BEFORE READING: I highly reccomend you either watch, or revisit Dual Process Theory’s “We SOLVED fnaf” video as it is referenced quite heavily in this post, and also they explain things far better than I can! 

Whenever topics surrounding the larger FNAF timeline take place, one of the biggest topics of discussion is UCN and the Security Logbook. HOWEVER, somehow whenever the topic of “the one you shouldn’t have killed” (TOYSHK for short) pop up people in the community are quick to discount newer interpretations because “we’ve already solved it” despite our common solutions having MAJOR holes and issues. 

My primary example of this is the overall consensus mainstream theorists have on the identity of TOYSHK and how frustratingly wrong many seem to be. 

TOYSHK is a male character. 

This is quite literally a fact spoonfed to us via voicelines about this character in UCN (take Mangle and W. Chica’s death lines) and the image of Scott’s son being used to give a face to the character. 

Many people shortly after the release of UCN wanted to know more about this character, as well as the crying child (CC) as we had been given names for most of the MCI victims, but not Golden Freddy. 

This was when the Security Logbook was introduced, giving us two spirits we can simply refer to as “Faded” and “Altered” based on the ways they communicate to both us as the reader and each other. The book itself, as many now know, was a massive puzzle designed to give names to these last two characters which we now know as Cassidy and Dave. 

Seems pretty simple right? However even with that we as a community cannot seem to decide which name belongs to which spirit, or even if the names we’ve found are accurate (sorry Evan believers). 

Many mainstream theorists have opted to labeling Cassidy as TOYSHK and Dave as CC, however I’d like to argue the opposite. I believe (similarly to Dual Process Theory) that the name Cassidy belongs to CC, and that Dave, TOYSHK… is David Murray.

The interpritations of Cassidy as a character being a girl can be easily linked back to Dawko, who upon completing the word search puzzle used she/her pronouns on this character based simply on the fact that this gender-neutral name is more commonly given to girls in Europe. Soon after he and many others would give this name to Faded, TOYSHK with logic tracking that since CC is very obviously a male character, that this assumed to be female name cannot belong to him. 

Adding fuel to the fire, later books would release, showcasing a young girl who just so happened to be named Cassidy. 

Scott has always been known to reuse names across books and movies, however despite him saying outright that these are different universes that follow similar “rules” people STILL took this as immediate evidence that Cassidy MUST be a female character, even going as far as to claim that the pronoun change was a retcon similar to Charlie’s gender swap from FNAF 2-Pizza sim (despite the much longer gap in time giving Scott more time to rework the character but WHATEVER THATS NOT THE TOPIC OF THIS POST). 

But try to remember, these are separate universes and should be treated as such! Characters sharing the same name shouldn’t therefore inform a similar role, unless the role in question is rhyming with the story beats of aformentioned characters. This is why we can use something like The Stitchwraith to understand the complexities of Fredbear’s possession, despite the characters each having different names, stories, and even suits in possesion.

Now again, in reference to Dual Process Theory, I believe Cassidy is the name belonging to CC.. not TOYSHK. The clues like DPT said are all given to us via Altered text, ALTERED letters, ALTERED’S NAME!! But where does that leave Dave? And why the heck do I think he’s David Murray?

This I believe actually goes back to another interview Scott had with Dawko, where he discussed his methods of writing a story. He throws an idea out there, and follows the trail of that idea until it reaches its destination. At the time before UCN we didn’t know there would be any one spirit more vengeful than the next, we didnt know there was “one he shouldn’t have killed”? Like this guy shouldn’t have killed ANY of them?! So what makes this kid in UCN so special? I believe that’s the story the modern timeline is trying to tell us. I believe Scott is one again following a thread, the thread of TOYSHK, David’s thread. I mean imagine it, a mother and child he kills to ruin the life of a man who’s company he wished to absorb, the mother killed in a brutal agonizing fire, while the son is lured off by an immitation of her he thought he could trust. This child from the 70’s, so lost so confused, so hateful, latching on and continuing to corrupt the very land this monster sought to commit more attrocities on, linking himself to the remnants of his killers son so that ONE DAY, he could burn just as he caused his mother to all those years ago.

Does this theory rely on a lot of others to be true? Yeah.. but I think its worth bringing up regardless. Especially as we get more and more connections from Henry to the Murray family, suggesting he and Fiona may have been related in some way allowing for yet another thread to meet its end.

Anyways, I know this one was long but I really wanted to get more people thinking about UCN’s placement in the newer lore. Tysm for reading! Feedback and discussions is appreciated.

The one you shouldn’t have killed IS NOT Cassidy (spec/debunk)