Chapter Text

The Boy could not have felt any more stupid. After all, it was what had gotten himself and New into this dimly-lit cell in the first place. What made it even worse was that he allowed his recording machine, the one he carried on his back everywhere he went to help solve his and New's problems, to be forcefully taken away from him.

As he and New struggled to wriggle themselves out of the ropes that wrapped around their wrists and legs, he thought about how far they've come, only for one mistake — his mistake — to accidentally lead them into being captured by one of the Corporation's Hunter Scout robots and thrown into a prison cell within one of their buildings, specifically a tower that they have often seen during their explorations within Metronome. They have been uncovering clues about the Corporation's sinister intentions for a while now, but it was only a few harrowing minutes ago that both of them have truly encountered one of its most notorious members: the Scissor Man.

He and New have seen him before. He was a tall man dressed in a black coat and suit and a fedora, almost completely blending into the shadows. What was even stranger, though, was his uncanny ability to teleport, which they have frequently seen him do in his attempts to catch up with them in an efficient yet eerie manner. In fact, when the Boy was separated from New for a while (it was a long story), he had been chased by the Scissor Man through empty train cars in a dark and abandoned part of the city.

He remembered how he had little time to even take a breath, what with the Scissor Man's attempts of reaching him through his almost unpredictable teleporting. It also didn't help that the trains were dark and cold, making the Boy shiver all the while as he ran for his life. Throughout the chase, all the Boy wanted to do was to close his eyes in a vain attempt to block out everything around him.

Everything, that is, except for his wish to be with New at that moment.

How he managed to escape the Scissor Man that time was something that he couldn't quite comprehend, as he didn't know if it was just through sheer luck or his wits alone. He believed those were the most likely possibilities because he really didn't want to think of the alternative: that the Scissor Man was merely toying with him, as a cat would with its prey.

Now that he was with New again, the Boy regretted convincing her to follow him into investigating the Corporation's tower. She had warned him that they were getting themselves into even greater danger, as the tower was rumored to hold a terrible secret: that there was something within the tower — or even the tower itself — causing the miseries within the city, and that it was only going to get even worse. Whether the rumors were true or not, the Boy didn't want to imagine what the meaning of "worse" could possibly be. He and New were already living in a sort of nightmarish world, where there were robotic guards powered by stolen souls and a Corporation that kidnapped children and transformed them into the Metrognomes that labored away to keep their machine running smoothly.

Surely there is nothing worse than the world they lived in now, right?

He groaned, his head still in pain from landing on the hard floor of their prison cell earlier. "Hey… New, I… I'm…"

The disheveled raven-haired girl next to him sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"I'll get us out of here, 'mkay? It's… all my fault."

"It's fine. Still, I warned you about going here."

"I know… it was stupid of me that we didn't get to prepare. But all I wanted was to get this over with."

New sighed again. "Me too. Still…"

"Can't worry about that now, though. But we'll —"

A shuffling of footsteps outside of their cell made the Boy pause. What little light illuminated the room provided him and New a view of a man's silhouette. It was tall and rather thin, and it appeared to almost seamlessly blend into the shadowy corners of their cell. What separated the man from the darkness, however, was the metallic glint of scissors, as well as an all too familiar predatory smile that formed underneath the wide brim of his fedora. In his hand was a briefcase, which he set down near the cell door.

"Well, well, well," the Scissor Man drawled. "Aren't you the two brats who have been nosing around in places where you shouldn't be?"

The Boy said nothing, as did New. For a few long seconds, they sat in the dark, their rapid breaths being the only sounds to break the unnerving silence. The Scissor Man then strode toward the Boy and New, the upper half of his face still covered in shadow as his towering body loomed over them.

"They say that children should only be seen, not heard," the Scissor Man said, mostly to himself. "But I… I have to disagree. It ought to be that they should not be seen nor heard — no exceptions."

The Boy wanted to protest, but his head was still too heavy from the pain. He wanted to ask the Scissor Man why he and the Corporation were so intent on making Metronome into an even worse place than it already is, and why they needed the souls of children to maintain the machine that was supposedly used to create ideas and designs for something that they called "world-building." He wanted to know everything: why the Corporation carried out their crimes, why no one else is trying to stop them, why they turned children into the Metrognomes.

