sudotrans--pony | My Stuff in FNaF

I've been in the FNaF fandom since its inception, and its so interesting how the community evolved from a small Reddit fanclub Scott inteacted with weekly to this gigantic franchise after Security Breach and the movie.

Theres so many interesting stories about the early games sortof lost to time because they were embedded in the culture of the Reddit, Steam, and early YouTube scene. Here's a small way a post of mine influenced one of the characters from Ultimate Custom Night with Toy Freddy.

When FFPS had just came out and the community was alight from all the new stuff, I made this post in jest that whatever animatronic was hiding in Mr. Hugs' auction was actually just Mr. Hugs as the threat. I modeled him within that brief timeline and had him rendered in the FNaF 1 hallway to up the rediculousness.

I think a few other posts also made fun of the liability mechanic around this time, though with the idea the animatronics were hiding inside the props like the pickle jar. Now you must be thinking, only ~500 upvotes? That seems low for a popular post, but thats how the community had it! Posts had fast turnover and none ever breached containment of the sub to get actual Reddit numbers. 500-1000 votes mean your post was sticking around the front page for the week and Scott would see it.

Now I had no clue what this would become months later, I'd say Scott would've jested about the bots hiding in the props if anything since that was a consensus meme, but sure enough something happened. During the development of Ultimate Custom Night, he would reveal Toy Freddy's mechanic on March 9th, 2018:

Toy Freddy: Relax, Toy Freddy is retired. He sits in the Parts and Service room playing video games on his big-screen TV. What game is his playing? Five Nights With Mr. Hugs, of course. The problem is that Toy Freddy has never been very good at video games, and if he loses his game, he will probably blame you for it. Check the Parts and Service cam to see how he's doing. In Five Nights With Mr. Hugs, there are three ways into the office and only one door can be closed at a time. Click the cams on Toy Freddy's monitor, then be sure that the appropriate door is closed to prevent Mr. Hugs from getting into his office. If you check on Toy Freddy and see GAME OVER on his screen, that means that Mr. Hugs has already jumpscared him, and now Toy Freddy is on his way to jumpscare you. Once Toy Freddy has been jumpscared, there will be no way to calm him down, and no way to save yourself.

Now I don't remember at the time if I realized this was exactly based on my post, maybe cautious optimism. I wouldn't find out until the game released.

Believe me I was GOBSMACKED when I saw this. It is LITERALLY the image I made recreated with Scott's models! He took my one post, extrapolated that I put Mr. Hugs in FNaF 1, and made the Five Nights with Mr. Hugs game based on FNaF 1! He also combined it with his joke take on Toy Freddy's personality from 2015:

You people don't UNDERSTAND Toy Freddy. He's a very reclusive and private animatronic. He spends his evenings curled up reading a good book. He doesn't like the limelight. So please be respectful of Toy Freddy. He's retired.

This whole moment has been so awesome to look back on, especially when Scott's never usually referenced a meme so directly. It doesn't end there though!

The Goongalar

This one's a fun moment. So, when Security Breach's trailer was releasing through I believe a State of Play on February 21st, 2021, I was in the Freddit Discord server doing live reactions alongside everyone else. Now I believe this was on a weekday, so people were tuning in from work and school to look at the chat, but not actually watch the trailer. The consensus as the trailer was being revealed was that the one shot of Vanessa looking into the elevator was ugly as sin, and it was. We had a better look at Vanessa with the leaked statue merch, and the lighting was not doing any favors to the in-game model. People in the chat kept asking for someone to send a pic of her so they could see why she looked ugly, and I had a nasty idea.

I whipped this up in about a minute, giving just enough details to be wrong to be *maybe* plausible but just so horrible looking. I dropped it in, and people TOOK THE BAIT! People genuinely believed this was what was shown in the trailer, and the chat was going so fast nobody bothered to correct me. Those same people then began linking to or reposting my image when others would join in discussing the model looking bad. It was GLORIOUS!

For completeness, I also sent this Jerma edit later to kinda jab at people thinking what I was posting was real. And this was all a good laugh, but while the months went along and this little skit had passed, I was watching a Dawko FNaF meme review in June of that year and all of the sudden there's this 'Goongalar' people are memeing about? Yeah, turns out after I had left people still posted my fucked up Vanessa, and someone dubbed it the Goongalar (I wish I remember who, they reached out to me like a few years back, I'd credit you again if I remember). Like as if its some eldrich abomination disguised as Vanessa. I was not expecting that!

So once more Security Breach stuff began drumming up in September and October, I took my chance to make 2 more Goongalar edits, again trying to trick people Vanessa's model just looked like that. I do distincly remember, unrelated to my edits, that people were posting that they made Vanessa's model look 'better' for these shots. It was a genuine concern that the poor lighting on Vanessa's model was that it was a bad model. They definitely didn't change it, but they sure did make sure she was in better lighting going forward!

The meme had slowly grown as the hype of Security Breach grew, and oh man what happened next. On December 21st, 2021, Dawko did an interview with Steel Wool:

Dawko: What are you- like- but- from when we did the charity stream again, you guys sent memes and stuff, which were amazing by the way. Like breakdancing Freddy and- R- Roxanne and stuff. 10 out of 10. So, what what are your thoughts about the memes in the community? For example, have you guys heard of the Goongalar?

[Both laugh]

Jason Topolski: Me? I heard it from you. [laughter] That's funny.

Ray McCaffrey: It's like the most- It's- If- you've made it. If you're making memes about something that you're working on, like you've absolutely made it. Like- The problem though with the memes is we'll be in a meeting and somebody will pull up the Goongalar in the meeting and go 'Hey guys, look what I- look at- the community is throwing around. Like yeah, check this out.' And the whole meeting is off topic. And now- And then we end up spending a half an hour talking about whether or not we can put the Goongalar in the game. [Dawko laughs] And finally it's got to be like, 'Hey, probably probably not. Probably probably have to pass on that one.'

Jason Topolski: Or maybe we could do a whole DLC about it.

Ray McCaffrey: A whole DLC about the Goongalar.

Dawko: The- the curse of Goongalar. Should do something like that.

MINDBLOW! Was waiting the whole interview for Dawko to mention it. The staff knew about the meme! They joked about it being put in the game! Absolutely estatic on that one. By that point I was joking with people that the second Security Breach came out I was gonna make a Goongalar mod as fast as possible. Security Breach was its own can of worms though and I never committed to it. Sadly the game didn't feature any reference to Goongalar either, but man what a ride.

I think Goongalar eventually evolved into 'White Woman Jumpscare' when the game came out. Vanessa being a separate character from Vanny in terms of being a threat was just so bizzarre when people wanted a full White Rabbit game. We definitely didn't get that. Either way that's mostly what I did that showed up in some official capacity! Every community member had a web of influence on things, and I'll probably make another blog going over where my models and maps ended showing up in.

My Stuff in FNaF

The Goongalar

References

Comments