#little nightmares ii theory

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Gonna say this rn before I forget, but personally I am of the opinion that while the Nowhere (the official name of the LN world) has a regular time continuom, the children who are brought in from different timelines/universes can pop in it at completely random points in time.

This could explain why, in the podcast, Noone did not know/understand Jester's joke, and why doctor Otto mentioned it was an old joke. Two or more children from different time periods could stand together in the Nowhere. And it could also explain why the LN universe seems to have so many different aesthetics clashing together.

I am also of the opinion that some children (pointing to Mono and the Pretender, but partially to the Refugee Boy as well) could very well be natives from the Nowhere, while most other children -- Six included -- come from other worlds. The logistics of how they get stuck in the Nowhere are unclear for now, but it seems that at some point their physical body stops being in their original universe/reality and follows them into the Nowhere which is what gets them completely trapped.

[itstimetotheorize]

The future of Little Nightmares, the worlds final fate.

I was recently asked where I think the Little Nightmares story is headed and what will become of this world. We have always theorized the world was plagued by the eye entity and its many forms, but upon seeing the true impact its existence had on the world, we realized something…whatever this thing was doing to the world… was far worse than we could have ever imagined. 

From what we have seen thus far, people are dying, children are being hunted and imprisoned, cities and towns are crumbling as the Residents of the world roam around, fueled by their corrupted desires and base instincts. It seems no matter where we go, nor what we see... the story remains the same... the more the eye entity continues to feed and spread its influence, the more the life of this world continues to rot and wither away,

 and whatever future this world holds for the few children who manage to live through it, are merely doomed to suffer the same fate as the other adults who have had the misfortune of being corrupted by the influence of the eye entity, their only future is to one day share the same fate as the rest of the Residents, until they to are consumed by the very creature which continues to thrive off of the lives of others. 

One can only dream of what horrors have befallen onto the rest of the world, what tragedies have occurred to those who did not deserve to suffer. I understand why people would want this world to be saved, but upon understanding the true horrors children such as Six and Mono have had to bare through, it had become all to clear that whatever this world used to be…was gone. This world the children are so desperately trying to run and hide from...wasn’t their world anymore, it wasn’t for quite some time, it had become a world of nightmares and monsters, and for this very reason….it must be destroyed…not by those who have learned to evade it, but by the hands of those who have accepted this world for what it is and are more than willing to take action against it without fear of what it could do to them, only then will this world be truly saved for those who remain .

[chorusofkhonshu]

Blooming In Nowhere

OK! So now that the legit subtitles were released for the podcast I went back to listen to the podcast again. The first thing I went back to check were the words of the Ferryman, because I don't know about you guys but he was really hard to hear but man was this worth the wait.

This really made me think because there was a lot of other wording in other episodes.

The screenshot up top is from the first episode. The flower she got from her parents in the first episode. This doesn't really have any importance on its own but it sets up the use of symbolism later.

So heres the important part from Episode 5 where Noone is compared to a chrysanthemum. That will blossoms year after year. Only youth blooms which I am pretty sure just means only children can "bloom". Then onto "Petals pure. But uprooted, spoils wait within". Back to Nowhere wanting something that is in children, I often ponder what that can be but right now the process itself of blooming is also important. There is something in kids that beings in Nowhere want but just because kids enter Nowhere doesn't mean they've gotten what they wanted.......yet. They've been uprooted from their world, yet the spoils still wait within. So what constitutes "blooming". Blooming is what I believe to be a kid standing against their fears. Now this sounds simple but it really is not. You literally have to stand against them with the will to fight, not escape. Perfect example that we already have are Mono and Six. Mono standing against the Thin Man and Six standing against the Lady. Nowhere wants and orchestrates things to happen this way, its a set up to get them to bloom. Back in the day on Twitter the Little Nights account said Mono and Six needed each other to make the journey. Mono needs to have someone, he needs to lose them, he needs to confront the Thin Man, all this in an effort to build him up, to bloom, and then pull the rug out from under him. Same with Six, the paper that shows her the Maw at the end of LN 2. Six's journey seems to have a lot less certainty though, but they the end of her journey she has to fight against the Lady. Why not just kill Six as soon as she sees her? RK gets turned into a nome instantly and we've seen the Lady's powers at play after Six get them, she has the power to kill her instantly, so why not? It has to happen, they have to fight, she has to bloom and when she does, she will still be trapped on the Maw. There is something in kids, something that feeds Nowhere once they bloom, not many kids do bloom but Nowhere takes its time cultivating those that have the potential too.

Something swirled in Noone, something that the denizens of Nowhere wants. Low and Alone are on their way to facing their fears too.

Can't wait to see how they bloom.

[wreniikinz]

Oh buddy boy my little nightmares theory! A!

So... lnii established that there's some sort of time shenanigans occurring, but it can't be a time loop because there's no way for the ending to come back around to the start [where does Mono come from? Or any of the normal children, for that matter?] My proposal is that the signal tower is resetting the timeline. It's definitely warping space, so distorting time isn't that much of a stretch. So, the signal tower is resetting the world to trap Mono over and over again; but why? My theory is that the signal tower used to be a human, and that human had a close bond to Mono. I default to it being mono's mother, but really any close family member would work [but it's important for them to be an adult, because little nightmares is all about the innocence of children being exposed to the horrors of adults] The reason why mono's mom would do something like this is because Mono likely had some sort of accident resulting in his death. So his mom reset the world using her reality warping powers, but she corrupts reality and goes a little more insane each time. No matter what she does, Mono keeps getting hurt, and eventually after a lot of resets, she's some sort of freakish monster and likely not in the best head space, so Mono starts running away instead. More and more resets, each distorting the world, her body, and her mind, but one thing remains: her obsession with keeping her son close. I imagine she warps into the eyeball flesh mass at some point, and has the tower built around her, or maybe she finds an already built one and moves in like a hermit crab. Boom, now you have an evil signal tower.

[shadowdaddies]

is it okay if I request a lot?

Can you do a smut where it's just like lots of wingplay? With the same Summer Court female and Az? You wrote my last ask so beautifully it was amazing to wake up to, especially because you answered so fast!!!

honey it's okay if you request a LOT a lot, lol sometimes it takes me a little longer to get through my requests but I'm ALWAYS excited to see your ideas💜 and I love Az and the summer court reader, they're so sweet

A/N: this is a continuation of Part 1 but can be read separately

Wings of Desire (Pt. II)

Azriel x Reader

Warnings: smut below the cut, oral f!receiving, p in v sex, wing play, minors dni, not proofread sry

You lurched awake in the bed, covered in sweat as you quickly took stock of your surroundings. Only once you had confirmed it was just the same nightmare as always did you allow yourself to breathe. A shiver ran down your spine as cold caressed your cheek, a shadow dancing along the wall before slipping through the door. 

You shook your head, realizing that you must be imagining things after that horrific dream. Before you could get swept up in the memories you had recalled in your sleep, you looked around the space, grounding yourself in the present. A small smile graced your lips as you remembered where you were. 

It was cozy in the High Lord’s cabin. Despite the unfamiliar chill of winter, the house was as warm and comfortable as ever. The space next to you on the mattress was empty, however - different from how you had fallen asleep next to a certain shadowsinger. As if summoned by your thoughts, Azriel knocked softly on the door to your room. “May I come in?” his low voice sounded through the door. 

A small laugh escaped you at the ridiculous question. “I fell asleep with you in here. Of course you can come in.” Only a moment passed, but it felt like a century before Azriel slowly entered the room, softly closing the door behind him. “I just wanted to check on you.”

Realization dawned on you as you cocked an amused brow at the spymaster. “Would the shadow you left behind have anything to do with your concern?” You admired the blush that reddened his cheeks as your theory was confirmed.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate to stay in here with you while you slept, but that shadow insisted on staying behind with you.” He spoke as if the shadow were an unruly child, and you couldn’t help but giggle at the thought of the feared Night Court spymaster having trouble controlling his shadows.

“I much preferred it when you were in here with me, if you would like to stay in here,” you whispered, looking at Azriel with hopeful eyes. Another one of those rare smiles flashed across his face for a moment, before he schooled his features into an indifferent facade. 

