Y'know those Actor AUs? This is basically that. Cine-Mix takes place in a world where the events of FNAF are in-universe fiction, being a series of crappy horror films directed by Simon Carlton, where every character is played by their respective actor. Some people claim that the films themselves are based on true stories, and that Simon is secretly a mass serial killer who uses his films to retell the stories of his murders, but those are really all just rumors.
THE CASTThe main director of the films. Simon takes his work EXTREMELY seriously, maybe a little too much, as he acts extremely controlling over every aspect of his film and becomes extremely aggresive whenever anything doesn't go according to his plan. He blames it all on the people around him, believing he could finally make the film he'll be praised for if they could just LISTEN to him, and sometimes, he wishes he could just replace them all together with the machinery that they operate. For now though, his co-director Dorothy keeps him humble so he doesn't go maniacal and fire everybody underneath him. That would be a real shame.
The co-director and close associate of Simon, Dorothy is the less aggressive one of the two, though she's just as prone to frustration. All she cares about is seeing her creative vision come to life on screen, though her ideas are a bit...morbid in nature, brought on by years of unresolved trauma that she now expresses through her work. It aligns well with Simon's ambitious nature, as both of them seek to push the boundaries of comfort and normalcy, though they're held back heavily by the creative differences between them. They argue frequently over the direction of the films, and while in the end Simon tends to win out, Dorothy still makes sure to leave her mark where she can (well, she tried to, before Simon began to take credit for everything).
The younger, more artsy brother of Simon, Marvin is one of those experimental kind of film-makers who's work only really appeals to a small subset of people and ends up being confusing nonsense for anybody else. Still, he takes a lot of pride in his work, though one could argue he ends up coming off as pretty pretentious as he keeps attempting to give Simon critiques on his film that he really doesn't need, and is overall super egotistical about himself and his own work. He thinks Simon is a pathetic washed-up failure, Simon thinks the same about him, and the truth is that they both suck.
One of Simon's best workers, which mainly means he's the most stressed out all the time. He's the cameraman, obviously, but he also acts as an assistant to Simon & Dorothy and is constantly running errands for the both of them, which can get to be a lot after a while. Because of this, he's very prone to accidents and getting caught & tangled up in things, which doesn't bode well when working for someone like Simon who demands nothing but the utmost perfection from everyone. It's really only a matter of time before he slips up and gets fired, but hey, at least he'll be free from the workload.
Simon's eldest son. Simon hoped that by getting him to work for him now he could finally wrangle him a bit, but no, he's still as defiant as ever. He kinda has to be constantly doing some kind of busywork to not get bored and start trying to mess with the set or shove his head into the mouth of one of their suits, but when he's put to the task he can really get something done, he'll even put himself in harm's way to accomplish it, even when there's absolutely no need to. He was always a fan of horror as a kid as he grew up on his dad's old horror movies, so he spent his childhood scaring the hell out of his little brother, but now that they're older it's more him who enjoys being spooked now. He's got kind of a bad habit of throwing himself into danger for the sake of cheap thrills.
Simon's only daughter. She's been in the acting business since she was old enough to read a script, and grew up as a child star who relied heavily on her fame as she struggled to connect meaningfully with the kids her age. However, with time, she would eventually outgrow her original role, yet she was still desperate to be loved, so she would beg and beg for her father to cast her again as a role everybody would adore her for. To get her to leave him alone, he created the character 'Circus Baby', just for her, though he began to have some doubts on if she'd actually be able to play the role correctly. Not like it mattered anyways, as Eliza wasn't going to let ANYTHING get in the way of her and her newfound purpose as Baby, and ended up becoming so attached to her that she abandoned most of her original personality in favor of what her father had made for her. Seems there's nobody in this family who's quite right in the head.