Why?

The word repeated over and over again in the Boy's head like a broken record, and it sickened him to his core.

"You… won't get away with this," said the Boy, coughing.

The Scissor Man turned his hidden gaze toward the Boy, his smile turning into a frown. "Oh? And who should I be worried about? The police?" he asked with mock concern. He chuckled. "You are a fool, Boy. The Corporation owns the police as well — technically speaking. Those Police Scouts that you've seen on the streets? The Corporation provided the police with them. And if you think that you can take us on along with your friend, think again, Boy."

The Scissor Man turned around, gesturing with his head at something beyond the cell door. One of them was a robot with two spindly legs, with even smaller ones dangling from its covered camera body; in its hand were a flash lamp and two photographs. The other robot, a four-legged mechanical beast covered in undulating black-colored souls, nudged one of its front feet at a small pile of broken wood and machine parts. When the Scissor Man walked over to them and retrieved the photographs and broken machine parts, the Boy choked back his tears.

It was his recording machine, destroyed beyond repair.

"No! It couldn't have!" he cried.

"Yes," said the Scissor Man. "The Corporation couldn't bear having you with that nuisance of a machine, so we had one of our Hunter Scouts deal with it for you. Furthermore, two of our Camera Scouts have taken photographs of you and your friend, which means that I get to carry out the best part of my job. But first…"

The Scissor Man suddenly grabbed New by her bound wrists. Immediately, she tried to kick and push him away, but to no avail, as the ropes impeded her movement. As the Scissor Man led her out of the cell and left her with the Scouts, she yelled, "Don't hurt him!" before the Scissor Man picked up his briefcase and slammed the door in her face. The door resounded with a clang, and the Scissor Man walked back to the Boy, who shrank toward the cold concrete walls of the cell.

In one of the Scissor Man's hands was a pair of scissors, its metallic sheen glinting faintly in the light of the dim cell. But what sent shivers down the Boy's spine was something the Scissor Man held in his other hand: it was a photograph depicting the Boy, and it was hovering near the scissor blades.

"May your and your friend's souls be lost."

Before the Boy could even make another move, there was a snip, and everything was over.

What was it like for one's soul to be taken away?

That was a question that had lingered in the back of his mind for a while, and one that he can now finally have an answer. It was, for one, strange; for a long time, he dreaded that death would be painful, but the quick cut of his photograph ensured that it was rather painless. He also felt himself being lifted, though whether it was on his accord or an outside force, he couldn't tell.

He remembered hearing the screams of the Scissor Man's previous victims, being those of children powerless to fight back. They were cries that would ring forever in one's ears, enough to haunt them in their dreams.

But why did the other children scream? Was it truly out of pain? Or was it because they couldn't grasp the reality at their moment of death, that as children, it was something that never crossed their minds? He too wanted to scream, but for different reasons.

He wanted to curse it all. Curse the fact that he and New have failed. Curse that in spite of it all, their efforts came down to nothing. Curse that they have allowed the Corporation to get away, with no one else to stop them.

All because of his mistake.

And yet, though it was mostly in vain, he also made a wish.

A wish for someone — anyone — to defeat the Corporation in his and New's stead and rid this world from the nightmares.

Because for now, he must take his rest.

"Hey!"

Mono started, then blinked. It was Six, and she was tugging at his coat sleeve. "What is it?" he asked. They were on a roof, having taken refuge underneath a dislodged row of wooden shingles.

"The Tower… I can see it! Look!" She pointed in the distance. It was a tall and dark building, far taller than the others surrounding it. At the top was a beacon, shining a mauve light every once and awhile.

"Yeah, you're right," said Mono. He blinked again, his eyes lingering on the stormy clouds that circled around the beacon. They appeared to form an eye, with the beacon's light being reminiscent of a pupil. "It's weird…"

"What's weird, Mono?"

"It's like I feel that I've been here before, and I don't know why."

"Really?" Six turned her gaze toward the Tower's beacon as well, and she held Mono's hand. "I don't feel the same. Or maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

Six shook her head and briefly released her grip. "It's nothing. We should get going soon."

Mono nodded. "Yeah. Better be careful, though. The Thin Man's watching us."

