.

[returntohangarr]

i see people say mike doesnt feel any guilt. we know very little about his character, yeah, so believe what you want... but i dont understand it.

i dont know, just curious why people think otherwise.

i thought everyone was aware this part of fnaf 4 is implied to be him? compare it to his text color in other parts of the game, its the same color.

in the logbook:

'he tripped and fell on freddy's teeth. not our fault'

i believe this is meant to be mocking fazbears entertainment and their PR tactics. has nothing to do with the bite

[the-michaelverse]

Chat, am I cooking?

[the-michaelverse]

Guys, omg

[the-michaelverse]

Chat, am I cooking?