Disclaimer: This post contains headcanons of mine, so keep that in mind going into this post. Additionally, due to the nature of this post, a TL;DR will not be included. Rather, specific "connections" will be highlighted instead, so feel free to jump to whatever one interests you most!

In the past, I've made a few "speculation" posts regarding Candy's and POPGOES and ways they could connect with one another. This is because of both series being set in the same universe/canon, known as the "CPU". Despite being in the same continuity however, finding ways that these series are connected is rather hard. That's because of the large time gap in between them.

The "Five Nights at Candy's" games are set in the past, the furthest they reach in the timeline being the year 2007. POPGOES Evergreen, on the other hand, takes place one year after FNaF 3, that being 2024. As you can probably tell, that large gap between the two series makes it nearly impossible to actually reference each other at all. Impossible to reference Popgoes in Candy's because they don't even exist yet, and nearly impossible in POPGOES because Candy's "impact" on the timeline nearly doesn't affect POPGOES at all, and of course the Candy's animatronics and location being long dead by then.

Even with it being difficult to find ways to connect them, I've managed to find a few in the past, some more notable than others. Today though, I'm going to discuss a few more, while also revisiting previous connections I've made. Think of this post as the grand "CPU Connection" post, where every possible connection that can be made, is contained here.

With that all out of the way, let's begin by revisiting the past "connections" I've already made.

Rowboatics Corp.

This one I believe is by far the easiest way to connect the two series together. For context, "Rowboatics Corp." is a company featured in the "Five Nights at Candy's" series. Their main and most notable contribution is of course, robotics. As far as I can tell, they created every animatronic in FNaC, from The Rat & The Cat, to Candy and the gang. Alongside this, the fourth FNaC game will focus on them entirely. So, no doubt they've done some "sketchy" things in the shadows.

Moving away from that, Rowboatics can easily connect the two series together by mentioning it in "POPGOES Evergreen". Fritz, the owner and creator of "The Popgoes Pizzeria", is an inventor who's an expert in robotics. It wouldn't be surprising if he got his interest of robotics and the like from a company dedicated to stuff precisely like that.

Basically, Fritz bringing up Rowboatics in a phone call and how its what led to his interest in robotics, can connect Candy's and POPGOES with one another in a pretty cool way.

Schmidt's & Glades' relationship

"Five Nights at Candy's" and "POPGOES" revolve mainly around two different families: Schmidt and Glade. That first name should sound familiar, as its the last name of the FNaF 1 night guard, Mike Schmidt. It is also the last name of every protagonist in FNaC (excluding FNaC 4), that being Mary and Marylin Schmidt. Glade is the last name of Fritz, the creator of Popgoes, along with his daughter, Bonnie. These two families have a history with animatronics, and not a good one. Having the families interact with one another would be a pretty straight forward way to connect their respective series.

Now, you're probably thinking that's impossible, cause of the time gap I mentioned in the beginning. Well, to that I bring you a cancelled concept for a game: "POPGOES Hystery". This game was literally going to connect the two series together by having Fritz and Mary talk with one another about their pasts. It's incredibly unknown in the community, it's so unknown that one time, Kane himself was surprised when someone remembered it.

I bring this scrapped concept up, because the fact that this even existed to some extent means that the Schmidt's are still kicking when "POPGOES" happens. So, the idea behind that scrapped concept could be incorporated into "POPGOES Evergreen" to some degree. For example, in the original "POPGOES" from 2016, during a phone call Fritz mentions an online friend who helped him overcome his trauma of the "Toys". That online friend could have potentially been Mary Schmidt, suggesting a method to Fritz that helped her overcome her own fears. Furthering this idea, who's to say that only Fritz and Mary were friends? Maybe their daughters, Mary and Bonnie, were online friends too. The whole "scarecrow" thing suggested by an online friend may not be in the new canon for the "CPU", but again, the idea behind Mary being online friends with Fritz could work for Evergreen.

