Video Game / Friday Night Funkin' Soft

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Friday Night Funkin' Soft is a overhaul mod for Friday Night Funkin', created by ShinyTrexx and an entire team of people and released on August 10th, 2021 with a complete overhaul update released on June 23rd, 2024.

Benjamin Fairest, the equivalent to Boyfriend in this Alternate Universe, is a very timid and shy wannabe painter whose...er, boyfriend, is a spray-painter and high school-dropout named Pico N. Grounds. He was abused by his parents his entire life, and wanted to escape the horrible tyranny. But in a world where status decides your fame, it would be a tough challenge for the duo. However, Benjamin is confident about becoming a world-famous painter, and if it means having to fight through some people including his parents through music, then so be it.

Song List: (Sung by:)^note In V1, most weeks had songs ported from the original game.

This work contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: It's implied from Benjamin's comments during Week 5 that Grace's parents are psychologically manipulative. Ultimately averted however, as Word of God stated that Grace was overly sheltered by her parents rather than abused. Played Straight with Benjamin, however, whose parents are both emotionally and physically abusive.invoked
• Adaptation Name Change: Here, Boyfriend is known as Benjamin, Girlfriend is known as Grace, and Senpai is known as Sven Kai Iwata. Due to Tankman being Pico's father in this universe, his surname is changed from "Captain" to "Grounds".
• Adaptation Personality Change:
  • The majority of the characters got hit with this, save Skid and Pump, and to a lesser extent Pico, as he and BF are still together here. The most glaring, however, is Boyfriend, from a rapping Elective Unintelligible Fearless Fool to a timid, anxious, depressed painter with Abusive Parents.
  • This is Zig-Zagged with the crowd at V2, as their anger towards the Fairest Couple (after they unintentionally show their true colors) are downplayed; they simply look disappointed rather than being downright furious like in the original, however it is implied the crowd still chased the Fairest Couple away.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Benjamin (the mod's Boyfriend) is in a relationship with Pico rather than Grace (the mod's Girlfriend), as he is gay and therefore unable to return her feelings.
  • Due to Sven being far less pushy than Senpai, he and Grace become the mod's Beta Couple in Chapter 6.
• Adaptational Context Change: In the original game, Senpai is a character from Girlfriend's favorite game, and fought Boyfriend for a chance to date her. In Soft, Sven is a real flesh-and-blood person that Grace met after the events of Chapter 3, and fights Benjamin out of anger for upsetting her at the time.
• Adaptational Mundanity: Zig-Zagged. Some of the more fantastical elements of Friday Night Funkin' are absent. Grace and the Fairests are humans rather than demons, Monster only shows up in Benjamin's dreams, and Sven is a real person instead of a spirit trapped in a video game character. However, the cameos in V2 still included an android, a Little Bit Beastly, a furry, and even a Soft version of the Impostor.
• Adaptational Nice Guy:
  • While downplayed in Grace's parents' cases, the mod creator has stated that Grace was not abused by her parents and was more "overly sheltered", despite the Dearests conditioning their daughter that she would be married to her childhood friend.invoked
  • While still obsessed with beating his opponent at any cost, Sven's reason is Anger Born of Worry for Grace, rather than Senpai being a poor sport. He's also implicitly not bigoted like Senpai and Word of God reveals that he treats gay people like a loving family.
  • In V2, while Grace still questions Benjamin as to why he's choosing a criminal (Pico) over her, she is much more understanding towards him compared to her initial behavior in V1, and her selfishness (seen in a post-cutscene for "It's Complicated") is toned down considerably.
• Adaptational Species Change: In this mod's lore, Grace and her family are humans instead of demons.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • As bad as mainline Mommy Mearest and Daddy Dearest are (in the base game at least), there are no implications of them being abusive towards Girlfriend, at least not beyond overprotection anyways. Here, it's implied that they are psychologically manipulative towards Grace.
  • What little information known about Boyfriend's parents paints them as supportive of their son and hard working. The Fairests, Benjamin's equivalents, beat and emotionally abuse him as the central antagonists.