When they held hands again, there was a low rumble of thunder, and the rain finally began to fall.

Chapter Text

Headcanons/Theories/Analyses/Observations:

If you've been keeping up with the Tune In Channels that I've posted so far, you might've noticed that they mostly center around two particular games and three particular characters. For the time being, that's true, though future Channels may include more games and characters (cross-overs perhaps?) that may be in different genres other than "dark and grim." But what headcanons, theories, analyses, and observations I have regarding the games and characters are quite fascinating, even though I'm certain some of it is going against what some Youtubers, Redditors, and other theorists say, as well as their subscribers. Again, it may seem a bit straw-graspy and you may take this with a grain of salt, though I do welcome comments, objections, and so on.

Escapism

Escapism. That's the theme that's said to be touched upon in LN2, according to this interview (https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-08-29-little-nightmares-2-interview).

• But what's escapism? According to Merriam Webster: (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/escapism). Think about it, how many of us like to project ourselves into a fictional world or a character? How many of us, while playing the Elder Scrolls games, felt something while going off fighting dragons and Daedra and taking on quests to get more experience and become more powerful? (Seriously, just take any RPG where you create your own character and/or choose your own path.) Or how about the games where you're essentially a god that looks from above and either takes care of the citizens or ruins their lives, like in the SimCity games? And how about the countless other movies, books, and games, where you see and experience characters that are powerful and larger-than-life? Heck, even sleeping and dreaming can be forms of escape if only to allow you to get away from the comparatively boring waking world of reality for a few hours.

So how does all of this tie into my fics? While this theme is most apparent with the Viewers (the people in the Pale City who stare at the TV screens and have their faces melted/distorted), I also thought about the possibility of it being applied to other characters — and what other better example than the character who gives the Viewers their means to escape reality via the TVs? The Thin Man, being the apparent main antagonist of LN2, best exemplifies this, especially in my interpretations of him in my fics, present and upcoming. Given the game's theme of escapism, I picture him to be someone with a lot of power, what with his connection to the Signal Tower and the Transmission that's supposedly causing the chaos in the LN 'verse.

Now you might be thinking: "In this Channel, you actually introduced a character called the Scissor Man. What does the Thin Man have to do with him? Why do you say the Thin Man's connected to him instead of the Hanging Man, like what many people say?" In TCoM, one of the antagonists the Boy and New face is the Scissor Man, who works for something called the Corporation (https://littlenightmares.fandom.com/wiki/The_City_of_Metronome_(Cancelled_Game)). What I found interesting about the premise of this canceled game is that in the backstory, the Corporation found and made their own version of a machine that's capable of "creating ideas and designs for world-building." Now it's unclear if the "world-building" ability of the machine is literal (as in physically remaking and reshaping the world to one's whims) or metaphorical, but given how strange things work in TCoM and the Little Nightmares series, I wouldn't be surprised if the Corporation's goal was to literally remake the world to their own liking, preferably a nightmarish one; in fact, this ability to world-build was referenced in Channels 1 and 3.

Additionally, the Corporation's machine (according to my fics) also grants its users great powers — after all, if you're making a world to your own liking, aren't you essentially a godlike being? It's also with this that I've hinted at something that happened to the Scissor Man that changed him into the Thin Man. Escapism can also be applied to the other adults/adult-like horrors in the games, as many of them have their own ways of trying to kill or at least harm the children, perhaps acting out their fantasies. If the Scissor Man thought of himself very highly and powerful, why not literally make yourself into a great being with even greater power that views almost everyone else as small and insignificant (like the children, perhaps)?

I also thought that the Tarsier developers were great in using TVs to tie into the escapism theme, because while books and video games are known to be escapist media, TVs are also well-known for getting a bad rap for some people, especially in the past decades, hence why they were sometimes derogatorily called "idiot boxes," due to their perceived mind-reducing quality and lack of educational value (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/idiot_box).  Quite fitting for the Viewers, who appear to be brainwashed by just staring at them throughout the Pale City, as well as the Thin Man, who appears to be the one behind the TVs and thus the Viewers' behavior. Essentially, I think LN2 touches upon the negative side of escapism, though I suspect it might have some positive things to say about it as well.

