#characters make wouldnt be as powerful if they werent respectively a woman and a man

[queen0fm0nsterz]

I really like how Little Nightmares explores masculinity and femininity.

The experience of a female presenting LN protagonist (and even character, if you want to extend to the antagonists, notably the Pretender) is generally one of survival induced solitude, where companionship can be sought but ultimately denied due to circumstance - especially among each other. Six, Noone, Alone and Raincoat Girl all display different degrees of longing for someone to understand them - Six being an extreme on the side of isolation with the occasional source of comfort (the Nomes), Alone being a comfortable middle where she is indipendent and curious while also having a companion, and Raincoat Girl being the other end, an helpful force who seems to desire companionship. In Little Nightmares 1 especially femininity is displayed as the painful experience it can be. It's raw, visceral, and worst of all it's isolating both when you conform to it until it destroys you, like the Lady does, and when you reject the standard of what is expected of someone like you, like Six.

The pain you feel, physical and emotional, doesn't seem to be as important no matter how deep it cuts you. Noone's tumor being hidden and neglected, her headaches being dismissed... and of course Six's hunger, unforgettable in how much it hinders her, but I could also point to her monster form and the physical and mental toll the entire ordeal in the Tower has left on her.

The conflict between Six and the Lady becomes especially poignant under the lens of this argument because it is a confrontation of the two opposing sides of the spectrum, metaphorically. It's a little girl who has yet to experience the devastation of conformity performed as a means of survival facing a woman who lived all her life so set on following these rules that anything outside of them is perceived as a threat.

(One can't ignore the more obvious point of the class difference with Six being at the very bottom of the chain and the Lady being at the top, which certainly influences the dynamic, but I digress.)

Femininity is hyperindependance in the Little Nightmares world. It's the desire to be left alone while also longing for understanding. It's ambition and curiosity, but it's also the loss of identity both in the pursuit of it and in defiance of it. You end up being alienated either way; you can't really win.

On the other hand, I find that generally, masculine Little Nights protagonists tend to be driven by sentimentalisms and emotion. They are often defined by what community surrounds them, be it a single friend, family member or group; the most lampant example of this are, of course, Mono and the Thin Man, but the same argument can be made for the Runaway, whose story ends up leading him into finding a genuine community with the Nomes, something that no female protagonist experiences. You could argue it was clever foreshadowing, and it was! But does it make the observation any less valid? Personally I don't think so. Low also seems to be pretty set on keeping Alone by his side, although it might be too early to tell; however we do know he's a dreamer who dreams of a future where he and Alone can escape the Nowhere. You could call him a romantic.

Masculinity in this world can be care and fortitude, but it's also singlemindedness. It's the ability to find companionship and meaning while also letting one's own hubris destroy it.

Otto himself is an incredibly interesting example of this because we can hear how his desires, his emotions, are eventually what ends up driving Noone into the arms of the Ferryman. It's a prime example of how masculinity and femininity clash with one another -how his emotional wounds and eventual loss of clarity caused a little girl to fall prey to that hyperindependance where she refuses to be helped by him even when he does mean it.

(Along with his vaguely misogynistic remarks, but again, I digress...)

This singleminded focus on one's own emotions is what I think makes the Thin Man and Mono as relatable to many as they are. His is an endless cycle of violence caused by his own hand; by his own inability to process his emotions in a way that can allow him to progress and move forward. It's not a justification of Six, whose eventual exhaustion was what caused her to react the way she did, but rather it is an observation through again metaphorical lens.

The Thin Man is stuck in a dark room that gets progressively smaller because his inability to understand his wrongs causes it to shrink. He's locked in a bubble that is not entirely of his own making, but it is his responsibility to burst. But how can you burst it when you have no conscience of the fact that the room has been getting smaller to begin with? How can you care, when all you can think about is the emotional hurt that brings out the worst of you, the part that you don't even realize is the worst of you?

Masculinity can be just as isolating as femininity not because it's visceral but because it's fragile. It's unaware of itself while also being incredibly concentrated on the self. It's based entirely on how one is perceived and treated and thus easily destroyed once one is left alone to their own devices, which is why it requires community. Once that community is taken from you, it shatters, and leaves one without the tools to rebuild it.

I suppose the true difference here is that, at their worst, while one is self aware to the point it is actively damaging to the self and everyone around you, the other is so out of touch with itself that it can cause unintentional hurt to the self and others which can't be processed properly.

At their worst, they're monsters that help make each other, you could say. At their best, they're companions who help each other.

(This is in no way an attempt to diminish one or the other, by the way, nor does this reading apply to every single character. Both social constructs have their good sides and bad sides. The main quartet of Six, Lady, Thin Man and Mono are very strong cases, but I was simply making a general observation.)

