Web Animation / Five Nights at Freddy's: The Stories

"And that's why you are alive, you can have feelings, you can love, you can feel compassion, cry and be sad."

— Shadow Freddy, "Shadows of the Past"

The Stories is an ongoing fan animated series of Five Nights at Freddy's. Created on March 19, 2015 by Polish YouTuber Zajcu37. Currently it contains 4 seasons of content, each spanning its original lore yet continuing with the overarching story going on. It follows the animatronics in their day to day lives, humans unaware that they can more around and do all of this. Along the way, they make new allies and enemies. It takes heavy divergence from the original series, with no canon humans existing.

The first season began on March 19, 2015, with new episodes every few weeks. It finished on May 29, 2015. A second season began in June 2015 and ended on October 19, 2015. A third season began on November 15, 2015 with new episodes being released every month. It finished on June 17, 2017.

And then a fourth came into existence on July 23, 2017 and is currently ongoing.

The success of the series inspired many SFM FNaF series in a similar vein, like Five Nights at Freddy's (Bertbert), Five Nights at Freddy's: Old Memories, and Five Nights at Freddy's: Forgotten Events.

The official playlists for season 1, season 2, season 3, and season 4 can be found on Zajcu37's channel.

Spoilers for the first three seasons are unmarked.

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Five Nights at Freddy's The Stories provides examples of

