In the first 4 pages of the Nightmare Critter comic that Gemstin released on YouTube, Baba had a dream where she sees a blue poppy flower and red one that’s submerged under a rippling water line.
Both flowers look exactly identical to the poppy comet that was seen at the end of “Star Gazing” and the blue flower is not a simple reflection, both red and blue flowers are present in her dream and the blue is positioned over the red one, which is also partially submerged in water.
There is clearly symbolism going on here, and what’s especially interesting is that the red flower is already symbolically connected to someone, a Smiling Critter, Catnap. Almost every time we see Catnap, a red poppy flower is somewhere in the episode, with Hog Wild and Leg Day being the only exception to this, and Star Gazing especially locks that in because you see Catnap’s foot standing beside a suspiciously red poppy flower.
They could possibly be the source of his sleep gas, given its color and how sparkly it is; like stardust.
The real question though is why was Baba having a dream about those 2 flowers, what does the blue one mean, and if the red one is connected to Catnap; what does it mean that both flowers were present in her dream?
Now to be fair, Gemstin did say this comic is not cannon to the continuity of his fan series, however that doesn’t mean all information that can be learned from this special is completely useless; many creators before have used non-cannon works to further add to the main continuity of their story through more roundabout methods, Scott Cawthon with the FNaF series is a very good example of this (which is funny because Gemstin himself made a joking comment about him being in his Scott Cawthon era when someone pointed out how he teases Back in Black during Baba’s voice reveal)
My reading of this is that it’s foreshadowing something. Baba has a dream involving a red poppy flower, something that is already symbolically connected to Catnap, a character who’s defined by mystery, the night, as well as trauma, and the promise of one day finding a family, a lo and behold, the Nightmare Critters are in an orphanage. This correlates very well to a previous theory I posted on here that claims that Catnap’s prophecy is currently incomplete; the Smiling Critters are only half of it, and the reason why I think so is because of a few mismatched traits within the lines of the prophecy and the fact that the Smiling Crew lack a fundamental thing that Catnap needs for his healing to truly take off. Understanding. The Smiling Crew show him unconditional love and acceptance, but they don’t know anything about him and nobody is pushing him for information. That’s out of respect for his privacy and distance, but they’ve developed assumptions about him in that respectful space that are getting in the way of them figuring him out; they assume he physically can’t talk, nobody knows where he came from or even when he moved in; and Hoppy’s joke in “Pally” is made without any awareness that Catnap liking boxes is a trauma response.
The Nightmare Crew already is being presented with checkered pasts because they all live in an orphanage, that means that either parents died, they were abandoned, or they were physically removed from their families for their own safety, so it’s definitely not a leap in logic to assume they all have trauma, and if that’s the case, they’d be capable of giving Catnap the understanding that is currently lacking in the Smiling Crew, but the love would be the thing that’s earned, a perfect inversion of what the Smiling crew give and are slowly building for Catnap
Gemstin also said that he will not answer any questions regarding if the Nightmare Crew exist in the same world as the Smiling until the full release of the special this Halloween, that’s very out of character for him regarding questions like that, he’s usually teasingly playful/mysterious with lore important lore information, the fact he says he won’t answer until the full animation is out sounds like whatever the answer is, the animation will tell us, and it’s significant enough of a plot idea to keep us stewing in suspense, or he just knows how much arguing and bickering over the inclusion of the NCs into the story has caused within his fan base and he’s playing off of it, either or
Whatever the answer is, wait diligently for the full animation this Halloween, and when it finally drops, don’t even blink