“Of course,” Azriel murmured, moving to settle into his old spot under the sheets next to you. His shadows danced as the male settled into the sheets, and you watched enraptured by their personality. They seemed to be more telling than their master when it came to emotions. One shadow - likely the one who had stayed with you through your nightmare - darted out to brush your cheek, twirling through your hair as you let out a loud laugh at its playful nature.

As if your laugh got their attention, more shadows followed suit. They all moved towards you, like puppies eager for your attention. They played with your hair and clothes, until they brushed the inside of your wings, eliciting a loud moan from you. 

Azriel shot up in bed, frantic as he studied your face. “Are you okay? They aren’t bothering you, are they?” It was your turn to blush now, embarrassed by the scent of your arousal, which the shadowsinger had clearly picked up on, if his darkening eyes were any indication. He was frozen above you, eyes searching yours for an answer to his unasked question.

You reached up, threading your fingers through the hair at the nape of Azriel’s neck as you gently guided him towards you, your own eyes searching for any hesitation. Instead, Azriel eagerly leaned into your hold, lips brushing lightly against yours in a soft kiss. Shadows danced across your wings once more, this time eliciting a moan as you arched into Azriel. 

The energy between you changed drastically - turning from a chaste kiss to fervent need for more. Teeth and tongues clashed as Azriel climbed on top of you, both of you grinding against each other in a frenzy. You had never felt the need for someone like this, desperate to consume and be consumed as you ran your own hand down the outside of Azriel’s wing.

He growled into your mouth at the touch, and you smirked into the kiss - a silent challenge which he understood. Azriel quickly lifted your nightgown, leaving you bare and him only in his pants as he kissed his way down your body. He read you like a book, taking note of your reaction to every touch, knowing where to move next as you writhed under his hold.

The same shadows that had been teasingly brushing your wings now skated over your bare body, teasing your breasts and clit as Azriel licked a stripe up your core. Gripping your thighs, Az held you open as he ate you out hungrily, enjoying how you moaned praises at his touch. A scarred finger pushed into you, curling against your walls as Azriel sucked on your clit, his shadows oscillating against your wings. The overstimulation sent you over the edge with a scream, vision fading in and out as Azriel worked you through your orgasm.

The moment the smirking spymaster came back into focus above you, you shoved his pants down with your feet, ready to take control of the situation. When you tried to flip Azriel over to ride him, shadows wrapped around your waist, pinning you against the bed. Azriel smirked, shaking his head as he leaned down to suck on your neck. 

“Let me pleasure you for tonight, love,” he murmured, his deep rasping voice sending a shock of pleasure through you. Hazel eyes watched yours as Azriel pulled your leg over his shoulder, lining up at your entrance. A rough laugh left his lips as you wiggled your hips in encouragement, eager to be filled by him. 

Azriel pushed into you, making you feel more full than ever with his size. The both of you moaned at the feeling when he settled inside of you, waiting a moment to adjust before he began thrusting. Finding the spot that earned the most reaction from you, Azriel held you in place as he pounded relentlessly, stealing the breath from your lungs as he worked you. 

You clenched around him as you neared a second orgasm, and desperate to have him come with you, you reached your hands out to his wings. Fingers slid along the dark veins, satisfaction filling you as Azriel came inside you with a roar. Shadows were unleashed, again overstimulating your clit and wings as the both of you came together. 

Azriel fell to his elbows, hovering over you as he left kisses all over your face. Giggling under his sweet touch, you lightly pushed the shadowsinger back to look at him, shocked by the feeling that rushed through you as you looked in his eyes. “Mate,” you whispered.

A brighter smile than that which you had ever seen from Azriel graced his features. “Mates,” he confirmed.

[delusional-mushroom]

Platonic Hazbin Hotel x Autism creature reader ii

Apparently you all like this? Sorry about the long wait, school’s been kicking my ass lately.

Anyway, here’s part 2, Bon appétit

Part i | Part ii

You fell.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

All you remember was waking up to Speckle slithering on your face and- HOLY CRAP YOUR WING SHOULD NOT BEND LIKE THAT

After about 10 minutes of wallowing in your pain, you slowly got up.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

You took a moment to take in the situation. Your clothes, as well as the ground beneath you, we’re stained in gold. It was hard to miss the golden blood trailing behind you too.

There was also a crater in the ground where you fell.

You see the Hazbin hotel in the distance and with the obvious attitude of “What could go wrong?” You sauntered towards the looming building

Speckle took over sight duty on the way tho. The Bright sign posts and the occasional dumpster fires rubbing salt on the metaphorical wound of your approaching melt down.

When you finally got there, you uncovered your eyes and stood outside for a few minutes before finally gathering up the courage to knock on the door.

Luckily for you, it’s Charlie who opens the door.

You exchange awkward greetings, Charlie beating around the bush of asking you the casual question of you know, why the fuck you’re in hell?

After a few seconds of staring at each other, you nervously fiddle with your thumbs

“So Uhm, I uh, fell, I guess.”

After the initial shock, concern, and confusion, Charlie welcomed you with open arms

At first, the hotel residents didn’t know what to make of you

Vaggie was pretty neutral with you, you seemed alright enough in heaven and if you weren’t gonna make a fuss neither would she.

That is, until she found you making yourself a cup of cocoa at two in the morning.

“Had a nightmare,” you mumbled when she questioned you, hand stretched towards you as if she held her spear to you throat. Did she sleep with the thing? Who knows.

She dropped her arm and took in your disheveled appearance. That seemed to check out. It seemed tonight wasn’t good for you either. “What about you?” She heard you ask drowsily.

“Nightmare.” She said. It was cold and blunt as she turned on the kettle and carelessly threw a teabag inside of a mug. ‘Best girlfriend ever’ it read in black. A gift from charlie, she smiled at the thought.

“Wanna talk about it?” You tested. This situation was more awkward than you wanted to deal with. At least the noise of the kettle in the background filled up the silence.

Vaggie turned to you, the ghost of a smile lingering on her face. Maybe tonight wasn’t so bad.

And since then you and her talked about what was bothering you. Or not. Sometimes you just sit next to each other, a cup of cocoa in both of your hands and enjoy each other’s company.

Angel found you funny

Fat nuggets 🤝 you.

Whenever Angel has to go to the studio, he leaves Fat Nuggets with you.

Whether its for you to watch the pig, or the pig to watch you, well… thats up to you.

He probably won’t open up to you about Valentino

But if he does, the stupid bald moth asshole can expect a lot of passive aggressive [special interest] themed notes that come seemingly nowhere.

Sir Pentious didn’t know what to make of you at first.

To him, you were some random child that showed up one day and could go from staring into someones soul for minutes on end without blinking, to looking like you were on the brink of tears if you hands brushed against a nope texture.

Eventually though, you ask about his inventions.

Bro had a whole “your asking about my theories? I’ve waited years for someone to ask me about my theories!” Moment.

(If you get that reference I love you)

You become hyper-fixation buddies.

You and Nifty don’t get along too well…

“YOU LEAVE THE ROACHES ALONE!” You shriek, holding two bugs high above you hear as the short little menace tries to get to them, knife brandished.

“NEVER!” She laughed back a crazed look in her eye.

…that wasn’t fun. Rest in piece Sir Bob and dame Jane.

Whenever you zone out in front of Husk, he pours a glass of apple juice and gently places it in front of you, eyeing you every now and then, a concerned look in his eyes.

Alastor finds you amusing.

He tried making a deal with you on your first day.

Now Vaggie won’t let him within a 3 meter radius of you.

When you meet Lucifer, he takes one look at you, Speckle coiled around your neck and a bottle of apple juice in your hands and just immediately goes “🫠”

He’s your father now. There’s no getting out of it. Why would even you want to tho?

Hyper-fixation buddy #2

You both rant about your special interests to each other

Be prepared to be bombarded with rubber ducks.

Meanwhile, in heaven…

Everyone: wHeRe iS tHe cHiLd?

