#LN Reference

[woodavery]

Love Nikki - In Game Association FAQ

[bellerocks4]

The boy and his hats!!!!! Look at them all :D

This is like a little counter-part to the one i did of Six's masks. Also I rated the hats, which i will go into more detail about below the cut ;P

The Classic, The Original, The Paper Bag!!!!

I have like an emotional attachment to this hat, i kid you not. My favorite by far, he just looks so good <33333

5/5 hats

....Ball

Gonna be real with you, i hate the way this hat looks in game. I made it look good because I'm awesome but for real he looks so fuckin goofy in this hat, it has its charm but still

1.5/5 hats

✨Rain Cap✨

I don't love love this hat on him but i can't overlook the fact that he matches with siiiiiiixx thats just sO CUTE GAH!! Twinsies,,,

3.5/5 hats

Postman Cap!!!

Kay i actually love this hat on him it's hella cute, lost points because its fucking HUGE in game. Like how is that thing not eating his whole head jfc

4/5 hats

Mokujin Mask

This is a pretty good hat i just,,, don't get the reference,, if there even is one???? maybe its a historical kind of mask hm- ok no i just looked it up, it is a reference. Anyway, yeah good hat overall but im not the target audience so

2.5/5 hats

Flat Cap! or Gatsby Cap, the way superior name

I love this hat so much he looks so cute in it, like i didn't even do it justice its so cute

5/5 hats <3

Nome <3

ok yeah I took some liberties with this one, this isn't really what it looks like in game. but that's because the in game version looks kinda lame so i made it better <3 Minorly disappointing after the wild goose chase i had to go through to get it >:(

1/5 hats :(

Hunter Hat :D

First hat in the game, it's ok,, i just think its a bit boring is all. I favor hats that cover his whole face anyway so im a bit biased. The tail is fuckin adorable tho, i love the way it trails after him :)

3/5 hats

Stuffed Bear Hat of evil

ok when i said i favored hats that covered his whole face i did not mean this one- I did amazing drawing it✨ but its horrifying in game. Which i assume was the point, so kudos ig, but this is my personal how much i like it scale and the bear's ugly >:P

1.5/5 hats

....

I... its- .... *starts crying*

5/5 hats

Tin Can Hat

Ok when i said that I favor hats that cover his whole face I meant this one <3 Got that charm from the paper bag but he kinda wonky. So cute :D

4.5/5 hats

Mummy Hat

Listen- its cool ok? cool and creepy but cool. If you haven't guessed already all my favorites are hats he looks cute in and this? yeah this ain't it...

2/5 hats

OK!! Thats all folks!!! Thanks for indulging my silly little hat scale <3

[mblue-art]

scary? my god, you're divine.

[heiresstothenest]

They wanna talk about sex but they can't speak

[tardi-babe]

Six devouring her friend

[inchidentally]

I saw your post about Lando and his teammates and I agree in pretty much everything. There's also some things I had never noticed before or at least, not as in depth, and as I was reading I remembered some moments I wanted to share with you. I checked videos for accuracy btw.

I kinda felt Daniel and Carlos liked the spotlight in them meanwhile Lando just avoided it, in fact he still does, and this affected his dynamic with Oscar positively. Some examples:

Austria 2020. Lando earns his first F1 podium. When they're in the team celebration Carlos runs to congratulate Lando and accompanies him to meet the team. Then he's the one who hands Lando the champagne and his trophy. At some point he punctuates something Lando says in his speech. Nothing bad-spirited of course, and maybe is just a Carlos way of protecting "socially-awkward" Lando in a big brother kind of way, but it's not Lando's decission to share his spotlight with Carlos, he can't make a choice here. Previously Carlos had shared his Brazil 2019 success with Lando making him a main point of his celebration, so probably it's just a "sharing good moments" mentality from Carlos' side, but again, nobody asked Lando.

