_{full design reference for my william!}

BASIC INFO

NAME: William Afton

ALIAS: Bill (by Henry), Will, Dave, bunny (also by Henry + Clara)

AGE: 46 years old (in 1983, born September 19th, 1937)

GENDER: transmasc nonbinary (he/they, he/they/it as Springtrap)

ORIENTATION: biromantic + bisexual

HEIGHT: 6ft 4in

WEIGHT: ??? lbs (varies - has multiple dramatic losses)

HAIR COLOR: brown (graying)

EYE COLOR: silver (slightly green-tinted)

RELATIONSHIPS

Henry Emily - his best friend, business partner, and his everything. william is both obsessed with and wildly jealous of henry. given the chance, he'd worship henry like a god. to william, henry is the only person who'd ever come close to understanding him, the closest to seeing beneath the mask. they banter and argue regularly, but at the end of the day they're still incredibly close at least until william goes off the deep end.

Maria Emily - henry's wife. william DESPISED her, seeing her as competition who took henry away from him - he hadn't minded her when she was just a college acquaintance, but her being so close to henry changed everything.

Jen Emily - henry's sister. has little opinion on her, but dislikes her on the basis she keeps telling henry to stay away from him and generally being incredibly perceptive and suspicious of him.

Charlotte Emily - henry's only child. william WAS on good terms with her, she loved him because he was essentially a second father to her. william loved her too, but there was always a bit of resentment that she took up so much precious time that henry could have been spending with him instead.

Clara Afton - william's wife. their relationship is strained. william loved her for some time, but in the end their marriage was more out of necessity than anything else, due to an accidental pregnancy. they're happy for a while, and being both trans they feel like the only people who can understand each other - but even still, henry is always on william's mind. clara divorces him after the death of elizabeth, as she could no longer ignore the ever-growing divide between them.

Michael Afton - william's eldest son. william loved michael at first, even though he was an accident. there was certainly some resentment there, but william never wanted to hate michael. however, william tended to bury himself in work and ignore michael. this problem gets worse as michael ages, they drift apart, and michael feels neglected so he lashes out by bullying his own brother - its the only way he got attention from william, most of the time. of course, things only get worse once evan dies, and william starts giving him the cold shoulder completely.

Elizabeth Afton - william's favorite child! (which he would deny, of course). lizzie is ACTUALLY partially henry's child, after will and henry had an inadvisably unprotected tryst in the saferoom. will loves her a lot because she takes after both him and henry, with henry's looks and william's boisterous personality. she's quite the little star to will.

Evan Afton - william's youngest son. beloved, but the boy reminds william of himself a bit too much. william does his best to comfort evan, but his ideals of toxic masculinity tend to get in the way and he usually tells him to man up. even so, in their good moments, things are great! william spoils and dotes on him too, just a bit less than lizzie.

Scott Collins - one of the employees at fredbear's. william likes him because he's obedient and doesn't complain when he's inevitably given an unfair amount of work to do a they're not really friends or anything.

PERSONALITY

At his core, William is an eccentric and theatrical man. With a flair for the dramatic and a love for mechanics, it only makes sense for him to open a place like Fredbear's Family Diner. He runs the restaurant alongside his business partner and best friend Henry Emily. Between the two of them, William handles a lot of the public side of things, landing investments and business deals while also handling errant customers - meanwhile, Henry takes care of behind-the-scenes work, designing and maintaining the animatronics(though William helps with this too), fixing things around the building, and sometimes sorting out paperwork.

Naturally, William seems like an incredibly friendly and approachable kind of guy. He's extroverted, and purposefully exaggerates his goofy, lovably dramatic nature in order to appeal to those around him. He comes across as very charming and endearing, acting exaggeratedly polite and chivalrous. When it comes down to it, though, he can be incredibly charismatic and formal, since being silly isn't exactly going to land him a business deal.