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

Next up are the stories where eddie does (or presumably will soon) yell at his parents! We love to see it (and are eagerly waiting and hoping for it to happen on screen soon)!

🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲🌲 (diaz siblings reunited! All the buck, eddie, and adriana in the woods stuff had me on the edge of my seat and I can’t wait to read it all through when it’s published! Also eddie freaking out about his back nightmares coming true is really getting to me - poor guy!)

⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️⚖️ (oh boy an ominous warning from nemesis! I’m concerned! And seeing the accident that presumably killed eddie in the other timeline! I just want all three of my boys to get back home to LA so i can wrap them up in blankets together on their couch and feed them soup)

🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼🔼 (how do i always forget about covid? It keeps sneaking up on me! But I’m loving the progression of buddieshannon - it seems like they’re getting close! And i really love the way you’ve created maddie and shannon’s friendship! It’s beautiful and it makes me laugh when i think about eddie and maddies completely no existent relationship in the show :p)

Also I’m curious (but obviously feel free to ignore if you want to keep the details to yourself), how far are these stories along in what you have planned for them? Cuz they’ve all come such a long way that I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re getting towards their ends, but you’re so talented at plot development that I know they could have so much more to come!

- PCA <3

Hey! Thank you - love this theme, too!

As to your last question - great question!

For Gentle on My Mind I am not sure. I planned it sort of like TWATYTK where I just sort of have things I want to reach and will write until I get there. But it won't be nearly as long.

For Firelight, I am well into chapter 7 out of 10.

For An An Angry Blade, I am almost done chapter 4 out of 6.

96 for 🌲 (Ahh thank you! Yes! Lots of angst!)

---

“Me believing it?” Eddie says. 

Buck nods. 

Eddie inhales. “Then why isn’t the rest of it gone, too?”

“Good question,” Buck says. “I guess it’s only one theory.”

“Worth��� Worth keeping in mind,” Eddie mumbles, blushing. He feels embarrassed, all of a sudden. Like a princess in a tower.

Buck smiles a little lopsidedly. “Well, I love you.”

Eddie exhales and smiles back. 

“I know you do.”  

ii. 

They return Adriana’s rental car in the morning, and with Buck at the wheel of Eddie’s truck, they head towards El Paso. It’s going to be a long drive. With Eddie, anxious as hell about confronting his mother and seeing Chris. With Adriana and Sophia, who don’t seem to like him. All good stuff. 

Adriana is quiet. Buck has found her rather frustrating this entire time, but then he remembers what she’s been through, and it’s hard to hold it against her. Sophia, though? Buck’s not sure what her problem is. He hasn’t done anything to her. In fact, he’s kind of been important in helping both her siblings. No big deal. But she’s still pretty frosty to him today. 

It doesn’t really matter, he supposes. It doesn’t matter if Sophia likes him. It’s not like it’s going to impact Eddie’s opinion. He makes his own strong opinions, and he loves Buck. Besides, they aren’t super close. Physically or emotionally. Eddie once told him they were, before Chris. She was still a teenager, and while he was too, he didn’t really get to stay that way.  Makes sense.

“So, Sophia,” Buck says, a few hours into the drive. Because while it may not matter that she doesn’t like him, he still really wants her to anyway. 

“So, Buck,” she repeats.

“You’re a vet, right?” Buck asks. “Like, not the kind Eddie is?”

“No, I served in ‘Nam,” she says flatly.

“Oh my god, you’re such a dick sometimes,” Eddie huffs. “Can you please be nice?”

Sophia makes a frustrated noise. “Yes. I’m a veterinarian.”

“That’s uh… That’s super cool,” Buck says. 

“Yep,” she replies.

“Hey, uh, did I do something?” Buck asks. “Because I know why your sister and I maybe got off on the wrong foot, but you and I-”

“It’s not you. You’re fine,” she cuts him off. “I don’t care… I mean, happy for you and Eddie, or whatever.”

“This is really cool and chill,” Adriana mumbles. 

“What does that mean?” Eddie asks.

“It’s nothing, Eddie. Don’t worry about it.”

“No,” Eddie shifts his body to turn and look at her. “It obviously means something, Soph. So just say it.”

She rolls her eyes. Buck thinks her expression sort of reminds him of Christopher’s, when he’s fed up or annoyed. She’s so familiar, for someone who is more or less a stranger. 

“Fine, Eddie,” she snaps. “Fine. You want to know why I’m being pissy with your boyfriend?”

“We haven’t actually labeled it,” Buck whispers. “But I’m cool with that if you are.”

Eddie doesn’t seem to hear this.

“Obviously or I wouldn’t ask!” He fires back.

“How long did you know what was going on with our baby sister before you told me?” Sophia snaps. “After all I went through looking for her!”

“I didn’t even know,” Eddie defends himself. “It was a hunch.”

“Well, you told someone else before you told me! And I’m sure you’re great, Buck. You seem fine. But you shouldn’t have seen my sister before me. You shouldn’t have known what happened to her before me.”

“My god, Soph,” Adriana sighs. 

“No, my god!” She snaps. “You have no idea what it was like, not knowing! It drove me crazy!”

“I’m sorry,” Adriana says. “But that’s not Eddie’s fault. Or Buck’s.”

---

96 for ⚖️ (Buck especially needs blankets and soup!)

---

“The stories differ,” the officer says. 

“SHE STABBED ME WITH HER CAR KEYS,” the woman shrieks. 

“Ma’am, we’d like to take a look at your wounds,” Eddie says patiently. “Would you come to the ambulance with us so we can treat those?”

“Finally, someone who knows what the hell they’re doing,” the woman snaps. 

The officer refrains from rolling his eyes, but Buck can see it’s a struggle. He guides her over to the ambulance behind Buck and Eddie. She sits down on the open back and Eddie inspects her injuries while Buck hands him supplies from the med kit. 

“These don’t look too deep,” Eddie tells her, checking over the wounds on her arms and torso. “I’m just going to clean and bandage them before you head out, okay?” 

“Head out?” The woman asks. “Head out to where?”

“I’ll need to bring you back to the station to answer some questions,” the officer says. “File a proper report about what happened here today.”

At that moment, Bobby walks over from Chim and Hen, who seem to have their situation under control, to here, just as the woman is growing increasingly exasperated.

“No!” She screeches. “No, you can’t take me to the station, I don’t want to go!”

“Ma’am, it’s protocol,” the officer says. 

“I won’t go!” She throws up her arms, jolting Eddie’s hands as he tries to clean her wounds. 

“Hey, uh, it-it really helps my co-worker if you keep still while he works,” Buck tries. 

She completely ignores him.

“I will not go! You cannot make me!” She continues to protest, gesticulating wildly. Eddie has to move back to avoid getting accidentally smacked. 

“Everything okay here?” Bobby asks, frowning. Like he can see a situation unfolding.  

“I’m not going back to jail!” The woman cries. 

“Back?” Eddie echoes.

“No one said anything about jail, Ma’am,” the officer says. “We just need to take your statement and get some information-”

“No!” She yelps. She stands suddenly, darting out and away from Eddie.

“Wait!” The officer calls. “You can’t just-”

But the woman is trying to make a break for it. Buck and the officer start in her direction, but Bobby is closer. He manages to intercept her, stepping in her way and grabbing her arm. 

“LET GO OF ME!” She shrieks. 

Bobby keeps a firm hold on her. “Now you need to calm-”

He’s cut off by the woman reaching into the pocket of her jacket, pulling something out that Buck can’t quite see, and thrusting it into Bobby’s abdomen. Bobby’s breath catches. His eyes widen with a pained expression. 

“BOBBY!” Buck shouts, sprinting for him. 

He stops short, Eddie grabbing the back of his shirt, when the officer draws his gun and points it at the woman. 

⚖️

An hour later, the woman - Carol, it turns out, her name is - has been arrested, and Buck is waiting in the ER. 

She stabbed Bobby with a pen. Hard enough to cause damage, but not sharp enough to kill him. Still, there was a lot of blood. And Bobby paled so much he passed out briefly in the ambulance. It’s not a blade wound. It’s not like the time Buck found Chim bleeding on the cobblestones out front Maddie’s apartment. But it’s not good. Not at all. 