Simon's youngest child. Carson had a similar childhood to Eliza, being one of the child actors in Simon's movies, though it was hard to say he was really acting when, unlike Eliza, Carson never really knew anything he was experiencing wasn't real. See, Carson never really had that same acting talent that Eliza had, but when he was freightened, he gave a helluva terrified performance, so Simon simply decided to just...make him believe everything that was happening in the film was real, and definitely irreperably traumatize him along the way. It didn't really help that his brother was also scaring the hell out of him every single day, so now as an adult working for his dad he's extremely shaken up and on edge all the time. He's all but resigned from his acting days though (if you could even call it that), and just helps backstage with the actors, even making good friends with one of em. At least that's one thing going for him.
Dorothy's only daughter. She got here fairly recently, not really being involved in much of the film-making until now unlike with Simon's kids, and mainly helps with the actors themselves. She doesn't really like Simon due to his constant undermining of her mother's ideas, but she gets along swell with the actual cast, and wishes deeply for the day they can all be free to make their own movies free of Simon's controlling grasp. Unfortunately, her constant pushback against Simon for the way he treats his staff and his co-director has undoubtedly put her on his bad side, so it's only a matter of time before he finds an excuse to fire her, even if he knows Dorothy won't be happy with him for it.
Damned Paparazzi. He's tried multiple times to sneak on set to leak pictures of Simon's upcoming films, to the point he is banned from the premises (not like that will stop him). With what little information he does make out with, he attempts to turn into wild rumors and hoaxes, starting out rather believable before simply veering off into dramaticized storytelling for the sake of virality. He's one of the original perpetrators of the "Simon is a murderer" rumors, and his brother Arnold has tried multiple times to get him to stop, to no real avail.
One of the original actors before being moved to the production crew. He's relieved, really, because despite how much he loves filmmaking and horror as a concept, he really can't handle spooky things upfront. Unfortunately his time on the crew was rather short-lived as one of the stage lights would fall on top of him and put him out of commission for a long while, to the point Simon just decided to lay him off anyways. He would've sued, but he suffered major amnesia after the accident, and all of the crew were too scared of being fired to be honest about what actually happened to him, so they just claimed he fell down the stairs.
Honestly, he seemed relatively normal at first, albeit a little eccentric and concerningly excited to get his hands on whatever piece of machinery he was left in charge with. He also seemed to prefer the violent parts of the film over the actual scares, being one of those people who roots more for the killer than the victims. His time there didn't last too long before he managed to break one of the lights by messing with it too much and causing it to fall on his co-worker.
The new intern Simon hired after getting rid of Arnold. She's determined to prove herself as capable to him, as she's always had actually quite a big fan of his work, but he mostly just dismisses her as another assistant to do chores for him. There's a lot more to her though, as she's got quite the knack for making costumes, and has even made a couple (albeit very amateur) horror films on her own with a couple friends. Though, now that she's actually working for the man she once admired so much, she begins to realize he's really not as great as she believed, but she lacks the confidence necessary to go back on her own, believing she needs his mentorship in order to be a successful filmmaker.
The first group of actors behind the iconic Fazbear Crew. None of them were very experienced actors, being just a group of film students, but Simon saw potential in them that he intended to bring out of them no matter what, or maybe he just knew since none of them had had jobs before they wouldn't be able to correctly identify when they were being mistreated by him, because man, was it rough. All of them kinda ended up a bit worse for wear as a result of the stress he put them through, with the fifth member Cassidy being the only one of them to really stand up against him, to which she was let go and replaced. The rest of the crew obviously didn't agree with this, and overall with the way Simon treated them, so they soon followed suit and quit of their own accord.
The second group of actors Simon hired to take after the old ones. Somehow, he managed to treat these ones even worse, not even properly crediting any of them for their work. Unfortunately, there wasn't really much they could do about it as Simon always made it explicitly clear he is capable of ruining their lives if they ever dare leave him (really normal behavior from him honestly). Still, one of them tried, and he faced slander & scrutiny so much to the point he struggled to find an acting job anywhere else. Leaving him forever bitter and vengeful towards Simon, waiting for any opportunity to get his payback (which, you'll come to find a lot of people are doing at this point).
An early costume designer for the films that Simon blatantly stole from and screwed over just so he didn't have to pay him any more than he felt like. His life really went downhill after that happened honestly, but hey, at least there's no Mimics in this continuity. Yet.
THE CANON