• Abandoned Area: The FNAF 2 location is abandoned as of season 4, with only a few guards patrolling it.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Nightmare wields one of these, able to cut through Toy Freddy's, Bonnie's and Golden Freddy's suits like they were nothing. Special mention to Springtrap's axe in season 3.
• Action Hero: Toy Chica becomes this in season 4 to combat the forces of Nightmare.
• Action Survivor: Springtrap (now dubbed Scraptrap) is the only survivor of the Nightmare invasion.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: Scraptrap has become this in terms of the latest points, partly due to losing his mind over the years.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Golden Freddy normally cooperated with the animatronics, but in season 2, he was originally revealed to have moved against them to retake his stage. With season 2 being a prequel to season 1 where he was more heroic, it was revealed he was remorseful for his behavior and had a Heel–Face Turn.
  • The night guards in canon were just people trying to survive against the murderous animatronics. Their change to being seen as the antagonist is mostly due to the animatronics now being the main characters, but thanks to using voices, models, and personalities of Team Fortress 2 characters, also come across as more openly antagonistic Asshole Victims^note Most of the guards are based on the Scout, who taunts the animatronics as they try to get him. After Golden Freddy broke one's arm, another guard based on a Soldier came in with a gun and shot Mangle, giving her room to enact portions of Shadow Freddy's plan under the guise of amnesia, while Foxy's provoked attack in response led his body to be stuffed into Springtrap, enabling him to begin reactivating..
  • Mangle may have been viciously destroyed by children, but still aided fellow animatronics in trying to stop the child murderer, while Shadow Freddy remained a mysterious character who never openly became aggressive. Mangle is the mole of Shadow Freddy here, turned evil from being ripped apart by children, and Shadow Freddy is actually Nightmare and the overarching Big Bad of the series behind various events.
• A Day in the Limelight: Most characters have this, Toy Bonnie, Mangle, Bonnie, Chica are a few examples.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: One of the first episodes has Bonnie's birthday, yet nothing happened regarding his age or anything like that.
• Amnesia Episode: The New Nightguard is this, Mangle losing her memory briefly. Eventually revealed to be faked.
• An Arm and a Leg: Toy Chica's outer body gets badly damaged in season 3, and then she loses her arm, and most of her leg in season 4.
• Appearance Angst: Toy Chica, at first, dislikes her new costume, deeming it ugly. She does eventually get over it near the end of season 3.
• Arc Villain: Technically, each arc is a season, so each seasonal villain is also an Arc Vilain.
• Artifact of Doom: The Artifact which gives Nightmare and his army Nigh-Invulnerability.
• Back from the Dead: Nightmare, Golden Freddy in season 3, and the Phantoms have cheated death throughout the series.
• Bad Boss: Nightmare occasionally shows a cruel edge towards even his minions.
• Bad Future: Toy Chica travels 100 years into the future to discover that Nightmare has already taken over most of the world and he almost killed all of humanity.
• Band of Brothers: Puppet, Golden Freddy, and Springtrap become this, being the oldest of them all.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Springtrap and Golden Freddy's fight at the end of S3 is set in Fazbear's Fright's fire.
• Bearer of Bad News: Toy Chica is the one to update Springtrap on how everything went down, and Springtrap has to update her on what happened in the future.
• Being Evil Sucks: Technically, this is with Springtrap, while not the typical bit, it still works. If he resists being evil in season 3, he gets shocked, until the chip that caused this is knocked out of his head.
• Belly Mouth: Like in the original, Nightmare has a mouth lined with sharp teeth at his belly.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Mangle held in her resentment against the children for a long time, yet turned out to be Nightmare's Mole.
• Big Bad: Each season has a major villain
  • The night guards in season 1 are the enemy the animatronics try to attack, and are the only real antagonists faced by the animatronics at that point.
  • Golden Freddy in season 2 is resentful of the other animatronics stealing his stage, so he sabotages the original animatronics then revives them as the Withered Animatronics and pits them against the Toy Animatronics.
  • Springtrap in season 3 was Golden Freddy's partner on stage as Spring Bonnie, and aided him in his plan in season 2 until Golden Freddy betrayed him. Now awake in the newer pizzeria, he strikes back and causes the shut down of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and thus the creation of Fazbear's Fright.
  • Nightmare in season 4 manipulated past events as Shadow Freddy, and moves into action as the true antagonist of the entire series, stealing the powers of the other animatronics.
• Big Disaster Plot: Season 4 revolves around trying to stop one of these, preventing Nightmare's takeover of the world.
• Big Good: Puppet served as one in season 2 to the Toy Animatronics, Golden Freddy served as one in turn in season 3, and Scraptrap and Toy Chica both fill the role together for season 4.
• Birthday Episode: One of the first episodes^note Bomb Surprise, the actual first episode, was deleted but eventually reworked into the ending of season 2 was about Bonnie's birthday, and everyone seemingly forgetting only to surprise him at the end.
• Bluff the Eavesdropper: A villainous example: The people who stumble across the bare endoskeleton have this happen to them. Mangle even fake hurts herself and blames it on the traitor, who is secretly her, throwing everyone off.
• Bound and Gagged: Most of the Toy Animatronics are tied up by Springtrap like this in season 3.
• Brains and Brawn: Toy Chica (Brains) and Scraptrap (Brawn). Also with Golden Freddy (Brains) and Springtrap (Brawn).
• Butterfly of Doom: In "The Battle for Survival", Golden Freddy says to Toy Chica that if she doesn't erase the memories of those she meets in the past, it will have disastrous consequences for the future.
• Composite Character:
  • Shadow Bonnie / RWQFSFASXC and Spring Bonnie / Springtrap were separate characters originally, though there was an implicit connection between the Shadow Animatronics and the springlock failures that helped retire the springlock suits in canon. Here, Shadow Bonnie is simply a form Springtrap took when separated from his suit.