• Adapted Out:
  • "Bopeebo", "Monster", all 3 of Pico's songs, "Satin Panties", "Cocoa" and "Winter Horrorland" are completely gone in V1. As of the Chapter 6 update, all of the vanilla songs are replaced with completely original ones.
  • Spirit is removed in his entirety from "Spikes", the game's equivalent to "Thorns". Downplayed with Monster, whom is replaced with a completely retooled character that ties into the alternate storyline presented in the mod, although he appears in Chapter 5 as an ornament and on a poster in "Genesis".
  • Downplayed with Daddy Dearest and Mommy Mearest. They are still present in the backstory of the game as the parents of Grace, but they do not make a physical appearance due to Benjamin's parents taking their original counterparts' roles. Similarly, Tankman's Soft counterpart is implied to be one of Pico's parents, who are only mentioned at the end of the epilogue.
  • There is no Santa that appears alongside the Fairests in Chapter 5, and the Background Freaks are not present for any of Sven's songs.
  • The cameo characters from other FNF mods are completely absent after V2's release, being replaced by a completely original (Soft version) crowd. This also meant that Grace was not among the attendees who witnessed the Fairest's true colors, making it unknown if she did saw their true nature off-screen (once Benjamin finally stands up to them).
  • Boyfriend, along with the chapter he appears in, is absent from the V2 update. Due to their absence, the story skips to the day of the double date rather than showing what happens the night before.
• Affectionate Nickname:
  • Pico calls Benjamin "Softie" and Benjamin calls Pico "Toughie".
  • Grace calls Benjamin "Benji" or "Benny".
• Alternate Self: In ???, Benjamin meets Boyfriend from the canon Friday Night Funkin' universe, where he challenges him to a rap battle.
• Ambiguously Human: Benjamin's parents for the most part look like humans, but they sport glowing yellow pupils upon closer inspection. It is never made clear if they're ordinary humans, angels, or demons.
• Art Evolution: The Week 6 update adds in all-new 2D models for the Fairest Couple and Grace.
• Bilingual Bonus: Skid's hoodie has "Ayu" written on it, while Pump's hoodie has "Dalo" written on it. When put together, they spell "Ayudalo", which translates to "Help him" in Spanish.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Both Father Fairest and Mother Mairest come off as kind and caring parental figures at first. But when Benjamin defies their orders, they cut off the demeanors and reveal their true abusive natures.
• Bookends: Pico is both the first and last opponent of Story Mode.
• Blatant Lies: At one point, Mother Mairest says there is nothing wrong with their family. There is something wrong with their family, alright. … though that’s just an understatement to how bad it is.
• Broken Pedestal: Implied by the audience in Chapter 5's.
  • In V1, similar to Week 6 in the base game, the first song shows an audience of Father Fairest and Mother Mairest's fans happily cheering them on. But once the second song comes around and Benjamin reveals their true natures, the audience's reactions range from broken-hearted, bewildered, disgusted and furious. To rub some much-deserved salt in the wound, said audience is full of mod characters known for being incredibly dangerous if pissed off (such as Ruv, Sarvente, A.G.O.T.I., and Neon), meaning that it's unlikely they'd be able to get out unscathed.
  • In V2, the crowd's expression's change in "Hope" but it's much more subtle; they are initially happy to visit the Fairest fan-meet, until they bore witness to the couple's true colors finally realizing how they mistreated their son, which change into disappointment towards their supposed "idols". The cutscene for post-"Genesis" implies their disappointment turned into anger as the crowd chased the Fairest Couple away.
• Calling the Old Man Out: By the time of "Hope", Benjamin has had enough of his parents and their Domestic Abuse, telling them that he will not let them turn him into a "mindless slave", saying that parents are supposed to protect and care for their children, which neither of them have ever done for him, and that he does not consider them to be his parents and that they never will be, as well as saying that he knows now that love isn't about taking away one's dreams, happiness, trust in others or childhood. Judging from Pico's expression after Benjamin gives his speech, he's very proud of Benjamin for standing up to his parents.
• Cathartic Scream: At the climax of "Genesis", Benjamin's second battle against Soft Monster, he unleashes a particularly powerful one to symbolize him taking control of his life.