[stevengrantshubby]

okay, okay okay, okay. so here i go, idk if there will be a point in this but im gonna write it up anyways. so follow me down this weird half thought thur path or whatever

okay, so we know that tfatws takes place 6 months after endgame, long enough for things to no longer be new and the problems with what the avengers did (or undid if you prefer) are really setting in, not even a full year. the people who came back from the blip have only had 6 months to figure out whats going on, where their families were if they still had them, ect, ect and only 6 months for the people who were left behind to “adjust” to having everything ripped away from them. i do wonder about a lot of things from this time, but i doubt that we’ll get a ton of concrete answers about it.

anyways.

when we see sam in the opening action scene hes very confident and self-assured. hes in his element so to speak. hes strong, smart on his feet, and we see sam use his new wings as a shield multiple times which to me feels like either a kind of statement that sam doesnt need the shield or to show that he would be really good with the shield, it feels important somehow considering who important the shield becomes in the show.

also, the military guy tells sam that once the LAF get across the tunisia boarder its supposed to be a no-fly zone so to speak which is why it was important for sam to get him before which hints that not everywhere got rid of boarders. like, tunisia is in northern africa and when we meet the flag smashers later theyre mostly in eastern eurpoe and also torres makes a comment about things not being better during the blip and his american (im pretty sure) so again where these things are happening in relation to boarders and the like it still makes me think about how the world worked through the blip, but again probably wont get concrete answers.

also in this episode we see the first instance of sam being recognized for who he is by a man from tunisia (who im going to consider a character of color tho im not sure if this is considered accurate in the real world) and not recognized by white american men, this happens in episode two as well.

while the shield sort of becomes the super important symbol, we are also shown in this episode that steve has been kind put on a pseudo god-like position. yes, its a joke to ask if hes the moon of all places, but the whole “looking down on us”/”watching over us” feels a lot like the christian capital-G God. he has been put on this kind of pedestal by the people who really didnt know anything about him and also bucky (but hes been hanging by a thread for a while it seems so its a little different) in contrast to sam.

sam has a lot of respect for steve. he calls him courageous, righteous, and hopeful. the best in us because these emotions are supposed to inspire “good works” as it were. sam then states that the world needs new heroes for the current times and that symbols only have meaning because of the people who give them meaning. and upon my rewatch this feels sam want to preserve the meaning that steve, his friend, imbued into the shield but also wants to move forward. i do think that the fact that sam is a black man who is not treated very well by america plays into his decision as well, i also think the fact that we hear the lines from endgame:

- it feels like it belongs to someone else.

-it doesnt.

is important. right now im thinking that the shield is essentially meaningless because steve is gone for all intents and purposes and he dropped it without a second thought. like i get it, in terms of what the show is doing and like i said, how people who dont know steve would probably react but even so many weeks later it sits weird. even the dora milige left the shield behind even though its made of stolen vibranium, cause its just a thing. anyways...

rhodey, after the speech, parrots back at sam that they do live in a different time, but he thinks that this different time does require someone to carry the shield.

then we meet sams sister and his nephews. sam and his sisters relationship does hold a lot of tension between them but theres still so much love there as well. its very normal, reminds me of tension that i feel between myself and some of my family members and that i see between different family members as well.

sarah wilson is a black woman who, like many black women I know, have been holding things together the best she can with (seemingly) not much help. we know that sam left after their father died (i dont remember if their mother is also dead), he couldnt handle it as stated, so he went off and fought. but in being gone he sarah ran the business the best she could. shes also a widow, not sure when that happened but y'know thats there too.

but ii think that how sam feels about his familys home and boat in contrast with how he treated the shield kind of. sam references the boat as their familys legacy (sarah also calls their dad a 'giant' and that not mattering to the bank and probably others) and he doesnt want to let that go no matter what. however both of these are acts of preservation on sams part, just in different ways. he tried to let one go while desperately trying to hold on to the other, one to be put in stasis and one to move forward, grow, passed down ect, ect.

now sam really only tries to get involved with the flag smashers because he theyre super soldiers. and i guess youd call this the inciting incident part of act one.

now the next three episodes are very intertwinded in the plot and what kind of world sam would be becoming captain america in. sam makes an off handed comment that sharon, zemo, and bucky are more worldly than him but thats true. and he does have to...learn, is the best word i have. i mean, the most he can do right now is “make a call” as he puts it which really isnt a lot considering whats been going on.

and to backtrack (sorry if this is all over the place) we do see sam constantly empathizing with the flag smashers and more specifically karli consistently throughout the show. if they werent super soldiers hed not have crossed their path the way that he did. throughout the show, well before episode 4, sam is really focused on like where exactly the super soldiers are coming from, the fact that the flag smashers are stealing money, and food, and medicine he doesnt really care.

when he has his heart to heart with karli the main problem that he has honestly, is the murders (and i do wish that there was distinction made cause that is important, but i know that in show sam probably doesnt know that karli blew up a building with people tied up in it like we do but its important that we know that), when he says that the killings wouldnt make the world better just different along with karli saying “theyre roadblocks on my journey and id kill them again if i had to” (which is 1. very dehumanizing, 2. she says 'my' and not 'our', and 3. she didnt have to kill these low level workers) is more  a restructuring of power instead of dismantling it.

like theres a lot here but my minds not connecting fully.

i know the show isnt over so ii dont really have a conclusion (i honestly havent even said half of what I took notes about) but its like 4 am here and I gotta go to bed. And I dont want this ti be multiple parts right now I just needed to get this outta my system lol.

part 2 whenever