  • Shadow Freddy and Nightmare were two separate characters in canon who happen to be palette swaps of Golden Freddy and Nightmare Fredbear (who is himself Golden Freddy's nightmare counterpart), respectively a purple colored version of Golden Freddy and a black colored and transparent version of Nightmare Fredbear. In this series, Nightmare and Shadow Freddy are the same character, with Shadow Freddy being a persona taken on by Nightmare.
• Demoted to Extra: BB, JJ, and Freddy. Their roles in season 4 are much smaller compared to the previous one.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • There's no overarching plot for most of season 1.
  • Season 1 and the first four episodes of season 2 have a slightly different animation than the rest of the series.
  • The series originally didn't have subtitles or voices. The subtitles would be introduced in season 2 and the voices in season 3. The voices for some characters would also be adjusted over time.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Shadow Freddy does this in "The Traitor".
• Extradimensional Emergency Exit:
  • Golden Freddy, Puppet, Springtrap, Toy Freddy, and Toy Chica manage to escape the Nightmares by using Golden Freddy's teleporter in "The Great Escape". Although Bonnie jumped through the portal as well, Nightmare threw a sword through his chest shortly before this, and he dies after arriving through it.
  • Toy Chica manages to escape via a portable teleporter to escape getting caught by the Nightmares in "The Last Hope".
• Extra-Long Episode: While most episodes are 7-10 minutes long, "The Final Plan" (the season 2 finale) is over 35 minutes long, making it the longest episode in the series
• Feet-First Introduction: A boot arrives on screen when Toy Chica appears in the Future.
• Future Me Scares Me: In "Friends and Enemies", after Scraptrap and Toy Chica travel back in time to meet Golden Freddy from the past, SpringBonnie is horrified he sees himself aiding Toy Chica into putting the present Golden Freddy's consciousness into the past version.
• Great Escape: The plot of the first half of season 4 is half of the animatronics escaping the first pizzeria following Nightmare's takeover of the place. The season 4 episode "The Great Escape" is Exactly What It Sayd On The Tin. It later ends up being a Thwarted Escape when Toy Bonnie is killed after letting the Nightmares use the teleporter to get to the second location.
• Hope Spot: Toy Chica gets one of these, Scraptrap tells her an old friend is still alive, yet it is actually just an empty suit with an entirely different head on.
• Mass Teleportation: Due to the Teleporter Accident in "The Nightmare's Project", Withered Bonnie and Phantom Freddy accidentally end up with Toy Chica in the future.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Toy Bonnie activating the teleporter in "New Intrigue" before Nightmare attacks and kills him leads to the Nightmares finding their way to the second pizzeria to kill Puppet, Golden Freddy, and Toy Freddy.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The Nightmares are pretty much immune to every weapon that could easily kill them. Nightmare lampshades this in "Evil Factory".
• No One Gets Left Behind: Subverted in "Life of a Traitor" when Mangle stops Freddy, Chica, JJ, Toy Bonnie, and Balloon Boy from escaping with Golden Freddy.
• Race Against the Clock: "Race Against the Time" is about Bonnie, Toy Bonnie, Toy Freddy, and JJ trying to find a new costume for Toy Chica before she dies.
• Sanity Slippage: Scraptrap goes through this in the 100-year time skip to the point of conversing with a husk of Golden Freddy.
• Series Continuity Error: In Season 2, Freddy Fazbear;s Pizza II was closed forever. However in Season 4, it is still shown to be in use.
• Synthetic Voice Actor: All of the characters are voiced by text-to-speech voices.
• Teleporter Accident:
  • When Toy Chica uses the teleporter in "The Lost One", it malfunctions and sends Golden Freddy's older body to an unknown location.
  • It happens again in "The Nightmare's Project" when the teleporter accidently opens two portals from two different timelines.
• Teleportation Misfire: Withered Bonnie and Phantom Freddy accidentally end up in Toy Chica's present due to her Teleporter Accident.
• Tempting Fate: In "New Intrigue", during Toy Bonnie's discussion with Freddy and Chica, they both boast that the Nightmares will kill Toy Bonnie if he tries to sneak out and activate the teleporter. Fast-forward to Nightmare catching and killing Toy Bonnie at the end of the episode.
• Took a Level in Badass: Not that Springtrap wasn't badass already, but there's a reason he survived 100 years without any help.
• Trash the Set:
  • Fazbear's Fright blows up as a result of Springtrap breaking the gas main so that way no one could escape the building.
  • Freddy Fazbear's Pizza III is burnt down once the animatronics escape Fazbear's Fright. In Season 4, it was revealed that Mangle set the fire.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: With the children tearing Mangle apart and her meeting Shadow Freddy caused her to undergo a Start of Darkness.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Mangle used to be a nice animatronic. Then she was torn apart by children repeatedly which makes her upset, and then she meets Shadow Freddy...
• Wham Episode: "The Traitor" shows that Shadow Freddy is actually Nightmare. Also Mangle reveals that she was working for Nightmare the entire time.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The first half of season 4 operates as this, splitting the focus between the escaped animatronics in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza II and the imprisoned animatronics under Nightmare in Freddy Fazbear's Pizza I until "Evil Factory".
• Wham Line: Two in rapid succession in "The Traitor".
  • When Shadow Freddy reveals himself to be Nightmare:
    Toy Chica: Wait a second, It is Nightmare's story. You were a creature that had to prevent the release of Nightmare.
    Shadow Freddy: This creature never existed. I cheated you. Shadow Freddy is a Nightmare.
  • When Mangle reveals herself to be the traitor:
    Shadow Freddy: I present you my faithful helper, Mangle.
• Wham Shot: Near the end of "The Traitor", Shadow Freddy reveals himself to be Nightmare and takes everyone's souls to become more powerful. After Nightmare says that there's a traitor among the crew, Mangle walks to next to him, revealing herself to be the traitor.

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