• Childhood Friend Romance: One-sided. While in this mod Benjamin (Boyfriend) and Grace (Girlfriend) are childhood friends and have indeed had crushes on each other since they were kids, Benjamin is dating Pico while Grace still has feelings for Benjamin and tries to get him to leave Pico. Grace is eventually able to move on and find a Second Love in Sven.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Pastels are meant to represent that a character's hiding something about themselves, while darker/bold clothing represents being more open and honest. Benjamin, the Fairests, and Grace have mostly pastel clothing, while Pico and Sven wear darks.
  • Layering pastels on darks is an indicator of another side to their personality: Sven layers dark purple leather over a pastel sweater, hinting at his Hidden Heart of Gold, while Soft Monster is entirely dark save for a torn brightly-colored shirt, showing how thin his inspiration Father Fairest's pleasant veneer is.
• Common Crossover: It's not uncommon to see artists create soft versions of characters from other mods. There's even a fan mod based on Sunday Night Suicide that has it's own page.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • Father Fairest and Mother Mairest are similar to Daddy Dearest and Mommy Mearest in that they are famous musicians who disapprove of their children dating someone. However, Girlfriend's parents at least still cared for their daughter and just came off as a little overprotective, not really having a reason to dislike Boyfriend other than the fact that he's dating Girlfriend. The Fairests, on the other hand, had a reason to disapprove of Pico because he was involved in a school shooting, but that's not entirely true, considering the true culprits behind it. They don't truly care for their son's happiness, and just want him to follow in their footsteps, even if it takes physical and verbal abuse to get him to do what they want. Even though it's implied that the Dearests were possibly engaging in psychological manipulation towards Grace, they utterly despise the Fairests for their physical abuse of Benjamin.
  • Monster was a Humanoid Abomination of unknown origin. Being a Soft-Spoken Sadist who wanted to eat Boyfriend and Girlfriend to satisfy his hunger. Soft Monster is but a hallucination in Benjamin's head who doesn't speak a single word, being a physical manifestation of Benjamin's fear of his parents' abuse. He disappears once Benjamin lets go of his fear.
  • Senpai was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing that fights a guy in an established relationship purely because of arrogance, and is a sore loser to the point of insulting the very girl he was fighting for when things don't go his way. His counterpart Sven instead challenges Benjamin on Grace's behalf, and only becomes enraged because he believes that Benjamin and Pico were callous about breaking Grace's heart in Chapter 3.
• Cover Version: Covers of the Vocaloid songs "Rolling Girl" (sung by Benjamin) and "Lag Train" (sung by Grace and Sven) appear in the freeplay menu, complete with visuals referencing popular music videos for them.
• Clothing Reflects Personality: Benjamin wears a comfortable sweatshirt and beanie with subdued colors to represent his sensitivity, and Pico wears a hoodie with a mask because he's accused of being a school shooter and has to keep a low profile.
• Darker and Edgier: This mod is a darker take on Friday Night Funkin', and unlike the main game and most of the other mods, the main antagonists' actions are played more seriously.
• Dating What Daddy Hates:
  • Played for Drama with the Fairests: Father Fairest derisively refers to Pico as a "street rat" while Mother Mairest calls him a "pest".
  • Grace claims that her parents would kill Sven, a rough bad boy with a temper, if they ever found out she was dating him behind their backs. Implying that they would never approve of them dating.
• Death Glare: The Fairest couple give these to Benjamin as their stages progress, but the crowner is the mass glare they get from the majority of the audience during "Hope" after Benjamin outs their true colors before them in V1.
• Domestic Abuse:
  • One of the two trigger warnings in the warning message are "Implied domestic abuse" and "Physical signs of domestic abuse".
  • While not entirely shown, Father Fairest is physically abusive to Benjamin, even using his cigarette to burn him in the neck, while Mother Mairest is verbally abusive to the latter and in the V2 version of Chapter 4's ending, she tries to slap him before he and Pico jump out of the cars they're on.