The Shadows

Ok, to be completely honest, this one is pretty much a headcanon on my part, more so than anything else in this post. Not to mention that its connection between the two series is very paper thin and if it were to happen, majority of people wouldn't notice it. Anyway, in the "CPU", three shadows exist. These include Shadow Rat, Cat/Candy, and Freddy. (RWQ I don't count as one, since they just foreshadow "Blackrabbit" and nothing more.)

Shadow Rat and Cat are the spirits of the actors who died in Rat and Cat. We know this because of the fact that Rat and Cat are obviously haunted. And Emil has confirmed their shadow counterparts are them when they aren't present. That's why Shadow Candy only appears at the restaurant, because The Cat is over at the factory Rowboatics owns, while Shadow Rat never appears at the restaurant because they're physically there. Keeping that in mind, what if Shadow Freddy is the same way?

The problem with this is Shadow Freddy's original role in the old POPGOES canon. To keep this brief, Shadow Freddy was a rumor that spread because of "Purple Guy" killing kids. They weren't real, so if that's still the case for Evergreen, then they don't have a connection to Shadow Rat and Cat. Not unless Kane changed that, and turned them into what those two are. And the only real way to make that happen in a way that makes sense, is to make them a spring lock victim.

See what I mean when I said this was basically all just a headcanon? It relies on this headcanon of mine for Shadow Freddy, otherwise it won't work. Because of that and not wanting to get further into it, I'm going to move along to something newish that can connect the two series.

Dat Taste

This one will be very brief. In "Five Nights at Candy's", there's a soda brand called Dat Taste. It appearing in "POPGOES Evergreen" would connect the two series, although in a very subtle way. That's really about it. Something to note is I'm pretty sure Kane has already confirmed that Dat Taste is going to appear in Evergreen. I don't think a lot of people know this though, so if it is true, now you know!

Fredbear's Family Diner

So far, I've been thinking of ways that Candy's could connect to POPGOES. How about we turn that around and I talk about a way POPGOES can connect to Candy's? Or, I guess more specifically FNaF. The main problem with this connection is that I'm not sure if it can even work.

In the "CPU", Fredbear's has a notable difference to the canon FNaF Fredbear's in terms of their design. That being that in the "CPU", Fredbear and Spring Bonnie wear brown accessories, not purple ones. Now, when it comes to Fredbear's, it's common knowledge that it was the first establishment relating to Freddy's. I don't know when exactly it was created in the "CPU", but if it existed as far back as 1962, then Candy's can reference it.

The third game in the series takes place in Mary's old bedroom, and in it are all kinds of toys. Emil has to change most of those toys for the updated version since they referenced Youtubers. Maybe one of those toys gets replaced by a plushie of Fredbear and Springbonnie? The problem here is of course when Fredbear's Family Diner was created. Because if it was made at any point after 1962, this reference can not work.

I do have another connection involving Fredbear's, one that's yet another head canon of mine. Rowboatics has been around since the 1960's, so it could be possible for them to create the "spring locks". It should also be considered that "Fredbear's Family Diner" most likely started out as a lone business, which is kind of implied in its name, before "Fazbear Entertainment" came along. A lone restaurant getting their animatronics made by another company sounds pretty plausible to me. How that would be brought up in the "CPU" though, I haven't the foggiest idea. Probably couldn't, but it's an interesting thought.

Candy's

There literally can not be any other connections more direct and obvious than this one. Basically, Fritz himself brings up Candy's in a phone call, that's it. Considering Candy's was open at the same time, and presumably is in the same area as the Freddy's in FNaF 2 and 1, it isn't to hard to imagine Fritz visting Candy's. Mary herself visited the FNaF 2 location, after all.

That about wraps it up. Apologies for the length, I'm just very interested and fascinated that these series are in the same universe, as you can tell. Would love to ask Kane or Emil about connections between their series, but from what Kane has said in the past, they seem to not really have any idea themselves, and any they did have they probably would want to keep a secret. Anyway, thanks for reading and feel free to let me know your own thoughts!