I Am The Mangle, The Mangle is Me

It wasn’t long after the release of FNAF 1 that Lucy and I started to get into it. Lucy saw fan art on her dash as well as a gif of Foxy running down the corridor and wondered who the unusual characters were, then told me about them and we watched some let’s plays together before buying the game and spending ages trying to survive the week at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. By the time FNAF 2 came out we were very much into the lore and the fandom. I remember on the day of FNAF 2′s release I was on the verge of a blackout and Lucy shook me gently and told me, “FNAF 2 is out!” I thought she meant the demo but to my shock she said, “No, the full game!” That was one of the exceedingly few occasions I have ever successfully fought a blackout!!

We spent the day watching let’s plays and playing the game ourselves. To this day I am so happy we found the 8 bit mini-games ourselves instead of having them spoilt for us. But do you know one thing I didn’t like? The Mangle.

Foxy was my favourite character in FNAF 1. I was excited to see his counterpart in the second game, especially after ‘toy Foxy’ was teased peering out from Pirate’s Cove before FNAF 2′s release. Then the game came out and it turned out the new Foxy was a mess of parts; all battered and beaten up, ripped to shreds and thrown back together. I was gutted, I didn’t like the new Foxy. It was creepy and ugly and kind of grossed me out.

Lucy on the other hand loved Mangle right at the start and seemed to take great delight in my hatred of the damn thing, even changing my wallpaper to one of the images from the game when I eventually had the blackout I’d been fighting all day! It wasn’t long before she changed her mind though when The Mangle decided to pay a visit to the ceiling in the office…

But as the next few days and weeks unfolded I found myself drawn to Mangle more and more. I liked the fact that she seemed tied up deeply in the lore, which had grown thicker and ever more fascinating throughout the second game, with the phone calls and mini-games so intriguing we used to watch endless videos about them, full of theories and speculation.

But beyond that I was drawn to Mangle as a stand-alone character. The gender ambiguity was something I found relatable and comforting; looking like a girl, being referred to as a boy, no one really knowing either way but loving Mangle none the less. More than that, The Mangle is in a chronically physical mess but is constantly putting itself back together and doesn’t let anything stop it from storming through the pizzeria, even hanging from the ceiling when it wants to! It’s as touch as nails despite its’ seemingly fragile composition. I have several chronic medical conditions which seriously affect my quality of life but like Mangle I do my best to keep patching up my parts as best as I can and carrying on.

I became ever fonder of the character over the following months, finally seeing it become my favourite character in the whole franchise. Semi-human Mangle was also my first and currently only FNAF cosplay

It was the first time since I was in my teenage years that I’ve identified with and felt so close to a character. I’ve been asked a couple of times if I was kin with The Mangle and I have to admit that I’d been somewhat confused about what being kin actually meant because different people used different definitions of it when identifying as otherkin, fictionkin etc. I’ve come to conclude that it simply does have different meanings for different people but running behind them all are a strong sense of identifying with a character/creature/animal etc. Maybe that’s what it always was back through my childhood and teens where I would become so drawn to a certain character in whatever TV show or other form of media that I was into at the time that I’d take on that character completely. I was Tails, I was Scully, I was… a lot of other characters that were probably too obscure really for anyone to know. A lot of it was escapism; I was so unhappy as myself that I wanted to be someone else. But I felt very close to and possessive of those characters. I still do <3

After I survived meningitis for the first time in December I started to feel even more attached to Mangle. I guess the character kind of inspired me. I felt like a mess of limbs lying in a pile on the floor. It took months to start rebuilding myself but I was getting there, I was absolutely getting there, but then the worst happened and I contracted meningitis for a second time. And now the process of rebuilding a second time is underway, because what the fuck else am I going to do? I don’t want to be a mess of limbs forever. I’ve got ceilings to climb.

I’d been talking getting a FNAF tattoo since some time last year. I love body art and have a number of tattoos that I’ve designed myself. I have a homestuck sleeve planned which I’d initially wanted to get to coincide with the end of the comic but with my health issues and having fallen behind with reading we weren’t able to catch up on the end until a few weeks ago so I will work out another homestuck-related date for that one. However, that’s what made me think about getting other fandom related tattoos.