• Drink-Based Characterization: Word of God specifies the favorite drinks of Benjamin, Pico, and Grace. Benjamin's Trademark Favorite Drink is hot chocolate befitting his sweet and shy nature, while Pico prefers a stronger drink like sparkling vodka to match with his tough demeanor. Grace prefers a non-alcoholic cocktail, which fits with her more mature, but free-spirited personality.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Twitter posts from the official FNF Soft account revealed the sprites for Benjamin, Pico, and Grace for the V2 update.
  • Strangely, unused sprites of Soft Tankman's health bar icon can be found in the game's files, despite him being mentioned in the epilogue as someone Benjamin and Pico will meet later.
• Easily Forgiven: Despite nearly pulling a knife on him prior to "Spikes", Sven is forgiven by Benjamin and their singing battle is ruled in his favor. Once Sven has calmed down, he considers Benjamin a Worthy Opponent.
• Expy Coexistence: Downplayed, Benjamin meets the real canon Boyfriend, the character he is based off of, but instead of existing in reality, they meet each other in a dream.
• Faux Affably Evil: Both Father Fairest and Mother Mairest initially come off as nicer than Daddy Dearest and Mommy Mearest, until Benjamin defies their orders. Then, their mask of politeness falls off...
• Hate Sink: Father Fairest and Mother Mairest are easily the most unlikable characters in the mod, as well as other mods and Friday Night Funkin' in general, for how much they tormented Benjamin over the years and their lack of redeeming or cool qualities.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: "Spikes" ends in Sven hitting enough notes to trigger a Game Over, regardless of how well the song was played. Despite this, the story continues and the level is counted as cleared.
• Incompatible Orientation: Grace is deeply in love with Benjamin but he is gay and doesn't return her feelings which is what causes tension between them.
• Innocently Insensitive: Skid and Pump cheerfully talk about Father Fairest in front of Benjamin unaware that the man has been abusing him.
• Interquel: The cover of "Lag Train" is depicted happening shortly after the end of Chapter 3, when Grace and Sven first met.
• Ironic Name:
  • The "Fairests" are anything but fair.
  • The mod's title itself: Friday Night Funkin' Soft. Inverted, however, in terms of Benjamin's character and the more subdued setting.
  • Sven is referred to as "Soft Senpai" by the devs. He's a knife-wielding, leather-clad Jerk with a Heart of Gold, delinquent here, a far cry from the "soft" aesthetic (of which Senpai would thematically be a better fit).
• Irony: In V1, nearly every Chapter featured songs from the original game. ???, the one Chapter that actually was set in the world of Friday Night Funkin', featured original songs instead.
• Joke Character: The secret song "im crashing out" has Soft Goku as an opponent, whom is a moving png that looks the exact same as original Goku save for the addition of glasses and his gi being recolored to pink. The song is even composed by Top 10 Awesome, a channel known for parodying other mod showcase channels. In Chapter 6, he has an extremely rare chance of appearing in the background with a more fleshed-out design.
• Kick the Dog: What Father Fairest says to Benjamin in the opening of Chapter 5's "Hope":
  Father Fairest: You know... If you just did as you were told, you wouldn't need to wear that damn sweatshirt all the time. You'd have nothing to hide. You could actually call yourself a man.
• Meaningful Background Event: During Chapter 5 in V1, Grace can be seen in Pico's place in the background of the original week. After Benjamin gives his Calling the Old Man Out speech to his parents (coupled with the Mairest's unintentionally revealing their true colors) and reveals that Grace's parents were nearly the same in front of the entire audience, she appears surprised in the background. Completing Week ??? will present dialogue that reveals that Grace has finally moved on and is now dating who is presumably this universe's version of Senpai.
• Mirror Boss: In Week ???, Boyfriend lowers Benjamin's health every time he sings a note, but never directly KOs him (though missing a note at minimum health will cause a game over). This reflects how the player character increases his health by hitting the correct notes at the right time but is never able to KO the antagonist.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Benjamin asks where Skid and Pump went, Pico responds that they got into a white van; this is a covert reference to Frank, a character from Spooky Month who drives around in a white van and is friends with Skid and Pump.
  • Pico sprays a can of purple paint in Father Fairest's face, making him look like he has the purple skin of the original game's Daddy Dearest.