“He’s not going to die,” Hen says firmly in the waiting room. She still needs to wash Bobby’s blood from under her fingernails. “We’ve all survived way worse than this, right? He’s going to be just fine.”

And Buck knows she’s probably right. She usually is, for one thing. For another, Buck knows it’s not the worst injury anyone has ever sustained. Bobby will get it cleaned and patched up and he’ll be just fine. 

But Buck is still furious. He has anger curling in him, tight and hot. Ready to burst at a moment’s notice. 

When Athena shows up, worried and just as angry as Buck that this has happened, she fills them in on what happened. The pieces they missed.

“The two women who were initially attacked, Carol Brandt and her sister, Vanessa, were visiting on a trip from Utah. Apparently, they’re local leaders in some sort of multi-level marketing scheme. Have been arrested before for an altercation with a former member of their downline. A downline which includes today’s perp, who followed them and confronted them about shady practices.” 

“So Bobby got stabbed over some essential oils?” Buck asks, tone snappish. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“I believe this is protein drinks, but yeah,” Athena confirms, pursing her lips. 

And Buck… He just can’t handle it. 

He stands abruptly, eyes brimming with tears. He feels so tired and frustrated and… And unable to cope. 

“Sorry, Athena,” he mumbles, then he makes a bee-line for the exit. He doesn’t give a reason or excuse. He just needs some air. 

---

63 for 🔼 (Haha yeah Eddie and Maddie need to interact, but for now, at least I've got imaginary Shannon & Maddie):

---

“You have to talk to her, Dad. Please, you do,” Chris begs. 

“Uh…” Eddie thinks. “What’s the name of the game, Chris?”

There’s a long pause. 

“Why?” 

Ah. He doesn’t want Eddie to know. Well, that’s not lending credibility to his story.

“Because your mom likes to make you happy,” Eddie says. “So if she said no, there’s probably a reason. And I’m wondering if that reason maybe has something to do with the game’s rating.”

Another long pause. His eyes are downturned. 

“Christopher,” Eddie presses. “What is the game rated?”

“M,” Chris admits finally. “But only because-”

“Yeah, see. No,” Eddie says. “Your mom is absolutely right, Chris. You are too young to be playing a game with that rating.”

“But, Dad-”

“No buts, Chris. It’s inappropriate. End of story.”

Christopher’s expression twists with fury. He’s mad mad. Well, tough. Shannon was right. Eddie isn’t going to undermine her or let his kid play some traumatizing, violent game at his age. 

“I’m sorry it’s disappointing,” Eddie says. “I know you miss your friends.”

“It’s not fair!” Chris protests. “I don’t get to do anything with anyone. Not even you!”

Eddie’s heart hurts for his son. Here he is frustrated by too much time with his friends, while Chris is over there lonely. Sure, he’s got his mom. And he’s got his sister. But what good company is a baby, really? He’s needing something he can’t get right now, and it’s no one’s fault. It’s just the world right now.

“Chris, I know this is really hard-”

“No! You don’t!” Chris interrupts. “You get to be with Buck and do things every day!” 

Eddie sighs. “I know. I know it isn’t fair.”

“No, you don’t,” Chris grumbles. And then, without even saying goodbye, Chris hangs up the phone. 

Shit. 

◀️

Shannon can hear Chris call Eddie. Despite saying she would talk to him. Whatever. He’s allowed to call his father. Just… It feels underhanded, right? Trying to convince Eddie to make the opposite decision to hers without talking to her. She’s mad. 

[strixcattus]

STHeroine analysis post number something. I'm covering both the second and third routes we did, since most of the theorising space within the SSpectre route comes from the lead-in, which I already talked about. (There would probably be more if we had a Chapter III. I am just saying.)

The things I can note about the rest of the route itself are pretty isolated. SSpectre's "hair accessory" is dark streaks in her hair rather than a light-shaded attachment like we've seen from other Heroines, which is apparently important but lacks the context needed to know how. My first impression is that the dark color alludes to the Long Quiet, but aside from that there's not much to draw from this.

The other is her reaction to entering the Long Quiet. In the Spectre route, the Princess says, "I think... this is where I'm meant to be." In SSpectre, however, the Heroine says, "It's kind of nice like this. Kind of familiar..." She's seen the Long Quiet before, or encountered some part of what we are.

Both of these align with my standing theory that TLQ and SM merged and were torn apart incorrectly, but neither is strong enough to confirm it, although I can't at this moment think of an alternative hypothesis that fits with what we've seen.

On to WStranger. This one is pretty interesting! Right off the bat, instead of a disjointed mishmash of several possible cabins, we see a pitch-dark cabin with nothing visible save the things we can interact with... and though we can feel various textures when we touch the walls, there's no way to get an image of where we are.

The stark contrast continues with the stairs. Instead of three sets of stairs seemingly symbolising the Harsh and Soft Princesses alongside a branching middle ground that could be the Stranger or the Shifting Mound in her essence (wait, is that the deal with the stairs? woah!), we get... twelve.

Twelve.

Ten sets of stairs clearly represent the ten Chapter IIs—splintered wood for the Razor, suspended planks for the Nightmare, root-covered stairs for the Witch... but then there are two more. The plain wooden stairs match the stairs to the Chapter I basement, but then what of the glass ones? Are they meant to represent us, the Long Quiet? Or the Shifting Mound? Will they appear in the final cabin?

Do they somehow symbolise the Narrator?

If I had to guess, they're meant to represent the Long Quiet, since "shards of glass" and mirrors are both connected to him. But there's no real way to be sure at this point, and it feels like an outlier in the face of each other stairway matching so well to a Heroine. The Shifting Mound would fit... better, but still feels a little out of place with only what we know so far. Likely it will make sense by the end, but as for now...

We also have the stairway poem, and I'll paste the important part in full:

Obsession and invulnerability. Confusion and insecurity. Ire and interest. Cruelty and despair. Perseverance and willful ignorance. At the core of it all, is something that calls for you. Something familiar, and impossibly distant, that you can only think of as—

In the canon poem, the order is Beast, Witch, Prisoner, Damsel, Adversary, Tower, Nightmare, Spectre, Razor, Stranger. It's difficult to tell with only what we've seen, but the order seems to check out in places—"Insecurity" for SDamsel, "Confusion" for a Stranger-like Prisoner, "Willful Ignorance" for WStranger. The one that seems a little out of place is "Despair" for SSpectre, but it could be that we just didn't see enough of her. And the unsaid emotion at the core of everything is identified as "familiar," again implying some sort of preexisting connection between us and Her that didn't exist in canon.

Then we have the actual Wary Stranger, which is by far the most intriguing part. Instead of one Princess who slowly splits into five contradictory entities, we have a single Heroine who switches between different aspects of her being—six in total—only showing one face at a time.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of most WStranger faces, so they're a bit tough to categorise and I can't tell how, or whether, the questions we chose related to the faces that showed. We have a "blank" face that shows up at first, a "soft" one that looks a lot like the original Heroine (or at least the soft one, the only one we've really spoken with), a "harsh" face that follows her, a "scared" face in place of the Stranger's more monstrous aspect*, a "cautious" or "wary" face (that we got just in the nick of time, and didn't speak with enough to really see how she differed from the "harsh" face), and... that face.

*And this is really interesting! In STPrincess, the Princess is usually portrayed as a dangerous figure with power over us as the player—even though in truth it's the player's choices that have power over the Princess—and this is reflected in her "monster" aspect. In STHeroine, we haven't really seen much of a monstrous side to the Heroine, and the "scared" face seems to imply that the appearance of power is in our hands. I'd be interested to see a Heroine who in canon would be an exemplary of an apparent power dynamic tilted towards the Princess (coughnightmarecough), just to see how she differs. Will she seem to have less power over us than she ought to?

That face seems to have given up, stating that there's nothing to do when we attempt to do something and that there's no point in us approaching her.

In short... we have no agency, and neither does she. We have the illusion of endless choice, but when the time comes to do something, we really don't have any options that mean anything.

