So in your park ranger Au Mike is friend with Freddy, who's a bear. Like a regular bear.
I mean he doesn't talk or anything like that? Just a guy and his animal pals, correct?
Ok I'm interested, drop some lore anytime you want.
haha he does talk, but at first it's just to the gang. THEN it's too Mike, who honestly does feel at times like he is going completely out of his mind a lot during this au. The gang can't speak to other humans, nor were they technically human themselves, only they kinda were? Magic/ghost business nonsense at hand.
Found all my notes! Been percolating the park ranger au since 2017. Might be able to write something for it, and I'd stick it into AFN2 if I did. BIG post I'm sorry.
Notes:
AU: Park ranger au & real animals au
-The fun of this au is that a) it still has canon impossibilities to rely on. Don’t sweat the big stuff and have the most fun with the small stuff to create a more immersive world. B) making it a fever dream for AFN2 also helps the story just ‘be’ instead of trying to iron out the wrinkles and make it ‘make sense.’ Explore the possibilities, even if they don’t quite make sense.
It is a mild play on Alice in Wonderland.
Still horror. Always horror. Now just with 100% more woodsy nature type horror. The fear of being chased, but the more out of breath you become, the more calm and ready the thing chasing you is.
The fear that people who sit at campfires by themselves have. The primal reawakening where your caveman ancestors stare into the fire and remember, thousands of years ago, what it was like when this was all the warmth and light you had to keep you through the cold, deadly night.
The type of terror of being in a forest all alone, which awakens the human’s desire to have a pack/community. Yet here you are, by yourself, and there’s something in the dark watching you, and you are on it’s turf…and your radio just went out, and there’s nothing to save you but yourself.
It is also a play on Winnie the Pooh, of course.
Marion is prolly the closest to his canon self.
Edit 5/21: having written LS/LW I’m redesigning him towards his Revived size. (which is actually just his canon size since Help Wanted didn’t exist when I thought of this au in… *squints at calender* 2017. RIP.
Think more grisled and shriveled toy that a kid lost in the woods. No present box to protect him here. Nature has crept in and nature is heartless as it is stunning. Like a porcelain doll in an abandoned house. Dirt covered, like he was buried. Splintered into odd shapes, like he fought something bigger than him trying to escape. Lurks in the lake mostly but when he emerges, he smells of old water for a while and weeds drip from his limbs.
In KGA, Mari’s powers limited him to the restaurant he lived in and the ones he visited. In PRA, Mari just kinda becomes the forest and it’s lake, and his powers are miles long. So is his initial anger.
The animatronic gang are animals now. Afton’s murders are still for the same reasons as KGA for the most part. (It’s arguably almost easier to imagine/swallow the dragged out concept of him as a serial killer for this au. Kids going lost in the woods, being kidnapped, etc. He could also take children from the nearby town and bring them to the woods.)
The gang were kinda once toys and also ideas, enhanced and enchanted by the Lake Monster’s ghostly powers and thirsts for revenge/defense.
Freddy– his kid wanted to be brave, tried protecting the other children, earned Mari/Crying Child’s respect and thus, looking at Arthur clinging to his Fredbear plush, saw no better animal than a bear to embody that type of strength and fierceness. Freddy is larger than average for his supposed species and lighter colored, to say nothing of his far too human gaze. He has a terrible fondness for all types of fish and sweets, and finds it the easiest to forget himself and turn more dangerous, more animalistic.
Bonnie- his child wanted to run away. To be fast and clever and dash to freedom, to her parents, to go get help for the others. She wanted it so bad it was all the Puppet could taste in her fear, the need to be swift and forgotten in a flash. The purple bunny barrette in her hair made him wonder, drawing on Arthur’s memories of seeing little cotton tails well after they’d darted off. Bunnies always seem to spot the Bad before anyone else, and flee accordingly. Bonnie too,is larger than average hares and never seemed to get the memo to be frightened by things. He’s still best friends with Freddy, and mouthy in all scenarios, even when he has no right to be.
Chica- her child wanted his mother. He wanted her to hug him, kiss his hair, tell him everything would be alright, that this was only a bad dream. As he died, the Marionette came to him and asked what that meant, for Arthur couldn’t explain it well himself, far to lost from humanity by now. The boy lived on a farm, and rooting through his memories showed Mari the concept of hens and their chicks. Safe, tucked under their feathers and warm. Chica is average/typical for her species, and she is arguably the one animal in the group that exists comfortably around any humans. No one quite figures out how Schmidt always has fresh eggs to share, but when they see the coop he put together, they’re more worried how Mike keeps her from being eaten. Little do they know, Mike has more pity for the animals that try than the hearty little hen with a fox at her beck and call.