There’s an unfair criticism of people who choose to get fandom related tattoos. they’re always supposed to ‘regret it later’. “What happens when you leave the fandom?” This is a subject where there’s no one answer because it’s different for everybody but I look back on all the obsessions I had when I was a kid and into my teens… Sonic, Red Dwarf, The X-Files, Bugs, Pokemon, so many more… not one would I be ashamed to wear on my skin. They are a part of my story. And my story could have ended in December. So I’ve adopted a policy of ‘you only live once’ and decided that I’d rather remember the things in life that have given me joy instead of worrying about spoiling a blank canvas in years to come. Earlier in the year I already marked another fandom that means a lot of Lucy and I with a tattoo that included a Doctor Who quote that was important to us personally, plus the dropping of the bow tie.

I’d been considering a FNAF tattoo for some time and Mangle seemed like the obvious choice for me. I’d had an idea for Mangle looping around my wrist (My ‘Mangle Bangle’ :P) and after recent events it seemed ever more important to me to get this as a tattoo.

I signed my deed poll last week. Finally I am legally John. I had been going back and forth on what to do to celebrate but kept coming back to the idea of the Mangle Bangle ™ because it spoke so much about who I am. The thing that had been holding me back is that I lost my ability to draw a long time ago. As my health declined so did my drawing ability. i used to be able to draw pretty accurate portraits by hand and I loved it, I used to be so immersed in every drawing I did. They’d take hours and hours and I spent some of the happiest hours of my teenage years caked in graphite. The fibromyalgia and CFS have caused me to lose my accuracy bit by bit. I have no co-ordination, my hands no longer do what my brain tells them to. My vision is blurred, My hands hurt too badly to hold a pencil properly any more, and when I do I can’t for any length of time. As my skill deteriorated so did my confidence until i ended up too scared to draw. I had to get over that to draw my Mangle tattoo.

It took me hours, very slowly, little by little to draw her out. I had numerous pictures of Mangle open, going back and forth between them as we listened to music of bands that Mangle wanted to lobe (we have a headcanon… which I admittedly started whilst on pain killers… that Mangle likes to eat the frontal lobes of various band members. Usually Coldplay.) I had always pictured the design as being more realistic, like her FNAF 2 renders, but I had loved the cartoony style of her FNAF World sprites so much that I was torn between the two and slowly, as I started drawing, I found a style that brought together the best of both worlds whilst making her my own. I also jettisoned that second head because I never liked it (I kind of headcanon that it bullies Mangle) and one of the biggest things in making my design was realising that Mangle did not have to be anatomically accurate! the Mangle puts itself back together every night - it can rejoin limbs and parts any way it damn well wants to. So I left off the extra head and shuffled a few parts to make a design that worked better for a tattoo

I had to work in some blue because I have a tradition. I use a certain blue in all of my tattoos. Every single one. Even if it’s just a few dots, like on my hand. It’s just my ‘thing’. So I used the blue as shading on Mangle instead of using grey on the white casing. I thought grey would make those parts blend in too much with the metal endoskeleton anyway… and finally there it was - my finished tattoo design!

And I LIKED IT. For the first time in years I’d made something I was truly happy with <3 in fact, I couldn’t stop looking at it and wrapping it round my wrist to imagine how it would look.

I got the feeling the tattooist who actually tattooed me knew who it was from some of the things he said and the way he worked upon it. he actually spent half the time talking about video games with another tattooist working there (and the other half talking about a friend of theirs who had accidentally ticked the box stating that they were blind when applying for a driving licence… and that their mother apparently made the same mistake?? what??)

It’s weird; my daily pain levels are very high and I feel pain from things like a slight knock or bump a lot more than I should do but I had no pain sensation at all having the tattoo done. the only place I really felt sore even was a little bit on my inner wrist. I have no idea why? My pain perception is so screwed up

WAIT is that the FAN I see???????

Soon the outline was done… and look at the cool imprint from the kitchen towel under my arm while the under side was being tattooed???

It almost looks like part of Mangle! :D

Soon it was time to get the colour put in

And eventually The Mangle was complete!

I AM SO FUCKING HAPPY WITH THIS!!!!!!!

but wAIT IS THAT ANOTHER FAN????

Mangle was duly wrapped and covered for protection but what was kind of cool was that the tattoo naturally bled a tiny bit as tattoos often do and it looked like Mangle had bitten me under the cling film :P

So there it all - all finished and looking amazing <3 I’d wanted to share sooner but have been sick and away from the internet for a few days. Either way, this tattoo might just be my favourite to date - and I feel very safe under Mangle’s protection. Death comes knocking again, she’s going to rip his lobe out :P

Thanks to Lucy for taking all the cool photos of the tattoo being done! I love you so much darling! <3