It seems pretty clear now that, instead of Change, the Heroine represents Agency. She has more independence in Chapter I than the Princess would. When we kill her, we lose our agency. Instead of evolving into countless concurrent versions of herself, the WStranger switches between faces, one at a time. The catastrophic culmination of WStranger is not endless choices branching into endless contradictory variations, but a complete lack of choice that nonetheless ends just as badly. (And the Prince changes too, especially in this route, where he becomes more carefree! We have Change with us, and the Heroine has Agency with her.)

Instead of confusion, the WStranger faces us with anger. I'm curious, to say the least, whether it would have reacted the same way had we not tried to step forward, to do something. It also says, before being taken away, that "there's so much." Is this a reaction to its nature, or to the Long Quiet? Is there more muddling of the boundary between Us and Her than I initially thought? To what degree can we really call ourselves the Long Quiet? How much of Change is left outside of us?

When we face the mirror, we have been "shaped" and "sharpened" instead of having "grown" and "withered." I'm going to call attention both to the verbs and to the use of the passive voice. There's an implication that this has been done to us, rather than being a process we naturally go through, and that we're being clarified, instead of moving through the stages of decay. We are being made into something by a process outside ourself, and this is the surface-level appearance of our evolution.

Before I get into anything Not!Shifty might have said, I want to point out two things.

Neither SSpectre nor WStranger comments on or reacts to the arms as SDamsel seemed to. I have no way of knowing if they saw them and didn't comment or simply didn't see them at all.

Not!Shifty refers to WStranger with it/its pronouns. Not to read too deeply into a pronoun choice, but far be it from me to not read into them at all (glances at STPlay). (I've made the choice in this analysis to use she/her for the individual separate faces of WStranger and it/its for the WStranger as a whole or combined entity, to reflect how they're referred to in-game and also because Strangers are complicated.) This reminds me at first reaction of how the canon Stranger works. In the basement, while separated, she is referred to with she/her, while the Shifting Mound acknowledges the combined Stranger as several entities in one, using they/them when discussing them. This is tied to how the Stranger touches closer on SM's true nature than any other Princess—they are multiple facets in one, and a failed imitation of SM's true form. The Wary Stranger may be similar. Obviously I don't know and won't speculate as to whether Not!Shifty's true form will appear as a shattered mirror, as it does, but it's not impossible that it would. Overall, it may be closer to a singular concept than to a person, in contrast with other Heroines, as the Stranger is closer to the completeness and multitudes of SM. Despite being a conglomeration of six faces, it's referred to as it, not they, which probably is an important distinction to mark between SM and Not!Shifty.

...The Long Quiet was called the Long Quiet, back at the beginning. Are we still Quiet? Is She still Shifting? Is the place we are in formed from stagnancy or chaos? Does it belong to Us or to Her? I don't have good answers to any of these questions.

To Not!Shifty.

She continues with the fabric metaphor rather than the water one of SM, and continues to seem more passive. My memory of most of SM's later dialogue isn't exactly sharp, so I can't pick out too many notable distinctions beyond that.

She has a bit more to say on the "kind" point than SM, expressing that she feels we have been kinder to her than she can be to us.

She acknowledges the Vessels' perceptions of us, saying that they each see us in a limited way. When she says "perspectives," it feels like she could be talking about perspectives on us, specifically, rather than SM's perspectives of reality in general (or possibly our perspectives of her.)

One of the most definite things she's said is her assertion that the worlds we leave behind are ended. I'm not sure, but I don't think SM ever said anything to that effect, at least not so bluntly.

She also says, "All the people in them fade." Is this meant to be taken at face value, implying there's someone out there besides us? Is she referring to our Voices? I have no way to tell.

She acknowledges WStranger as "constantly changing," and that it is similar to her in this way, which may indicate that she contains some part of Change. But as its change is different from the Strangers, her Change may be different from SM's.

When asked what she will be like, she says, "more of me, and more of you." Are we giving parts of ourself to her? Are we truly separate as we are, or was the tear incomplete as well as incorrect? Are we growing as two entities, or as one entity with two faces?

Aside from growing stronger in my convictions that A: the Heroine contains Agency, and B: we and Not!Shifty have merged and unmerged, and possibly gone through all this before as beings with a different point of separation, I feel like I've got more questions than answers to offer in this point. Not that that's bad! Questions are good! And they shape things.

The one new concrete theory I have is that Not!Shifty might be more of a place than we are. I'm not convinced that the Long Quiet—especially not as we know it—is as much a part of us as we're used to it being.

...If we do end up getting Beast or Witch, you guys have to promise me we'll try to find out if there's a Wild-equivalent branching from them. Okay? And no matter what we get, you guys have to promise me we're done with ending in Chapter II. Okay?

[queen0fm0nsterz]

So, if you are accepting any asks, I have a small question.

Who do you think was longer in The Spiral? And which kids were "born" there? Sorry if this is a stupid ask, or if someone already asked it.

Feel free to ignore! I just really like how you analyze and theorize 'bout everything of The Little Nightmares world; you realize things that most people most likely don't notice, and that's admirable to me!

Thank you so much!!! This makes me very happy to hear, I'm very grateful you enjoy my interpretations of the games. Your question is not stupid at all; it's a very good one, and I see there is a few misconceptions about children who are Nowhere born and children who come from other worlds.

I have seen argued that most children we meet must be kids of the Nowhere due to their ability to survive; for example, a child as young as the Toddler was able to survive for at least a while before being snatched away. However this is not an indicator of them actually being Nowhere born.

Noone herself explains how this is possible in episode one of the podcast. Quoting:

"I turned away from the window, which was only a hole in the stone wall of the curved passageway, that stretched on a long ways. This- odd feeling, told me to get up. But I couldn’t stand because the ceiling was so low."

(...)

"That same feeling told me I was lost inside a giant."

They are being guided by this strong instinct. Which explains why children as young as a Toddler can get around without dying near instantly: they inherently seem to know what to do and they are constantly on the move. If anything, children who are stagnant are more likely to be Residents or becoming Residents; they are the odd ones out. Remaining still means certain death, after all, unless you intend to join the Nowhere.

Here's a diagram to show in short who is what based on what we know about the world. The ones with the * are those who are uncertain.

Visitors

These are the most common kind of children one can meet in the Nowhere: the ones brought from outside, either by the Ferryman or from other forces. Remember; the Ferryman is a guide, not the means.

In Episode 3, Noone was pulled into the Mall, an outside force, and in Episode 4 the Ferryman was not present at all. He is not the only way for one to get inside the Nowhere, he's merely somebody with enough power to intercept some of the children coming in to bring them away with him. I don't doubt that his role is incredibly important, as he's the reason why many children even reach the Nowhere alive, but... he's a harbinger of death, no doubt.

All these children are the nameless ones. The ones whose full journeys we'll never get to see: just segments and fractions. We saw the beginning of Noone's, and the end of RCG's and RK's. Nothing more, and nothing less.

The campfire children in particular are highlighted because of two reasons:

The comics were confirmed to be partially not canonical. Obviously not everything was cut from the comics, since the Ferryman and Mirror Man are both physically there and implied to exist, but due to the vague answer we were given, we'll have to take their tales with a grain of salt.

We could only hear two of four stories; as such, only the Humpback Girl's testimony can be counted as her not being a child of the Nowhere. We can attest this because of a few lines given from her friends:

This place is haunted, though, as well as being sealed. Someone locked the mirrors away a long time ago, but! Interestingly enough, they did not break them. Maybe whoever sealed this place away was hoping for someone to come back?

Considering that Low and Alone are also involved with mirrors, I wonder if Mirror Man's abilities are on par with the Ferryman's, meaning he too can cross the bridge between realities. It could be a reason as to why the Ferryman does not intervene until the very end here. This post is not about him though, so moving on!

Nowhere Children/Residents

Now we're getting to the interesting part of the ask. As you can see in the diagram, we only know a few children who are Nowhere born, and of them, only one of them is 100% factual. Let's go through them one by one.

The Pretender was born and raised in the Nowhere. Period. She has her own mansion, pictures with her parents, and on top of that her family at the very least part of the bourgeoisie.