Monza 2020. On the other hand Carlos almost wins the race, he ends up second and a bit frustrated, his first proper podium with Mclaren after the Brazil delayed podium. He gets to the garage for the celebration and Lando is waiting patiently on the side. He blends with the other team members until someone brings his neon board to show he finished P4 for the team photo. A podium if a red flag didn't screw him. I wonder how many people remember this fact, because I feel it wasn't mentioned enough back in the day.

2021 season: Daniel loves the spotlight until… his season is very bad and it's better if the spotlight is away from him. Lando has an outstanding season receiving his well-earned dose of attention until Monza happens. Daniel deserves all the attention for getting a victory. Everybody praises Mclaren, it's a 1-2! Fast-forward a week when Daniel and Lando make a Q&A video for the F1 channel and Daniel remembers it was Lando's best result in F1 and Lando uses his sarcastic humour saying "it's a shame you won because everybody forgot, you kinda ruined it." They joke about it. Coincidentally the rest of Lando's season is plagued by bad luck: the late rain in Sochi, the punctures in Brazil, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, and a terribly-timed pit-stop before a red flag in Saudi Arabia. In retrospect that 2nd position was Lando's highest point of the season and it went a bit unnoticed. Comments on how Lando "crumbles under pressure" or how he "disappears in the 2nd half of the season" are everywhere after the last race. Unfair and harsh.

And I see a reflection of all those things Lando went through in his current relationship with Oscar.

When Oscar misses the podium in Silverstone for an unlucky safety-car and finishes P4, Lando from his second step in the podium doesn't miss a chance remembering everyone that Oscar should had been P3. In his team radio, in the post-race interview, in the media pen, in the Mclaren video… He just got his first podium at his home race but he worries about the rookie and how frustrated he must feel, because well, he's been in that exact position before and nobody openly cared about it.

When they get a double podium in Japan it's Oscar's first podium in F1 and Lando does everything he can to make sure everybody knows about it. He showers him in champagne in the podium, kinda forgetting his own success. It's not a "double podium" more, it's "Oscar's first podium", thank you very much.

Then it's Qatar and Oscar wins the Sprint. Lando works hard for his P3 but he mentions Oscar's victory at any given chance. Even one day later when Lando does a brilliant run from P10 to P3 (and who knows if it could have been a P2 if Mclaren had allowed him to race Oscar) and as frustrated as he was with his whole weekend and the missed chances, he doesn't celebrates with Oscar, he celebrates Oscar.

Oscar gets unlucky in the second half of the season: accidents that aren't his fault, mechanical problems… Some people use his final positions to attack him saying that his rookie season isn't that impressive. Especially after the American races.

It's the end of the season and Lando often remembers all of Oscar's milestones even before Oscar can open his mouth, because Lando knows Oscar will avoid the spotlight. Lando knows how it feels like when you're treated with condescension for being the younger one but he can't do that, he sees Oscar as an equal. Someone who has worked as hard as him to get to the top, someone who deserves his success as much as himself, someone who maybe doesn't care at all about spotlights and attention and can't understand why his older teammate insists so much in reminding everyone about his achievements when they are good, but objectively they could be better.

Because Lando treats Oscar like he would have liked to be treated.

And judging Oscar's behaviour around Lando, he's aware of how much Lando is taking care of him with those little details.

I'm gonna actually fucking cry, anon you are the brain I wish I had <3

like, I'm gonna link to the post I made that this is in reference to but genuinely your ask is everything that needs to be said. those subtle details were all kind of hazy in my brain but I knew the overall impression - you not only nailed all of them you led it to SUCH a perfect conclusion.

because Lando's been the satellite, the baby, the little brother, the phenom without a win, the one left behind, the former teammate watching his friends form similar (or stronger) bonds with new teammates.

and in all of Oscar's rookie season not once have I given Lando the credit he deserves for being as you say, everything for Oscar he wished he could have had in those first few years of his F1 career.

and goddd, the way Lando alternately loved and hated that Carlos and Daniel were these big brash alpha types. loved it for the protection it afforded but sometimes hated it bc sometimes he was so small to them that he became a something they loved rather than a someone. and this also goes in hand with my feelings about the larry-level car|ando fans forgetting that Lando is a real whole person who doesn't just fit and go along with everything about Carlos like a self-insert for fans.

goddd, y'all please clock this expert piece of landoscar lore in this ask <3

[file-starmemez-xp]

*cough* . . . .

new Security Breach AU anybody?