Foxy- The earliest to join the Marionette, even before Freddy’s creation. He however did flee into the woods, vanishing for months before slinking back. He considers his existence more of a curse than a gift, regardless of how much he loves his eventual family. Alexander Afton was supposed to be watching his youngest, not playing with his friends. He was supposed to mind his father, and not fill the child with ghost stories and bear-eating-boy stories. He was supposed to keep him from the old dock, not let him near the lake.
He was supposed to do so many things. He was a child himself, too.
He was always playing pranks, being sly, being cruel and thoughtless and predatory. The Marionette saw fit to make him resemble his true nature after his father was done with him. It’s unclear what Alexander’s last thoughts were, but Foxy’s body is covered in missing tufts of fur, scars and he’s even missing his front right paw. He is taller than most foxes but scrawny, embracing his instinctive traits to better help and protect the ones who accepted him when he didn’t even accept himself. There is a strange little albino vixen that seems fond of him, though for the life of him he cannot figure out why.
Edit 5/20: Max and Scrap didn’t exist when this au was imagined. For ease, I’m not putting him in right now. I could always do a part III tho.
Mike- Simply taking the job after a rough patch in his life. He needs the money and knows the work won’t be easy. He’s not exactly a shut in but he’s never been able to be the outdoorsy type. He thinks he can handle it, because he was told he could work at a desk and it wouldn’t be too strenuous.
He was lied to. They drove him out the ranger stations and the living quarters and told him the next bus wouldn’t be for a week anyway. You’ve got everything you need. Cabin, outhouse, radio, gas stove. Dehydrated food, the water’s clean enough to read underwater! Weather’s nice this time of summer, even when it’s hot there’s shade. You’ll be fine, Schmidt. You signed your life away, kid.
Just one week. That’s all. Then he head back to Hurricane and find another job, put this behind him. His stint as a park ranger for this lake and the miles of surrounding deep, dangerous woods.
Nothing is handled correctly by the humans in this au. Same to be said for canon/fanon FNAF, so.
The gang is lurking around, easily able to communicate with one another and Marion (when he shows himself) but not with Mike initially. Mike gets Gifted that ability later, after Mari decides he would make a fine ranger/protector for the area…he just needs to be…better suited for the job.
Fredbear/Golden Freddy is still a spirit??
Used to be a sort of Smokey the bear type figured head, for when the kids visited the park to learn about why we shouldn’t burn down nature, and leave nothing but your footprints, that sort of thing.
Edit 5/22: Just a suit though, no metal here lmao. Mari gets the idea to put the two together and give Mike his KGA set of powers/strength. Like usual, he doesn’t quite consent/gets roped along until he feels too bad to say no, until he realizes how less lonely he is around this cast of characters.
Mike is still Mike. He makes bad life choices when he thinks someone needs help, or someone's in danger. He knows it's a bad idea, and he might terrified, but if a child's voice in midnight asks for help, he'd still want to check it out, just to make sure, armed with an old flashlight and staring down into the deep dark trail. They never did find those kids that went missing. Not even their bodies.
What could it hurt to take a few steps in, and just look?
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Sitting here thinking about Celegorm being Oromë’s favourite and what the means beyond being gifted a hound by the Valar of the hunt himself.
Imagine, if you will, pre-darkening Celegorm who always wins dice games, who never draws the short straw, and when it comes to bets, always seems to come out on top— to the point where Celegorm is the person who always holds the pot when it comes to bets, because he always wins otherwise.
Imagine now, in Beleriand, this habit not changing. “Tell Tyelko I’m putting 20 on Fingon’s seneschal proposing to that girl of his in four years”, “Tell Celegorm that I despise him and never want to see him again— and also that I’m doubling down on my bet on the outcome of Caranthir meeting a Man for the first time.”
Imagine, oath ridden, downward spiralling Celegorm jokingly agreeing to roll dice to bet on something minor— guard shifts, or who has to tell Curufin that another sword has been broken—
And losing the bet.
Celegorm who always is lucky, who always holds the pot… doesn’t know when he lost that favour.
Imagine a Celegorm slowly losing the boons bestowed upon him by a Valar who he dedicated himself to, who taught him to speak the language of birds and beasts and gave him his craft.
Imagine a Celegorm who watches Huan leave and thinks it an inevitability, because he has been losing losing parts of himself, ever since he stepped off the shores of Valinor.
Celegorm who leaves behind a collection of bows and pelts and one hand-bound, weathered book, filled with the bets that are never going to be fulfilled.
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