While powers are not necessarily an indicator of one's belonging to the Nowhere (if Low's powers are of any indication), the Pretender herself has quite the number of supernatural abilities that seem to have been present since her youth, making it hard for her to form meaningful connections with others. She's a very lonely child. This means that these powers most likely developed from her naturally rather than being acquired from the outside, like Six's and possibly even Low's.

(Even then, one can make a small argument to counter with Six developing a small power of her own... but there's a reason as to why I set her aside from everyone else.)

Now, here's someone a lot more interesting to discuss (both on this topic and in general): Mono.

He's a real special little guy. Taking into context the etymology of his name, the meanings we get always tie back to the idea of there being one of him. A single, unique little boy. Looking at the descriptions we were given of Mono, we can find out some more about him and his backstory:

Interesting as this is on a character perspective, what I would like to direct your attention on here is the mentions of the world. Here, it's mentioned that Mono is aware that the world outside hates him. Being a single minded child living in the Nowhere this makes a lot of sense; what is interesting here is the wording.

There is never the mention of "another world" in Mono's descriptions, unlike Six's descriptions in which it is directly mentions her not originating from the Nowhere.

For Mono, it's not a world: it's the world. Almost as if there is no other world he knows by now.

His nature is also rather unique. You see, Mono is a glitch. Not in the traditional Glitching Remain way, but still not entire enough to be considered a human being. For one, he quite literally glitches multiple times: we see it happen everytime he is near a Remain and is about to absorb them, whenever he gets too close to the Thin Man, he even glitches as he channels his powers to use them.

The Thin Man causing him to glitch is especially interesting because when he motions to grab him, Mono does not split in two like Six does. There is no body to be left behind: instead, he flies into Thin Man's hand and you can visibly see his body go both entirely glitchy and instantly limp.

(You can see it for yourself in this video; pay attention to him struggling when other enemies grab him vs how quickly he stops moving as soon as the Thin Man gets his hands on him.)

This indicates his nature as not being human the same way Six is, for example, but rather a product of the Nowhere. Due to how his cycle works, this makes sense: for the Tower to have a continuous of energy supply and access to the power of the Transmission, Mono needs to live through this experience over and over for as long they deem fit. This could also explain some other odd factors of his, such as not having to take a break when running and his almost grayish skintone.

While it can be argued that at the beginning of this whole mess Mono was a Visitor rather than a Resident, at this point in time many factors point to the version of him we play as being a Nowhere child.

The Refugee Boy is, as for the campfire kids... complicated to expand on due to the dubious nature of his story: nevertheless, I will still bring forth my evidence.

When the children begin telling Six their stories, the Refugee is the first to narrate his tale and he begins doing so by showing her a memento of his previous life outside of the Maw. This comes across as being peculiar on its own as no other child that we know of has anything of the like.

As you can read here, children in his village are given charm against the North Wind that one day suddenly stop working. This implies that, unlike the Mirror Man, the North Wind has always been a tangible threat looming over their birth land.

It could be easy to chalk this up to N.W. being a local legend where the boy used to live and he had a nightmare about him, but it is then mentioned that he and his sister have been running away from him for years. Much longer than any of the dreams Noone ever had.

This was a long pursuit. We know thanks to the LN III trailer that "normal" looking adults and cities existed in the Nowhere; this explains away both the Refugee's village existing and the other groups of people that chased them away when they brought around the North Wind.

While this evidence is good enough to stand on its own, it has a couple of points against it, which is why I marked the Refugee as "unsure".

The narrator could be considered unreliable. In this same screenshot I added right above, the narrator states that the siblings were welcomed everywhere, but we can visibly see them be chased away by the villagers. This can be interpreted as meaning "they were originally welcomed, but when the North Wind arrived as a consequence, they were chased off", but we don't have enough substance to back this up.

^ Supporting the above take, the narrator also says that the children have been running for years, but we visibly see that they remain the same during all this time. The sister not changing makes sense as the Ferryman has taken her place, but the Refugee also doesn't change at all. We don't know how fast time passes in the Nowhere, so it could also be attributed to that, but it must be mentioned for fairness' sake.

The Refugee's words: I'm not running anymore. This sentiment has never been echoed before, nor will it ever be echoed again. As I said earlier, being stale in the Nowhere only leads to two things: death or permanence. His surrendering could indicate that he has chose to remain in the Nowhere after being stuck in it for a long time, thus becoming an official Resident. If this is the case, he could classify as a "Visitor turned Resident".

With this, I suggest we move on to our last and currently final segment:

Visitors turned Residents

This one is an interesting breed. We don't get to see the act of a child turning into a permanent part of the Nowhere all that often; Noone could count as that, but we don't yet know if she ultimately decides to be still in the Nowhere or if she'll regret her choice.

We do have the most importantly character of this narrative as an example to this, however.

Six, my dearly beloved... what a terrible path she's gone down to. I have already displayed the evidence stating that Six is from a different world than the Nowhere up un Mono's section so I won't dwell on it.

Thin Man splitting her in two is what doomed her and, as hard as she tried to fight it, her trip to the Maw was the nail in the coffin. No matter how far away from it she gets: she will never be free from the influence it had on her person. When it comes to the LN I ending, this is what the writers had to say on it:

(From this interview. It's an interesting one; they also confirm that the Signal Tower and the Maw were not places that were "built" but that exist for various reasons, which supports the idea that they are entities rather than buildings.)

I think Six is not leaving the Nowhere anytime soon. If at all. She might have left the Maw, but at this point, she's ventured too far in to turn back to the person she was before. To think none of this is even her fault is saddening, to say the least, but horrifically realistic.

Sisi... is an incognita. I've only put her in this category to be fair, since we don't know anything about her. There is a possibility that she has grown up to become a Resident, but it's just as likely that she may have died off somewhere, like many others before and after her.

I will not be dwelling into the adults for now, but we do have reason to believe that some of them are most definitely Visitors turned Residents. Most notable is the Lady who, in her character description, directly expresses discomfort with how nonsensical the Nowhere is － a sentiment only someone who knows alternatives to it can have.

It also indicates a surprising level of self awareness to some extent; most Nowhere inhabitants do not question the nature of their world, not even important and powerful beings like, say, the Thin Man.

I hope this answers your question!

[itstimetotheorize]

Honestly, after everything we researched, we theorized the only reason Six waited for Mono near the end, after running so far, was because of instinct. She waited and caught Mono so many times in the game that this little action stuck with her in the end.

[chorusofkhonshu]

Little Nightmares Fanfic Server

Just wanted to post this here and see if any tumblr people wanted to join. Already quite a bit of people in here. Most I am sure you'll know if you've ever read from AO3.

[erikiara80]

Lonnie, Hopper and Castle Byers

I said I think that Lonnie killed Will when he was five, or was involved in a car crash that changed Will and El's (and "Sarah's") lives.

I have another little theory. Jonathan says that he and Will built Castle Byers the day dad left. And because it was raining, they were sick for a week.

Castle Byers is where Will used to hide, so I find it a bit strange that they built it only after their abusive father left.

My theory is that, yes, Jon is talking about Lonnie, but that line could be a hint at what really happened in the original timeline: the father who left is actually Hopper, who is in the shed when Jon says that line (There's also another interesting scene in the shed in S1, in which it seems that Hopper is seeing things from another timeline, or remembering something here)

I think the father left after a car crash and a time loop/wrinkle in time separated him (and El? "Sarah"?) from their family (possible hint, the "father and daughter missing" in the newspaper El finds at Terry's, and the tire in front of Castle Byers). So, from that moment Will had to stay with Lonnie, the violent man he needed to hide from -> why they built Castle Byers

Basically, it's what happens to Marty in Back to the future Part II, in the bad timeline in which Biff is his stepfather and killed George, Marty's father.

There's another possible connection, Jon and Will being sick for a week after they built Castle Byers. In S1, Jonathan says that for his birthday, Lonnie took him hunting and made him kill a rabbit. El is associated with rabbits, so maybe...

Jonathan cried for a week-> was sick for a week -> hint that he was actually injured? in the hospital for a week after the accident?