Space themed AU where everything is themed to match a *sorta retro* space theme! The AU is supposed to be made for a few OCs I haven had any lore for in the past year so I wanna make up for it! If this AU does well I’ll consider opening asks later! But until then, this is all. Enjoy ^^

[plushiesssforcrying]

low effort sketch again

something something sixes trauma bonding

students au by @zarazzzzzzzzza

[ladykyriaa]

Small details but I love the slight change to their character description as Maomao is much more involved to Jinshi's side of the world now.

[yakny]

Here we are, an atom and a star You're a part of the movement and everything matters (To me, to me, to me, to me)

[gingersn4pp]

Your female version of the thin man is super pretty. I adore her

AHHH THANK U SO MUCH....!!! This is technically an OC of mine, a little LN AU for funsies. Her name's Lucy! She fits my selfish-hero-type interpretation of thin man perfectly, hope u don't mind a bit of OC indulgence :9

The Lady in the last page is my friend Cam's character Renkon! @darude-dudette

[cynthiadasorceress]

Have a low effort Little Nightmares meme, as a treat

[quackity1999]

Wait u have a CD player in ur nest???

[ ITEMS IN QUACKITY'S NEST:

a portable CD player which is currently blasting pitbull, a slightly battered chess board, some books and magazines (only half read due to easy distraction), lighters, a few oil lamps, rolled up blueprints for LN, cigars, 2 decks of cards, toiletries, and some knitting related bits and pieces, a shitty little lamp or two. a fur rug, and a . . tattered manburg flag, as well as sapnap’s bandana. those aren't important. really, they aren't.

and yes, there’s an axolotl in the window/glass side. tis a Tank! for little q. <3 we all love killshot and ossium but little q is the only one able to fit in the nest properly tbh.

creds to @bee-pboop & @wctchers for the arts. u are both so fucking cool <3 ]

[dragaliareferencearchive]

Model references for Cheerful Orange Check | Leo/need (Kagamine Rin) - Project Sekai: Colorful Stage!

[redtoondevils]

I do have a theory in regarding to Six's appearance. I don't know if this is thought about, by more people. What if one of the crows, specifically the one that landed on the suitcase, is Six?

The game is heavily subjected towards crows. These kids has magic, this can be speculated, that they can shapeshift. Certain ones could do.

Six in particular having dark magic, very much associated with the Northwind from the comics. This idea could likely suggest, that Six is the one that turned into the bird, and is watching the new protagonists from afar. The birds don't seem to be hostile.

Unless, of their mechanics prove me otherwise, and they are actually there to swoop into you, once you get into their range. So, it is not known at the moment. But, it's one possibility.

[caramsels]

tell me more about this "mono isnt a human" theory thats really interesting

Thanks for asking! A few people have asked for my thoughts on Mono’s identity, and because I will take any opportunity to ramble about Little Nightmares, I wrote up my (hopefully intelligible) interpretation of Mono, and why I think he was always a Resident of The Nowhere, instead of a kidnapped human child like most of the LN kids. This theory is super connected to a few other ones I have, so I’ll rattle descriptions of them at the start for context. Also this post is insanely long I’m sorry

The Nowhere

The Nowhere is its own world that real children get kidnapped to, it feeds off of humanity and kinda functions like your local mall. A weird amount of emphasis is put on jobs in The Nowhere, Residents are often referred to solely by their job titles (The Janitor, The Doctor, The Teacher, etc. etc.)

Besides having a job in The Nowhere, a Resident's proximity to humanity seems to give them a higher status as well. In a LN1 interview, it was said that ALL residents wear masks (as opposed to just the Twin Chefs); we even see in LN2 that The Doctor makes and presumably sells these masks. A humanoid appearance is something that most Residents want. The more humanoid a Resident looks, the more powerful they are perceived to be (not always, because of The Ferryman, but he’s just chill like that.)

