Weirdest thing, but I kind of want to rewrite SOTF as an actual novel and not a fanfiction. It's already well developed and I have a clear story in mind, and alongside that it'll allow me to backtrack and preemptively add character details, ideas, concepts, arcs, etc.
The fact it's fnaf has actually become really inhibiting because there're some things that need to happen, and when my friends read it they often can't look past the paint to see the body. I usually write fanfictions as a way to test ideas and concepts before delving straight in, saves me the hassle of creating a whole cast, and my original story I've been writing has hit a road block because I need more skill to effectively combine the various plot threads into a well-sewn and hemmed structure. I've already melded together the plot for this and I don't have to do as much work to polish it up.
But yeah, there are numerous details in the story people just miss entirely when they read it (at least my friends) and I've traced it down to the fact it is a fanfiction. I don't want to remove SOTF, but I also worry about whether it might influence the rewrite, so I'm a little split on how to go about it. I posted it to AO3 under the same name, so I'll likely leave it up there and just continue here, but if not I'll use one of my backup emails and create a new account to prevent that influence and minimize risk to the story's impact.
A lot of what I have planned can't be written competently because some readers want to focus on the fnaf aspect, so they're utterly thrown out when they see something like the later chapters where serious stuff is happening and they're struck with the fact; "Oh no, it's not satirical."
This isn't meant to insult anybody, either. It's no one's fault and simply is the farthest I can stretch it as a fanfiction before it's just way too much.