• Named by the Adaptation: As revealed by the devs in a tweet, Boyfriend's real name is Benjamin Fairest, while Girlfriend's name is Grace. GF, Benjamin's nickname for her, is meant to stand for Grace Fairest, which (as written in the tweet) is the name she wanted.
• Nice Guy:
  • The original Boyfriend — while choosing not to speak English, as usual — is implied that what he's saying to Benjamin is friendly banter and is concerned when Benjamin is putting himself down.
  • Pico is shown to be a caring boyfriend to Benjamin despite being forced to live in the streets and doesn't seem to hold any hard feelings towards Grace after she called him a "school shooter".
• No Animals Were Harmed: An alternate example of this trope is seen at the end of Chapter 2, where the narrator clarifies that "no spooky bois were harmed in the creation of this chapter", in reference to how Pico says the two got into a white van while Benjamin was struggling with Soft Monster.
• Noodle Incident: According to a tweet made by the official Twitter, no one but Pico knows what happened to the Fairests after the Week 5 incident.
• Punny Name: Pico's full name here is Pico N. Grounds. No points awarded as to what that is a play on.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • In Father Fairest and Mother Mairest's respective final songs and "Hope" (at least in V1), their eyes glow red when they have sadistic expressions in their idle animations and get angry when they sing.
  • Soft Monster, at least in V1, has a red eye in his appearance.
• Role Swap AU: Several characters take on swapped roles from the original game:
  • While still the player character, Benjamin's the one with antagonistic celebrity parents rather than his significant other, though their target remains the same.
  • Pico takes Girlfriend's support role as the primary love interest who helps his boyfriend no matter what, but takes Boyfriend's role in the story as the streetwise outsider to the family.
  • Grace stands in for the original game's version of Pico, initially being on the side of the parents and having a romantic connection to the protagonist.
  • Sven, rather than being the pompous love rival Senpai was, fills the role of the Girlfriend character's hotheaded, protective, delinquent boyfriend.
• Sequel Hook: In the epilogue, Pico gets a call from his parents to visit over the holidays. He tells Benjamin that he'll go, and Benjamin decides to tag along to Meet the In-Laws — after all, they can't be worse than his own, right?
• Shout-Out: About a third of the way through "Hope", Mother Mairest sings the 2013 Home Depot "Let's Do This" ad campaign theme song, completely out of nowhere. It's possible that this is meant to convey her disgust for her son, as the same song was used as a high-quality rip of Tankman's "Ugh".
• Significant Monogram: The mod's protagonist is an alternative version of vanilla FNF's Boyfriend and his initials spell "BF". Benjamin Fairest = BF = Boyfriend
• Sinister Tango Music: Mother Mairest's final song "Spotlight" features accordion riffs and tango-like percussion reminiscent of the genre throughout.
• Stepford Smiler: Father Fairest, Grace and Mother Mairest are all this. For their respective first songs, they're happy to see Benjamin at first, but with each passing song it's clear that the smile is a facade that barely hides how they're really feeling. Father Fairest and Mother Mairest slowly get angry, while Grace begins to tear up.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: At the end of Chapter 4, Pico tells Benjamin to jump off the car to escape Mother Mairest. However, as Benjamin points out, the car is moving on the highway, and tries to get Pico to consider an alternate plan, but in the end the two go through with jumping off the car. As the narration at the beginning of Chapter 5 reveals, Benjamin and Pico end up badly bruised from jumping off a moving car, and have spent a whole month recovering from their wounds.
• Tamer and Chaster: Compared to Boyfriend and Girlfriend, whom have an active sex life, the furthest Benjamin and Pico get is cuddling and an Almost Kiss in the epilogue.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The Fairests being gone by the end of Week 5. Considering the last we saw of them, garnering ire from a crowd of former supporters, it's not out of the question that they've likely been chased off. Benjamin did briefly asked Pico where they gone, before deciding it's for the better to move on from them.
• Wreathed in Flames: Soft Monster has flames engulfing his arms and from his mouth. The latter could represent the cigar burns that could be seen in one still image.