Friday Night Funkin'

None other than the funky beep bop game from Newgrounds itself

I learnt of FNF' when Week 6 was already released but it was still some time before the Week 7 teasers/progress had everyone hyped up. I was especially into it during the FNF Animation Jam (Feb-Mar 2021), but "left the fandom" shortly after Week 7 was released and the Kickstarter was announced (a.k.a when updates to the existing "demo" version stopped being made), due to feeling like there's "nothing left to see" aside from modded crossovers with series I was neither familiar with nor interested in. At the moment of writing this, I'm kind of into it again.

Mods! Mods! Mods!

When talking about FNF', you just cannot NOT talk about the mods. I mean, FNF''s booming popularity is most probably thanks to mods! And I myself wouldn't have learnt of the game were it not for j8khero's GF vs. Miku video (iirc). And how creative they are make the game very fun to play. Yeah mods are just cool man.

Here's some personal favorites:
VS. Whitty
Has everything from dialogues, original sprites and music to event-ed gameplay changes, as opposed to just reskinning and using existing songs. Opened my eyes, and probably some others too, about mods' potential.
Happy Pico Reskin
FNF': CG5 Edition
VS. Hex
I've always been of the opinion that the music reminds me of Chinatowns, for some reason.
VS. Garcello
FNF' Minus
The designs were really cool, though I'm of the opinion that Minus!GF looks like she's wearing a Japanese school swimsuit or something.
Everywhere at the end of Funk
It lead me to give one of the EATEOT tracks (don't remember which) a listen and read through the Wikipedia page on dementia. Too depressing for me so I didn't want to follow its updates.
FNF' Soft
I was surprised with the fleshed out story (it just gotta happen when every other mods' sypnoses were always something like "BF saw someone and immediately proceeded to rap-battle them"). There are a lot of things to like about this mod, but I personally absolutely adored the dialogue icons.
VS. Miku
Soft Mod One-shot (a.k.a Ben's Adventures)
I live for GF's sassy expressions.
VS. Sunday
VS. Doxxie
She's just feral man, love her. I was obssessed with the song for some time.
Twinsomnia
Another sock.clip mod that amazes me at how complete it is.
Arrow Funk
Amazing mod, funky art style and color palette. I especially love the Game Over OST. Also, first time I saw the fighting/dodging mechanics implemented, amazing! My eyes popped out of the sockets at how many roles Yoisabo took in its development tbh.
Funk City: Rewind
The vibes are just drippin', man.

Misc comments: I have a really good impression of bbpanzu's mods, they all have that fully-diy feeling AND each is always creative one way or another AND they are a lot in number. Maybe other modders are just good as, if not better than him, but until I manage to read all the popular modders' CVs I'm just gonna crown him no. 1.

Animations

I watched them way more back when I was first into FNF' than I am today, probably because I don't use Youtube anymore. I won't list what I like here (there's too many!). I like everything from fully hand-drawn animated videos to sprite animations put over a funny audio.

Artists

I was trying to get into using Instagram back then and followed a bunch of people but now I don't really remember many names, so this list isn't as long as it probably should be.

Anyway, here are some people whose art style I like and who happen to do FNF' art:
n_a_n_k_a__
I watched one of their speedpaints and immediately fell in love with art style.
eyebaus
I like the softness of their art. My remembering them might be more because I followed them on Tumblr though.
mapledoesart
bfxpicolove
((Or picoxbflove?? idk idrr). Anyway they changed their handle.)
cortaUNAtijera
8KAI_oxo7410
FNF_modaesi
d_o_l_d_o_l

Fics

Bro, 90% of these are BF/Pico.

It was wild for me when it was made canon that BF and Pico used to be exes, because personally I believe that the devs weren't aware (or didn't care) how much potential and opportunities they have given fic authors to work with. In the end, the revelation/canonization led to a lot of interesting fics to read, so I had fun and was happy.

Other than that, Pico is canonically schizophreniac, insomniac and has a so-called "unstable personality", while BF has ADHD and is autistic; furthermore, the BF/GF/Pico polycule is, for some reason, one of the more popular ships (because writers liked BF/Pico but didn't want to leave out BF/GF is what I'd wager), so I sure got to read about a lot of topics I normally wouldn't have run into.

Fics that I like:
friday night fanfic!!
First fic that I read and liked! Too bad BF and Pico never did bro things like kiss a little :((
RadioWaves
I like how the development of the polycule is depicted. The fic is also very informative in regards to schizophrenia - it helped me understand the condition better. Too bad the fic triggered the author's trauma and so they stopped, but it's very understandable and I wouldn't rather they had forced themself to write on.
Bro Go To Sleep
Nothing could be better than a well-written combination of fluff and comedy :)
Before You Met Her...
At the time it blew my mind how good drama it had was (remember the original game had like minimal lore). Now with all the additional trivia drops from the devs it just felt OOC, but still the spirit of brainrot is still there and I love it.
burning memories.
Flawless
Another fic that blew my mind for the good setting and writing and drew me into a short brainrot period.
boyfriend is a himbo
*gestures towards title* What else can I say?
my boy's got his own ringtone
Playing Hooky
ringtone (formerly number one victory royale yeah fortnite we bout to get down (get down))
Damn, that's an aspect of trauma I didn't think of. Most probably on hiatus for the same reason as RadioWaves (though of course, this is just my speculation).
Relief
We Meet Again
A Left Turn Into The Dairy Section
We're Gonna Be Just Fine
Hit and Run
Good drama and development that stays somewhat closer to the original setting, finally! ...And of course it has to be on hiatus.
Just a Couple of Posers
We wouldn't be complete without some Soft Mod goodness. Huge-ass kudos to the author for the way they wrote the characters and the relationships - they're all so damn great.
Phone Call
Another Soft Mod goodness. So relatable it felt real.

People don't write new fics as often these days, so I want to write some myself. Get the feeling that if I do they won't be good [enough to satisfy myself] though because I never write... haha.

Some more rambling

FNF' was my first rhythm game ever, and it helped that the gameplay was simple while the music was all bops - it made the game easy to get into.

Also, it's so nice how the devs encourage the modding community and even praises its creativity.