Vanessa (Five Nights at Freddy's)

Vanessa A. is the secondary antagonist of the Steel Wool era of the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise.
She is a troubled young woman who originally worked as a beta tester at Silver Parasol Games. While testing The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience, she encountered a paranormal virus called Glitchtrap/the Mimic who forced her into being his right hand woman Vanny. During the events of Security Breach, she attempts to track down Gregory and Glamrock Freddy, intent on apprehending the former and returning him to his parents.
Thankfully, Gregory manages to free Vanessa from Glitchtrap's influence, and the two become friends who try to keep the Mimic imprisoned beneath the Pizzaplex together.
She is voiced by Heather Masters, who also voices Circus Baby and Glamrock Chica. A version of her appears in the 2023 film of Five Nights at Freddy's and is portrayed by Elizabeth Lail.
==Appearance==
Vanessa has a white complexion with freckles on her face. She has long blonde hair tied in a ponytail, apple green irises, olive pupils, and glossy peach lips. She wears a plain white security guard uniform, with black shoulder pads. She also has a dark gray cap and pants.
==History==
===Background===
According to unused content from Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery, Vanessa was born in the same September of an unknown year to an unnamed mother and a father named Bill. Her surname is unknown outside of the fact that it starts with an "A". From what can be told, Vanessa's childhood was frankly awful. Her parents divorced each other and engaged in a custody battle over her, with Bill blackmailing Vanessa into falsely testifying against her mother, resulting in her losing the case and implicitly committing suicide. Nothing much is known about her life in-between then and the events of the Steel Wool games.
===Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted===
Sometime post-2023, Vanessa would be hired by Fazbear Entertainment to beta-test The Freddy Fazbear Virtual Experience, a VR video game produced to coincide with the corporation's recent rebranding. During her play testing, Vanessa would encounter the Mimic/Glitchtrap, a malicious AI that had found its way inside the game. She tried to destroy it, but her attempts proved fruitless and it managed to take over her mind, creating an alter-ego known as Vanny dedicated to assisted him in his plans.
===Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery===
Under Vanny's sinister alter-ego influence, Vanessa joins the team while working on the Fazbear Funtime Service, a rental service that sends out animatronic duplicates to subscribers' homes. During her time there, she manages to insert the Mimic virus into both all of the FFS animatronics and into many of Fazbear Entertainment's systems, at same time locked the workers accounts. She later defected from these job, and later promoted as security guard in Freddy Fazbear's Mega PizzaPlex.
===Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach===
Eventually, Vanessa is put on psychiatric examinations by the company, only for each of her therapists to eventually be murdered by Gregory, a little boy who had also came under the control of the Mimic. During these sessions, a series of events implied to have been orchestrated by the Mimic resulted in Vanessa becoming the sole security guard of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex, a mall complex created by Fazbear Entertainment. There, Vanny takes over at times and murder around nine children there with the help of the Glamrock Animatronics.
One night, Gregory manages to escape the Mimic's control and team up with the Glamrocks' leader Glamrock Freddy so as to escape. This leads to Vanessa and the Glamrocks searching for him throughout the Pizzaplex. Vanessa eventually catches Gregory and traps him in a security office and later puts the malfunctioning Freddy inside a maintenance room. However, Vanny takes over her body and starts chasing Gregory down, trying to kill him. However, Gregory manages to play three paranormal Princess Quest arcade cabinets, helping the Princess vanquish the Mimic virus and destroy Vanny, freeing Vanessa from control and allowing both of them, plus Freddy, to escape at sunrise.
===Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted 2===
Vanny is seen in the secret ending after the protagonist completes Princess Quest. The protagonist would find themselves in a skill crane machine surrounded by plush versions of every character in the game and observed by Vanny. She sends Moon to claim the Glitchtrap plush with the Protagonist giving the plush to him and Moon bringing the plush to Vanny. The plush reverts itself to Glitchtrap in moments before she clasps her hands together with Glitchtrap inside, either teleporting him somewhere or killing him. Vanny then glances at the protagonist and waves at them before leaving which likely she's freed from Glitchtrap's control.
The meaning of this is unknown, although most fans theorize it either symbolizes Vanessa freeing herself from Glitchtrap's control, or that her Vanny alter-ego is still alive and has gone rouge from Glitchtrap.
===Ruin===
At some point, Vanessa and Gregory ventured down below the now-ruined Pizzaplex into the ruined Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place, and sealed the Mimic's physical endoskeleton behind a concrete room. The two also presumably created the M.X.E.S. program to stop it from escaping. Their hard work would be for nought however as the Mimic lured Gregory's friend Cassie into his prison and got her to free him. It's implied that either she or Glamrock Freddy provided the instructions to Cassie so she could escape following the Mimic's escape.
==Trivia==
*Vanessa is the first protagonist in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise to be confirmed to be female.
*As mentioned by her therapist, Vanessa has anxiety.
*Her username, Nessie97, may hint that she was born in 1997. However, one could argue since that since Five Nights at Freddy's 3 and Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator are speculated to take place in 2023, and that Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted takes place several years after the events of those two games, it would mean that Vanny is in her 30's.
**However, leaked emails from Five Nights at Freddy's AR: Special Delivery state her age as being 23 years old. This would mean that she was likely born somewhere in the 2000's (early 2010's at the maximum) as Help Wanted takes place several years after Pizzeria Simulator. If that's the case, the "97" in her username might refer to the month and day of her birth, but that's not confirmed.
*Considering it being abbreviated as the letter A, it's possible that Vanessa's last name is "Afton", and therefore she is somehow related to the Afton Family, and due to her young age and the general structure of the timeline, it's possible she could be Afton's (grand) niece or granddaughter. However, the granddaughter option isn't very likely, given that the only of Afton's children who lived to adulthood was Michael Afton, but due to being a living corpse with no organs, he couldn't have been able to have children.
**However, as it's unknown which year Afton was springlocked beyond "between 1993 and 2023", it's technically possible for William to have had Vanessa before dying somewhere in the 2000s.
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