I think he killed the rabbit in 1976, because in another scene he says that he was nine when Lonnie made him use a gun. In 1976 Will was five. And in the Castle Byers flashback, Joyce says that he had nightmares for a week, because he was scared of clowns...

Unfortunately, I think Jon is Lonnie's kid, but I hope Will and maybe El are Hopper's children. We even saw their names. I would love that.

[smolsix]

im back im back and im looking at the footage in this massive post WEE HEE HEE!!

no fr it's a long post

i went onto the website and Low is the boy in a mask and Alone is a girl with the wrench.

starting w the trailer

you can see Low here by himself which is interesting, in single player it makes sense to have one character before you meet your AI companion but I wonder how this could work in multi

Low is also by himself here, before the next scene where he meets up with Alone. So Ig Low is travelling and ends up with Alone.

In the trailer when it shows the busted mirror you can hear the ticking noise that is so well known in LN II for the section where Mono transforms into a new Tall Man (no i still do not believe in the time travel theory and I will not debate it < 3)

A NOME!!! ON THE LEFT!! while it makes sense emotionally that they are here (they are so little nightmares after all), logically it does strike me as curious. It was The Lady who turns children into Nomes, so either this one is just here (i know there's at least one in LN II) or other people can have this power?

Also it's curious they're holding a paper, wonder what they've found? Wouldn't it be insane if it was another advert for The Maw haha (in all likelihood it's probably a map of some sort since their goal is to leave this place, but it can also just be part of the trailer and not gameplay just to give us a better look at the characters)

the little umbrellas fiNALLY made me realise why the art direction feels so different, it's very tim burton. little nightmares could be considered as such but different enough because it lacked a lot of the whimsical aspects of tim burton's designs, but these have some charm to them that is whimsy enough that it is set apart. Anyways, the umbrellas are cute and i am guessing they auto deploy rather than you being able to use them whenever. I wonder if they're visible at all on the character's designs? since both characters have matching ones, do they get them somewhere? make them? i am interested in where they got these haha

also i noticed a lot of netting for this region, i know it's a desert style location (the website even mentions a fair park section and i am BEYOND excited for that because i LOVE clowns and circus stuff)

this particular puzzle is shown a few times in the trailer so they must be quite proud of it (i mean it is cute and i like it haha). i am guessing this is part of the fairgrounds section, as it did feel out of place in the trailer but would make a lot of sense for a location like that (it is very colourful which is pretty new for the series)

Also Low has this cute lil anklet omg

there is an axe here! i wonder if it dislodges when you solve the puzzle. the eye motif is back as it should be, it's very LNcore of them. im guessing the green thing is a giant crayon? being a too small child in a location made for children is a fun concept and furthers with the theme of subverting childlike concepts into something a bit unnerving.

initially i thought these were guests, but looking at the area more closely and now that i know there's a fairgrounds, these are probably The Dwellers and this is probably the fairgrounds.

ofc, we have the sewer hands. they are self explanatory honestly. but i can't help but wonder how they function in game as an enemy. i can see their surprise jump scare factor, but as an active enemy to avoid it does have me wondering how they will work.

the fuses are back! and there's the roaches. you can see Alone with her wrench out here, wonder if it's part of her idle or run animation at all? it could also be because Low has the fuse so she has her wrench ready for whatever reason. I want to say she could possibly smash roaches, but there's so many here I think it'd be impossible

strange thing in the back there........ the gears are cool though, wonder what they're powering?

these shelves are much like the ones in LN 1 in the swaying gnome section of the DLC i mentioned before, it's cool they brought these back as they're very reminiscent of the first game in general. But the jar is very LN II of them.....

I know I keep making comparisons between I II and to III but I honestly do believe the studio is bringing back a lot of motifs, imagery, items, and assets on purpose specifically to feel familiar enough to the audience who has played the first two and might be uneasy about the somewhat new art direction.

also very LN II of them~~ but this could be a carriage like from the fairgrounds? So far the trailer seems to be going in order of locations, though, so who knows.

i wonder what location this could be? And why is Lone able to use mirrors like this, and why is he only doing so now? He also travelled here alone, so I'm super interested in his backstory.

so i was surprised to see the website explicitly call this a giant baby and not a doll when it is very obviously one. unless it is a giant baby wearing a doll head?

the left eye (our left) also clearly has the ability to petrify people, too. the baby itself is very worn down so it's either quite old, or has simply seen a lot of damage. im guessing at one point its other eye also functioned.

this is VERY interesting. these statues of petrified people are larger than the MCs meaning they were probably adults, so the baby really does target anyone probably. it's also strange as these people look... normal? there's nothing going on with them, they are simply petrified. it paints a picture where it's possible that at one point, the little nightmares world *was* normal, and something happened that warped the adults. it's possible the giant baby is man made itself, idk what it is but it feels that way to me. i dont think it was just... born like this.

literally no idea what this could be about. i know it looks like a trash dump but i can't tell for what if anything specific. why the table with jars neatly placed on it? why the giant machine? initially i thought it was like a machine that'd scoop things and then drop it, but it looks like a chute which means something or someone is filling it somehow.

if you watch the animation for this part Low is pulling Alone who stops him and then lets go before they look at you, it's probably a simple animation but it'd be interesting if it told us anything abt their dynamic.

and then from the additional gameplay footage:

we have the eyes returning < 33 tho they do look different-mostly the peep hole is more narrow giving it a more threatening look (pupils become smaller when someone is angry for example)

[dalek-ix-writes-stuff]

Red Ruin - INTERVAL 02: FIRST ENCOUNTER (Part II)

Yang occasionally remembered the first time she met Harlan Wade. It had been shortly after Summer died; Dad had completely collapsed, Yang herself barely struggled to hold on, and Ruby had gone from an almost normal little sister to something else. In fact, it had been immediately after… Well, the incident with the beowolves.

Being that she was ten at the time, Yang hadn't been told exactly how Harlan Wade had come into their lives; only that Harlan Wade, Dad's and Qrow's and Summer's and Her old teacher from Beacon could help them. That he knew what was… What was happening to Ruby.

The former professor of Beacon Academy had invited them to his home. He first spoke to Dad, and whatever was said behind those closed doors had shaken Tai Xiao Long enough that he still didn't want to speak about it, although Yang could take a few guesses.

Then Harlan spoke with Yang.

Harlan Wade had stared down at her from across his desk, looked Yang in the eye, and, not caring that she was ten at the time, spoke of the things that had begun to happen since Summer died. The hysteria and terror at invisible monsters. The nightmares which would make Ruby scream in a way that made Yang’s blood turn into ice. The whispering that seemed to follow her little sister, speaking terrible things to those around her. The sense of something being horribly, horribly wrong…

Then, his voice cold and hard, he began to talk of everything that was yet to come. He spoke of nightmares being set loose in the waking world, of red-rimmed shadows tearing at wood, stone, concrete and metal as if it were nothing. He told her of Ruby looking at her as she would a monster, a thing born of her darkest thoughts and deepest fears and most hidden secrets. He told her that Tai and her would find their minds pulled in certain ways, that rage would come at them without warning, fear would sink it’s fangs harder, grief would drag them deeper and deeper…

He spoke to them like a prophet of legend, speaking with such an apocalyptic certainty that it was almost like he was remembering the future.

(Or, in this case, as if he were simply remembering. Again, Yang had a few theories.)

Harlan had asked Yang a question when he was done. Maybe it would’ve been a complicated question for other people, but for Yang it had been very simple.

“Are you going to take care of your sister?”

After all, there was only one answer.

And so, Harlan had told Yang how to best take care of her sister. She wouldn’t lie and say that some part of her hadn’t resented the man for telling her how to do what she was already doing, but she grew to appreciate the tools and advice he’d given her.

(It would be another lie to say that Yang didn’t like Dr. Wade himself, in a way. Oh, the man was an asshole through and through, but there was an honesty to dealing with him. He didn’t bullshit you, or coddle you, or try to convince you that everything would be fine. And yes, he kept more than his fair share of secrets, and Yang wasn’t stupid enough to believe that him coming into their lives had been a coincidence, but when it came to the things that Yang actually cared about, he’d been straight with her since day one.)

