About the archival project

This project started April 28, 2025 and ended it's main production on July 2, 2025.

To start off my archiving journey (both for the Nostalgia page and also in general) I thought it would be best to do Rebornica's Five Nights at Freddy's AU. I'll talk more about it in the "My Nostalgia" section but to say this AU had an impact on me would be an understatement. I've seen too many things from my childhood completely disappear off the internet, and I didn't want this AU to follow that route. I know I'm not the only one out there who feels this way; this AU had such a huge impact on the FNAF community. A lot of people have fond memories of it, especially if they've been around since 2014/2015.

That was my main motivation for starting this archival project. Was to preserve both mine and many other's childhoods. As well as to not let such a huge part of FNAF's history become lost.

My Nostalgia

Man, where do I even begin. Rebornica's designs were everywhere back in the day. If it wasn't their artwork it was fan art of their designs. I remember quite a number of Roblox FNAF fan games I would play had their artwork in the game or the characters you could morph into were their night guard designs. I remember quite a few animations out there using or were inspired by Rebornica's designs. I used to watch a lot of Bonnie Bunny's animations and their Purple Guy was very inspired by Vincent's, as well as some of their other characters. There was also this animation which I cannot find anymore for Griffinilla's "Stay Calm" song that I remember featured Mike as well as him turning into Mike the Mongrel whenever the more robotic voice would occur. I used to love watching that video a lot, since I loved the song and really loved Mike the Mongrel (still do). Then there was all the comic dubs people did. I don't remember the exact ones I used to watch, but I did quite like those a lot too.

Then there was, of course, the shipping. These were some of baby's first ships. Of course, I got into Vincent x Phone Guy, which in retrospective there really wasn't that much ship art drawn of them by Rebornica themselves. While making this archive I realized there only was a handful, and it was mostly the fans who made the content. I got into other ships as well, like Vincent x Mike, and Mike x Jeremy (which, I still like a flavor of this to this day outside of Rebornica's AU in the form of Michael Afton x Jeremy). So much ship art back then, I was a DeviantArt user at the time so I saw a lot of it on there.

Because I didn't use Tumblr at the time, I only ever saw Rebornica's stuff either on DeviantArt or if it was reposted in places I listed above (as well as on Google). So, making this archive was both a very nostalgic experience seeing the artwork I was familiar with and also a whole new journey seeing the stuff I never got exposed to.

How does it hold up today?

Well, for starters, a lot of its humor and references are from that time period. But, I don't think it dates it in a bad way. Maybe that's because I loved 2014/2015 and all the memes that came from it. Its a comforting time for me, so if anything coming back to this AU just feels like coming home. It makes me feel like a little kid again.

Outside of the memes, Rebornica's sense of humor was always quite witty and some of the posts they made still get a laugh out of me. The artwork is still just as great as I remember it. Rebornica always had such an iconic style and was very good with character design. They really shaped how we interpret these characters, even to this day. Vincent and Phone Guy's in particular I think really made the hugest impact. I'm still seeing people draw Purple Guy with all purple skin, and those white eyes and Phone Guy with a phone for a head to this day.

It's not just the designs either, I think the personalities Rebornica gave the night guards is still being seen within the community. I still see Jeremy widely interpreted as a wholesome baby boi whose a nerd. Mike (or more commonly nowadays people use Michael Afton) is still very depressed, traumatized, and angry all the time and so on and so forth. Their influence is stll there, I still recognize it popping up, even if people don't do it intentionally. Even my own interpretations of the characters have had a good ol' Rebornica influence.

When the AU wasn't 90% memes, it did have quite an interesting story to it. It was surprisingly in depth once you really look into it. It took popular theories at the time (Mike being the Bite of '87 victim and the killer user the Golden Freddy suit to name a few) and expanded upon those and even added its own unique things to the story. I always really loved how Faith/5th child possessed Mike. That's not something that ever really happened again in FNAF fan media, at least not on a popular level. It took a story, which otherwise was very vague and unknown, and made an entire world out of it.

The AUs within the AU also made it stand out a lot. I was always interested in Five Nights at Mikey's and the Mythology AU. During research I got exposed to the other AUs as well, and they're also really good as well. The "He Remembers AU" and the M!A done with Little Mikey stand out to me a lot. I wish Rebornica had done more comics like this because this is where their storytelling skills really shined. Both in writing, dialogue, and the way each scene was set up. Sure, they were doodles but their execution was done quite well and really stuck with me.

Overall, I think it still holds up quite well. I think people who weren't around for the Rebornica era could still find enjoyment out of this old AU. I think aspects of it definetely show its age, and perhaps some things aged better than others. There's certainly a few posts in there that scream "Hoo boy, this is definetely from when the internet was a vastly different place". But, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Rebornica's FNAF AU is like looking into a time capsule. A time that, I felt, was when the internet was at least somewhat better. When life felt better. And maybe that's just because I was young, still had my childhood innocence about the world. But, coming back to this AU is like unlocking that side of me again. Becoming 11 again. And I hope in some way, to anyone who decides to peep into this archive, that it helps do that to you too.

Extra thoughts

I started seeing less and less of Rebornica's content come mid 2015 and especially in 2016. Of course, by then AU had been officially cancelled, passed onto Cam, and Rebornica moved onto other works. Their AU was always in the back of my head but it wasn't until this year I decided to go back to check it out. Only to find it was gone. I am very thankful that I was able to find as much as I did for this archive. I think I would of been devastated had the majority of it become lost media. I wasn't even aware of the official 2019 revival of the AU until doing research for this project. I wasn't even aware of Rebornica's own original works like Pilot either.

They are actually still around to this day, if you're interested they're volterge1st on Instagram. It's nice seeing they're still doing things, and I hope all goes well for their new projects.

Of course, I do have to bring up the most important thing regarding Rebornica's FNAF AU, and its how it got into the FNAF movie. In Film Theory's video, at 6:13, you can see that Mike from this AU was used as inspiration for Mike Schmidt in the movie.

Now, this is actually a piece of fan art done by FNAFNations and not Rebornica but it is of Rebornica's Mike. Here is a higher quality image of that drawing:

When I first saw this, it really warmed my heart. The fact Rebornica's work had such an impact on FNAF that it made its way into the FNAF movie. Of course, we don't see HIM in the movie, but his influence is there. Mike Schmidt's character was inspired by Rebornica's Mike in a way. And it makes me wonder if the other characters were too.