William is a showman, and he'll make sure you know it. He's expressive and over-the-top with his movements and words, and its a great way to keep those around him entertained and endear himself to them. He plays this up even further when he's performing as Springbonnie, not holding back any of the more dramatic or flashy actions he usually kept reserved and held back whilst in public. The line between him and Springbonnie always seems blurred, though - it's genuinely hard to tell which parts of William's personality are real, and which ones are simply an act.

At times, William can be insensitive, rude, and completely selfish. His thinking is very self-centered already, as he only likes to do things that benefit himself, and rarely thinks about the consequences it could have for others. He despises being proven wrong or confronted for anything, and he tends to lash out like an animal backed into a corner whenever he's feeling threatened. His selfishness plays into his manipulative personality, and he could probably convince anyone of anything if he wanted to. All it takes is a little smooth-talking, and a little getting beneath their skin.

Being the stubborn man he is, he has quite a lot of unresolved and untreated mental issues - most notably stemming from his childhood and the way he's been treated throughout life. William is paranoid, often struggling with intrusive thoughts and having violent fantasies. He is wildly, madly obsessed with Henry, both jealous of Henry's robotics skills, and jealous of Henry's family after he lost his son Evan and his wife. In spite of that, William is still very close with Henry, since Henry is his best friend and business partner - his world seems to revolve around the man, and William would be lost without him.

In a lot of ways, William is repressed. He perceives his identity as a trans man as being "already bad enough" and thus internalizes a lot of the ideals of toxic masculinity, completely denying the possibility that he could ever be bisexual. He also denies the possibility that he could ever be vulnerable, which is a feeling he especially hates - he needs to feel powerful, and without that power, he's just a nervous prey animal ripe for the picking.

Despite his many issues, William does genuinely love Fredbear's, his family, Henry, and entertaining and making people happy. He loves his children very dearly as well, but he's not the greatest father, and his own parents didn't exactly set a good example. There's always something, though, that seems off about him, lingering just beneath the surface... and that something reaches a boiling point after the tragic death of William's youngest son.

_{alone on a friday night? god, you're pathetic}

TRAITS

POSITIVE: charming, silly, theatrical, cunning intelligent, eccentric, laid-back/relaxed (on the surface), friendly

NEUTRAL: guarded (emotionally), always playing a character, narcissistic, over-the-top

NEGATIVE: workaholic, paranoid, impulsive, envious, selfish, emotionally neglectful

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

HOBBIES/INTERESTS: robotics, performing and entertaining, juggling, journaling, porcelain sculpting, art (sucks at it), collecting novelty items, banjo/guitar, reading

LIKES: sci-fi and horror (movies, books), designing animatronics, his children, entertaining children, running the business, making money, managing finances, inventing whatever the fuck, bunny rabbits, classic rock music

DISLIKES: being bothered, teenagers (thinks they're all delinquents, esp. after michael kills evan(CC)), harsh sunlight (burns easily), camping, not being paid attention to/being ignored, sudden/loud noises, admitting that he's wrong

HISTORY

From a young age, William's life had always been a bit troubled. His mother was... not the worst, but she was rather emotionally distant, and complicit in the abuse William's father doled out to him. For a long time William had to put up with verbal and emotional abuse, and things only got worse when he realized that he was transgender (FTM) and tried to come out to his parents. The abuse became physical, his father thinking it would make William "normal". Because of their status as an upper class family his father believed they had a reputation to uphold, and William being anything outside of the norm would wreck them.

School was not a welcome escape for William. He was an outcast, one of the weird kids, due to his eccentric nature and flair for the dramatic. He used to get bullied a lot by his classmates, being an easy target who was visibly weird and friendless. That was, until William got fed up and had a violent outburst, beating the shit out of one of his bullies until they bled. Wisely, most of his peers left him alone after that, but the principal certainly was not happy, and he got expelled for the incident. His social isolation only seemed to get worse after that, as well as his parent's hatred, as he now had to be sent to a public school instead.