One of the things Harlan had taught her early was how to treat a close brush with Ruby Rose.

Step one: Distraction.

"You know," she drawled, "You look a lot taller on television, Ice Queen."

Weiss, who had been staring at the middle distance for a moment, blinked.

"… I beg your pardon?"

"Yeah," Yang continued, gleefully ignoring the tone of voice, "I kinda figured you’d be somewhere around here,” she gestured somewhere a couple centimeters over Weiss’s head, “and that’s with the heels, mind you.”

Weiss blinked again, and Yang could almost see the heiress’ train of thought being sent off a cliff. She counted down in her head. Five, four, three, two-

“I’m not- I’m not short!” Weiss snapped, “I am of perfectly average- where did that even come from?!”

“Just an observation, Ice Queen,” Yang drawled, in a tone of voice older sisters had perfected over generations to be the most annoying.

“And don’t call me Ice Queen.”

“Right, my mistake, Princess.”

Weiss straight-up glared at Yang for that one. Yang just smiled back; she was pretty sure Weiss could scatter people with a look, but she’d grown up around Ruby Rose.

Weiss kept up the intimidation for a little longer, and then slumped in defeat, turning away.

She muttered something under her breath.

“Hm?” Yang went, “You said something?”

Weiss gave a sharp exhale of breath; a noise equal parts frustration and exasperation. “I said, at least it’s not “Schnee”,” she told Yang, voice flat, “I’ve had enough of that for today, thank you.”

“Oh.” Oh, right, Weiss and Blake’s little partner spa-

Wait.

Oh.

Oh.

Yang ruthlessly suppressed that from reaching her face, along with the urge to facepalm for not realizing that the moment Blake showed her her ears.

“Yes, 'Oh',” Weiss said, with more than a little bitterness in her voice, “I imagined I’d managed to outrun my name in Vale, but, apparently, I was wrong.”

The heiress sighed. “What bothers me is that I can’t seem to figure out why she’d be so angry with me,” she said, with such earnestness that Yang was shocked it didn’t cause her physical pain. Some of that must’ve shown, because then Weiss added, “And yes, I know my family has made more than its fair share of enemies along the way, but most of those are in Atlas.”

And the Faunus Quarter, Yang added, and Menagerie.

She wondered if this is what Ruby felt like when she had to keep one of her psychically-acquired secrets

[thebeetleball]

sorry need to be abnormal over my favorite horror game rq since its the sixth anniversary. the first little nightmares' ending is the opposite of the prequel's but it's still just as grim and i'll die on this hill.

specifically, i'm thinking about what tarsier posted in celebration of the anniversary and how they captioned it;

getting thus out of the way right now i do Not think six is the lady, i think that theory only ever came to be because of the thin man and mono's situation and if you hold it up to any scrutiny it falls apart, but i do think they're deeply tied to each other in a more . symbolic way? i do not think six takes the lady's place at the end of LN1, i think she escapes from the maw and leaves it to rot, as it deserves, but she doesn't really leave it. 

as the game progresses, six's hunger drives her to eat more and more disturbing things; bread, raw meat, a rat, a child, and finally the lady herself. not only that, but her musical cues changes over the game as well. there's multiple different tracks for hunger and six's own theme undergoes a dramatic shift, with part I being droning instrumental and quiet, nervous humming, and part II having a more upbeat hum contrasted against overbearing an brass instrumental, in both tracks the humming is eventually either cut off or drowned out by the music. in the comics, there's a repeated theme about six not knowing who she is, most notably the hunchback girl's line about how you don't know what you'll see if you look in a mirror.

there's an emphasis on change and not knowing yourself when it comes to six, and it confirms for me that despite their endings being tonal opposites, both of the little nightmares games are about cycles; just in different ways.

LN2 is about a little boy who wasn't able to escape a cruel, abusive environment, and eventually grows up to be another bitter adult, another cog in the machine. LN1 is about a little girl who was able to escape the environment that harmed her, but not without taking a piece with her. childhood trauma changes you, you're not the same person you were before it, you can leave your house but your house doesn't leave you.

the six who held mono's hand and hugged nomes, or played with toys at the playground, is not the six who lashed out and left him behind or the six who devoured other people just to survive. the six who was running from the adults that operate the maw is not the six who took the lady's powers. at the end of the story, six sits exactly where the people who hurt her did, she wasn't able to remove herself from the maw's food chain, only scale it and become the apex predator. she changed, the maw changed her, like all trauma does.

which isn't her fault at all, full stop the obsession some people have with portraying six as evil or malicious, or even worse, deserving of what happens to her in LN1, is appalling to me. i genuinely can't fathom how you can play a game so clearly about childhood trauma and abuse and come out of it putting her and mono in "bad victim vs good victim" roles. there's no right or wrong way to be a victim, there's literally only just victims, the real villains of the story are the adults who put them in this situation in the first place.

six isn't wrong for killing the workers aboard the maw, but it's still deeply sad to me that the story plays out the way it does, that the circumstances are what they are. LN1 ends with her going up, out into the sun where everything is bright and golden, but she's all alone and she's taking apart of the lady with her, she couldn't survive without taking from the lady, she couldn't survive without having to become someone else.

tldr; you know that scene at the end of chirin's bell? "what they saw was neither wolf nor sheep but some unknown creature that made their blood run cold?" yeah.

[gt-ridel]

Okay, okay... So I know the entity in episode three of The Sounds of Nightmares likely isn't connected to Mono at all. There are too many plot holes and it perhaps has better parallels elsewhere. But I don't think it was entirely by accident that so many of us latched onto the idea.

For starters, Noone begins her recounting of the dream in this way. "In the dark... A hand let go of mine." This statement doesn't seem to connect to anything that was happening before or anything that follows. Hand-holding was a pretty significant aspect of Little Nightmares II. Mono and Six would give each other boosts to reach high places, catch each other when making a long jump, or if you were so inclined (and I was because it was cute) just hold hands as they walked along. Until of course that last scene. You know the one. In the dark. When she let go of his hand.

The second major connection is the Mall itself. A living structure, able to bend space and time, and give you exactly what you want if it means you won't try to leave. I believe that's what happened to Six in LN2. It gave her back her music box. How would it have known about that? Perhaps it saw into her mind. Saw something she wanted. After all, when we first find her she's sitting alone in the Hunter's basement just playing with it. Not trying to escape or anything. perhaps it would be enough to pacify her? (It's my theory that Six has been in Nowhere longer than Mono, and is, therefore, closer to the monstrous than he is.)

In the case of Noone, if we imagine it's the same entity, it seems its tactics and vocabulary have improved since Six's imprisonment. The illusions are more complete, less dreamlike. Perhaps as a side effect of being able to keep Mono. Learn from him. (Total headcanon here, but I like to believe that eventually Mono and the Tower begin to work as one.) It's also the only non-hostile entity (not counting the Nomes) we have met in Nowhere. It's just lonely. So terribly lonely. And who can blame it? If it grew from one little boy, abandoned in a deep pit by his only friend. (Maybe that's why his purpose as the Thin Man was simply to abduct children and bring them back to the tower. But I digress) But let's get back to Noone. Once she enters the projection booth, she comes face to face with the true nature of the building. A giant eye working as a projector, and a pulsating mass of flesh. The building is literally alive, and the image is instantly familiar to the listener.

The illusion even begins to tear itself apart at the seams when she tries to run. The same as it did for us in the game. Anyway, I'm not sure to what end these similarities exist. I don't think it was the intention of the showrunner that Noone meet Mono. But hey, I think we all felt like we'd gotten socked in the gut when we finished Little Nightmares II. So is it any surprise that we're desperate to see him again, in any form? To hope that he finds some kind of solace, even if only for a short time? I mean, I do. So even though it's not strictly true (unless stated otherwise by the developers) this is a headcanon that I hold near and dear to my heart. Like a beloved bootleg plushie. This is not to say that I disagree with, or even dislike other interpretations. Basically, It's just that Mono is my poor sweet baby child and I wuv him. 🥺