Kids and valuable teens/adults (like the circus performers and Otto from the podcast) feed The Nowhere kinda like how animals feed humans. Some Residents are given jobs to maintain this system. Some jobs require more power than others however, typically these are the jobs that require a Resident to keep control over an entire area, which leads me to…

The Cycle

The head honcho Residents like The Thin Man and The Lady are more humanoid and more powerful than the others, this is because they are handpicked and raised from birth to inherit these forms that are passed down over time. This one is super important to most of my points about Mono, so I’m going to spend some time defending it.

The Lady (prior to the Six stuff) had 4 predecessors, each represented by a different mask/hat that you can collect in VLN; This means that The Nowhere (at the time of the first loop in LN2) is on its 5th cycle. The Thin Man is also a mantle that is passed down, we see the previous one interact with Mono before Mono has even entered a time loop in the LN2 comics. This Thin Man, when datamined, notably wears a different hat than Mono’s iteration.

Furthermore, when asked if Thinny Lad is a mantle that is passed on or Mono in a timeloop in an interview, the devs had this to say:

The Pretender (VLN) is a good example of what I think Mono is supposed to be, and what the child forms of the 5th cycle Residents were. The Pretender is a humanoid child with supernatural powers and a strong sense of loneliness. She has her own mansion and Resident servants. The Pretender is the heir to a currently unknown position. She has a portrait of her and five past iterations on her wall, followed by another one of her and her two Resident parents. The Pretender is native to The Nowhere.

But… who is the boss of all the Residents? Who assigns these jobs? Who creates the natural Residents and brings others into The Nowhere?

The Eye

(you could argue its the ferryman but i think he works under the eye too. employee of the year)

I think most fans agree on this one so I won't spend too long on it, but basically I think the Eye is the unseen overall antagonist of Little Nightmares, overseeing everything and everyone in The Nowhere all the time. The Eye feeds off of misery and has a fate planned for everyone, it is not happy when anything throws a wrench into these plans. I don’t think we are meant to know The Eye’s motives, not yet at least, but if I had to guess; they have something to do with an extremely misguided and angry feeling of loneliness, as that is a prevalent theme in an insane amount of Residents. This finally brings me to Mono.

Mono’s Familiarity with The Nowhere

Mono is very familiar with Pale City, he is much more aware of his own fate, abilities, and world than he’s given credit for.

In the door/boat cutscene, Mono watches every TV in the water until it exits the frame. This early in the game, Mono already has an inherent connection to TVs.

Before Pale City comes into frame for both Six and the player, Mono is already standing, he is familiar enough with the route to Pale City that he knows they arrived without even having a clear view of their destination. This is because Mono has been to Pale City before, in the sixth episode of the LN2 comics:

In this comic, Mono met (and wasn't killed by) The Thin Man shown earlier. So to list off the amount of things Mono was already familiar with at the start of LN2: His connection to TVs, his connection to The Thin Man, and how to navigate Pale City. Mono having a lot of experience living in The Nowhere is demonstrated somewhere even more prominent too:

Kickass Character Design

Six’s character design intentionally makes her not fit in with her environment. While the color scheme of The Nowhere and its residents is mostly bland, monochrome, and washed out (sans the lighting), her jacket is highlighter yellow. This represents that Six does not belong in The Nowhere, she’s from the human world.

With this information to ride off of, Mono’s design becomes interesting. Mono’s design is a beige button up, tan trench-coat, and tan pants: A monochrome, muted outfit that fits in perfectly with the aesthetic of The Nowhere. Mono’s outfit including a key ring and a useful color scheme for camouflage further implies familiarity and experience with the way The Nowhere works. If Six’s simple, bright design represents her not belonging there, Mono’s muted, practical design represents the fact that he does.