Things got worse and worse from there - William tried to tough things out and keep his head down, knowing even the smallest slip up could set off his parents, and the fear of potentially being sent to a psychiatric ward was very real in the 50's. William acted as an obedient "daughter" for many years as he tried to think up a plan of escape. By the age of 17 he decides to just go for it because he can't take the abuse any more, stealing a large sum of money from his father and getting a plane ticket for the cheapest flight he could find - coincidentally, a flight to Utah.

Utah seemed like a fresh new start for William. He hadn't expected that people would find his accent trustworthy and charming, but even out in the shitty bible belt people seemed to be treating him better, especially considering they didn't know that he was queer. Life became an act for William. All he had to do was say the right words, be charming and polite, and he would surely get whatever he wanted. Though he didn't have much, he was able to snag a minimum wage job and slowly work his way up from there. He spent most of his nights between streets and shelters, a rather precarious and unstable living situation, but he made it work. William drifted around from place to place, attempting to hopefully get into a college. Eventually he found one - not exactly glamorous, but passable. A small community college in Hurricane, Utah.

Once William was enrolled, he began searching to see if anyone was looking for a roommate. He eventually found someone - Henry Emily. William finally had a place to stay, even if he had to share it. To his surprise, he finds that he and Henry have a lot in common, such as their enjoyment of robotics and their tendency of being ostracized by their peers. William was hesitant to let his guard down, but the two eventually forged a strong friendship in their time living together. William loved to talk, and Henry loved to sit back and listen. They shared countless ideas together, one of these ideas being the basis for what would eventually be Fredbear's. But to make things complicated, William started catching feelings for Henry - complicated and messy feelings that grew into an obsession. Henry was the first person to ever understand him, to ever truly see and accept him.

But William was in denial - he couldn't be gay, he needed to get a wife, a family, because "being trans was already bad enough". He needed to be the spitting image of perfection, and maintain the masculinity he struggled so hard to achieve. Even so, temptation often won him over. Henry seemed to return William's feelings, the two of them often coupling in the late hours of the night only to wake up and pretend it never happened. Many times William would come directly to Henry without a second thought, desperate for the affection of his best friend turned situationship, all the while convincing himself that he'd eventually move on and that this was simply a friends with benefits situation. He began going out and trying to talk to women, eventually meeting his future wife Clara (who was trans, like him).

William ended up with an accidental pregnancy after hooking up with Clara, and the two of them decided to quickly get married to keep up appearances, even if their relationship had developed very little at that point. William tried to convince himself that he truly loved Clara, but his mind had always been lingering on Henry when he was with her. Things became quite difficult when William gave birth to Michael, since he was still in college and now had to juggle his schoolwork, his shitty job, and taking care of a child all at once. Clara and Henry luckily helped, but William usually took this help for granted and ended up ignoring Michael much more than he should have.

Postpartum depression hit William hard. In a way, he felt Michael was to blame for his problems in life - for getting married to a woman he didn't really love, for Henry leaving and starting a family of his own, for taking his attention away from his dreams of starting a business. Michael acted out because of William's neglect, not fitting his mold, and in turn it only made William's frustrations grow. But William knew for sure he still loved his son - at least, he thought he did.

At some point in time, William had two more children - first, Elizabeth, then a few years later, Evan. Elizabeth quickly became his "star child", so to speak, and most of his attention went to her or Evan rather than Michael. Though if you were to ask him, he would vehemently deny that he had any favorites. (For reference, in 1983, Michael is 14, Elizabeth is 9, and Evan is 7.)

About a decade or so later, Henry and William were finally able to realize their dreams of opening up a diner with animatronic characters. In 1981, Fredbear's Family Diner fully opened up to the public. Things ran smoothly for quite some time, and the diner was quite successful, both of them making more than enough to support their families. It seemed as though things were finally looking up in William's rather miserable life.