His Mask

We actually know why Mono wears his mask, we have a direct answer:

You can interpret this as a representation of Mono being shy or insecure or a combination of multiple things, but I think it’s mainly meant to represent, as the description states: Mono hiding from The Nowhere, Mono running away from his fate. The Eye wants Mono to grow up and be the next Thin Man, but he doesn’t want to. Mono’s mask represents his fear, his refusal to use his Thin Man powers, his refusal to do anything that connects him to the world that hates him and wants him to fail; he wants to hide from that world, his future, and the reality of what he is. But ….

(straight up a post of Mono running from his fate)

Unexplained Powers

Mono’s OP reveal was the moment that shook me the most when I first watched my sister play the game; I’ve honestly always been shocked at how little it’s talked about in the community. To me, it was a reveal that told us we Did Not REALLY know much about the character we had been playing the entire time, and that was exciting.

When Mono fights the Thin Man and contorts the structure of Pale City, it is with ease. This is not his first time doing any of this, his body language does not match that of someone who just discovered/unlocked a new ability, him busting out the moves is framed more like a choice that he decided on just before removing his mask. The Thin Man boss battle is easy on purpose; because it's not too hard for Mono in universe, all he does after is wipe off his head nonchalantly and then he proceeds to warp reality. The ominous boss theme that plays during this fight isn’t even for the Thin Man, its MONO’S boss music. The Thin Man is the one who helps control The Signal Tower’s influence, Mono is the one interfering with it, he is the “Signal Interference.” The theme continues even after he’s defeated The Thin Man, further hammering in that it is his.

Mono has his own ominously powerful boss theme and the abilities of one of the most powerful Residents at his disposal; he is not a normal kid.

Mono even shares a power with the established Resident heir that we already know; The Pretender.

When The Pretender sees RCG eavesdropping on her crying, she yells so loud that it physically hurts RCG, causing the screen to glitch. I don’t think this is just a visual effect to show how loud it is to the player; I think this is an in universe ability. You know where else we see a powerful child amplify their voice on purpose to harm an enemy with a screen glitch/distortion effect? Mono in Chapter 5.

Mono and the fifth Thin Man

I think that Mono ran away from wherever it is he’s supposed to be, (probably the Signal Tower) and The Eye/ Thin Man want him back; this is why Mono is not killed by The Thin Man in the comic, just pursued by him

Loneliness

I don’t think I even really need to dissect how loneliness relates to Mono’s character, but he’s not the only character who deals with it. A huge recurrent theme with Residents is loneliness; the sense that they need something, they are missing something. The Lady has a bunch of dolls, The Janitor has.. a bunch of dolls in his own way. The Hunter too. The Pretender runs off to cry when her human doll friend gets messed up at her dinner party. The Resident we meet in Chapter 3 of the podcast is the most direct example so far of intense loneliness in a Resident, and not so coincidentally, it has a ton of parallels to Mono.

Narrative

For the rest of this post, I’m going to focus on how I think this theory fits into the story; because I think factoring in the cutscenes and storytelling beats is important when putting together something’s lore.

A little chatter about Mono

Mono is often characterized as a shy little boy who plays the straight man to Six’s feral goblin who loves eating rats, which is a whole other can of worms, but with this characterization I feel like some fun and interesting parts of his character are neglected, such as: The fact that Mono is an ominous little weirdo. His attempt at trying to save and comfort someone is to hack down her door with an ax with no warning, then proceed to chase her through the house she’s been trapped in; Mono is not too familiar with human interaction. Mono isn’t really a dashing hero who tries to save every kid he comes across either. In the comics, Mono finds an area that is away from the monster killing all the kids, but it’s not like he tells the other kids or tries to bring them with him or anything. I don’t think that this means he is a toxic manipulative character or anything because he is. 9 or 10 years old. I think if anything, this is a trait that experienced characters in The Nowhere have: RCG and Mono both know that indifference is the way to survive in The Nowhere, good deeds usually get you killed. It’s the way things are. I think overall Mono is a well meaning boy who just talks and acts ominously, because that’s what he is used to; he’s an eldritch overpowered being who lives in hell if it had a 1940s aesthetic.

I think that Mono doesn’t start the game a sweet perfect little boy whose ending is sad because he gets betrayed, that’s not a character arc. I think Mono starts off relatively morally gray out of necessity, mostly helping Six out because it was kinda his fault she got captured. He develops into someone who is willing to fight his fate, fight the Nowhere and stop resorting to the escapism his mask provides, only to get crushed to rock bottom in spite of his growth. After all, the villain of Little Nightmares is The Nowhere itself.

How this creates character conflict in the plot

Anytime Mono goes into a weird TV trance, Six is horrified. Her body language tenses and she moves away from him. Six has seen first hand that even the kids like her in The Nowhere cannot always be trusted or relied on (RCG shutting the door on her). Some kids like the Pretender aren't even normal kids, they have powers they use to kill people. The one person Six is starting to trust, and he’s showing signs of possessing supernatural powers? Terrifying. Mono notices these reactions, they give him more cause to hide what he truly is from her. Residents scare and disgust Six, he doesn’t want to lose the only person he has.

This conflict leads me to another point; you know those moments of Six being sadistic and angry towards Residents? How an ominous music cue plays when she kills the bully and breaks the mannequin’s fingers? Earlier in the game, when Six first catches Mono, his part of Togetherness II plays briefly to show his feelings in that moment, which implies that the music cues we hear when a story beat happens are Mono’s reactions. I don’t think these scary music cues are because Mono is scared of Six being creepy, Mono himself likes to beat up Residents. I think that Mono is scared in these moments when he sees the extent of Six’s hatred towards Residents, because even though he doesn’t like them either… Imagine how she’d react if she knew about him.

It is only the Thin Man fight when Mono is finally pushed to the point of using his powers, because in the plan to get Mono to the Signal Tower: The Thin Man took Six as bait. Six was constantly pulling Mono out of his TV trances, Six was supposed to die back at The Nest, Six has been a problem for the Eye since the start and now it’s time to kill two birds with one stone, to sentence Six to her new fate and to crush Mono’s spirit so hard that he finally resigns to his.

The drop is its whole own debate, but whatever you think about it, I think at least one factor in Six’s decision is that from her perspective: Mono has revealed himself to be an entity she cannot trust, he didn't tell her either; he's been hiding it this entire time. Why didn’t he use this power to help them all the previous times they were in danger? What are his motives? What IS he? This, mixed with other factors, causes the drop. (a lot of manipulation on the part of The Nowhere is involved too imo but this isn't a Drop analysis)

Mono is crushed, he loses Six and any true feeling of empowerment that he had before. Rather than The Eye trapping him in the Signal Tower and forcibly transforming him into a resident, I think Mono actually accepts his fate because hes just. That depressed. He actually ages pretty normally for most of the sequence (except for being straight up like 12 feet tall, the podcast confirmed that Residents are just super super big as opposed to the kids being really small, bros got Resident genes) This sequence from the art book leads me to think that Mono knows what the hat entails, Mono chooses to run the Signal Tower like The Lady runs The Maw. The chair sequence is not actually him sitting in a chair for that long, I think it just represents his resignation more than anything.

BUT! Mono is an “uncommonly single minded boy,” who also has control over time, i.e. Mono Thin Man slowing down time in his chase just to fuck with you or the clock sounds in The End of The Hall. Whether you think he goes back for revenge or to stop the downfall of everything, he goes back in time. I think it's on purpose, I think every TV in the background of the first scene implies that Mono has gone back to this point in time over and over again, failing repeatedly, leaving a new TV behind and forgetting the past attempt each time.

This could all be wrong, maybe Mono is just a really badass 4th grader from the human realm who got his abilities like Six, just off screen. But one thing I love about LN is all of the different, creative and interesting interpretations of the fans. So here’s mine regarding Mono lore. Sorry this was so long and I write posts weirdly it is 4 AM. I hope you enjoyed