William spent a lot of time burying himself in his work, much preferring to stay at the diner than being around his already-crumbling family. Three children took a lot of energy, and he'd rather pass out while looking through paperwork. He still loved them, yes, but there was a strange disconnect between him and them. Michael didn't exactly take too kindly to his father's neglect. He became a lot more openly loud and rebellious, and bullied his brother as an outlet for his anger, perhaps trying to get his father's attention. In some ways... he succeeded. After forcing Evan into Fredbear's mouth and accidentally getting him killed, William is furious. Michael didn't intend to kill him, and William really tried to forgive him, but it was all too easy to pin the blame onto Michael with the way he had been acting. He became bitter towards his teenage son.

Evan's death sent William into a downward spiral, his mental health rapidly declining after the tragic loss of his son. William became distant and resentful towards Michael. After a particularly bad night, William reaches his breaking point and kills Henry's daughter, Charlie. From her death, William discovers a substance called remnant, which can be used to give life or keep something alive. William then became obsessed with finding a way to use remnant to revive Evan.

He creates the Funtime animatronics as an attempt to extract remnant in an easier manner. Of course, this backfires on him when his daughter Elizabeth dies to Circus Baby. At some point, Henry kicks William out of Fazbear Entertainment, which only drives him even further into fury. Feeling betrayed by Henry, he sneaks into Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria and kills 5 children over the course of three days (in 1985), forcing the place to close down. Henry ends up getting blamed for the murders, although neither him nor William are arrested due to lack of evidence.

William "dies" in 1993. He had been scouring the old Freddy's locations to try and disassemble all the remaining animatronics, feeling nervous that his sins would continue to haunt him and hoping that he could free all the souls so that he wouldn't have to think about what he's done anymore. But after disassembling them all, the children's souls corner him in the saferoom, and in a moment of panic he puts on the Springbonnie suit. The springlocks go off, and he bleeds out slowly on the saferoom floor, unable to call for help.

Trapped in the Springbonnie suit and sealed up in the saferoom for thirty years, his mind was the only thing to occupy himself with, and it was still far too painful for him to move around. He sat on the floor of the saferoom for years, and at that point the only reason he could move around was because of the animatronic suit, since his muscles had become incredibly weak from disuse. He was immobile when he was first discovered, which allowed him to easily be transported into the Fazbear's Frights attraction.

Being in the suit sucks. A lot. Every single movement is painful, the springlocks are constantly digging into whatever's left of Will's flesh. He's partially at the mercy of the animatronic, since it automatically locks up on him when an audio lure is played and he's forced to move towards it. He can't speak either - since parts of the metal have straight up pierced his jaw, and his vocal cords. (Technically, he could speak, but it would be little more than one or two words at a time, and it hurts a lot. His voice would sound very robotic as well, mixing with the animatronic's voice box since his speech would be incomprehensible without it).

As Springtrap, William is incredibly emotionally unstable. His emotions can flip on a dime, and the effects on his mind from being trapped in a dark room with nothing to do for so long are obvious. He starts off almost animalistic in nature, with twitchy, unsteady movements and a vicious desire to get out. At first, he doesn't even realize the night guard is his son, but after night two his mind slowly starts to return to him (although his memory can be quite fuzzy at times, he still very much knows what he did). His intensity scales up night after night, determined to kill Michael, who he now blamed for everything that had happened to him. After all, if Evan didn't die, he wouldn't have gone down this path, right? To him, this meant it was all Michael's fault.

William would have been content to die and be sent to hell forever. That was preferable to the living hell he was currently trapped in. But now, he had a new goal... Kill Michael, and then Clara, and then Henry. He needed to get revenge on anyone who had ever wronged him, and in his mind, that was all the reason he needed to keep going - make everyone feel the suffering he felt.

Fazbear's Fright burns down mid-2023. William escapes, partially burnt by the fire. (Scraptrap doesn't exist here. Instead, he would look like dark Springtrap from the teaser in Sister Location, burnt and missing a few more pieces but still mostly the same.) Henry comes up with a plan to lure all the trapped souls together and free them, which Michael gets involved in (without his knowledge) when he opens up a new Freddy's location. William and the others are lured to the building, and once they're all there the place is set alight. Everyone goes up in flames together, sealing the end of their painful existences.

_{click sprite william to go back!}