From Cameras to Television, from the Scissor Man to the Thin Man

• Congratulations! Your Scissor Man evolved into the Thin Man! (+2 Omniscience, -1 Still Pictures, +4 Moving Pictures, +6 Power) The Thin Man wants to learn TV Travel. Forget a move?
• >Forget Scissor Soul-Taking
• 1, 2, and … poof! The Thin Man forgot the move Scissor Soul-Taking and learned TV Travel!

Monster-catching RPG parody aside (Little Nightmares as an RPG when), I've implied in Channel 1 (and to a more subtle extent, 3) that the Thin Man is the "present-day" incarnation of the Scissor Man, or at the very least, connected to the latter. In fact, when I was looking at TCoM's page and its description of the Scissor Man and compared it to descriptions of the Thin Man, they were almost remarkably similar:

• The Scissor Man's description: "A mysterious tall man who appears to be working for the Corporation, he used scissors to cut photos of characters (and thus, their souls) and can teleport at any time. It seems that some part of his face were cut out and he seems to have a briefcase with him."
  • Compare that to the Thin Man's appearance and ability to teleport to catch up with the LN2 protagonists. To summarize, both of them can teleport, are antagonists that are somehow associated with devices that negatively affect people (the Scissor Man with the Corporation's machine and the Camera Scouts, and the Thin Man with the Signal Tower/Transmission and the TVs), and have tall frames.
• Admittedly, I thought that the Clock Maestro, another tall man but with a pocket watch in TCoM, could be the Thin Man's predecessor, but then the clothes and general appearance didn't really seem to match (if you want to know what I think the Scissor Man is like and find out why I think he is the Thin Man's past self, check out the trailer for TCoM, specifically the first second with a silhouette of a tall, thin, hat-wearing figure opening a door to what looks like a theater).

Concept art of the Clock Maestro

Who I suspect to be the Scissor Man (?); it's from the very first second of TCoM's trailer

• I like the idea of the Scissor Man being the predecessor to the Thin Man because there's a sort of "evolution" from still pictures to moving pictures. (In other words, the medium that serves as his surveying "eyes" changes. Skeptical? The Camera Scouts that are said to take pictures of children in TCoM do so to keep track of them; the pictures are then given to the Scissor Man, who cuts them up to take their souls away. With the Thin Man, he uses the TVs to travel from place to place, which also allows him to know what's going on wherever there is a TV present in a location.)

Concept art of a Camera Scout

Concept art of a Hunter Scout

• I also like the idea/possibility of the Thin Man being inspired by shadow figures (dark humanoid figures that are reportedly seen when experiencing sleep paralysis), especially since there's a recurring theme of shadows in the games (see the Shadow Children, the Lady's shadowy magic, Shadow Six). I mean, the series is called Little Nightmares; why shouldn't there be elements from real-life dreams, nightmares, and other sleeping experiences?

An artist's impression of a shadow figure (from Wikipedia)

• What's interesting to note is that this would mean that the Thin Man wouldn't be the first example of a "creepy, tall, thin man/male humanoid figure with a hat that shows up to terrify people, especially when they're asleep": other examples of characters that have traits of sleep paralysis shadow figures include Freddy Krueger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and the Shadow Man from the titular episode in the 1985 revival of The Twilight Zone. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivq9KJ9FYEw)
• I noticed that there are 1950s-inspired elements in LN2. I can see these with the clothing (especially with the Thin Man — the fedora kind of gives it away) and the old-timey TVs. Specifically, analog TVs as opposed to the digital TVs of today. During the middle of the 20th century — particularly the 1950s and 1960s— television was going through a golden age, with millions of TV sets finding their way into many American homes and having some of the most well-known and beloved shows coming out during this time such as I Love Lucy. With the TVs apparently brainwashing the Viewers, I could also interpret it to be a reference to how many people during 1950s America conformed to social norms.
• Headcanons:
  • If the Thin Man had a birthday, it would be November 21, which is known in real-life to be World Television Day.
  • His teleporting ability is also called ghosting (a blurry effect that is usually associated with/seen in analog TVs, but not so much with digital TVs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghosting_(television)).
  • The "machine" that was mentioned in TCoM's premise and referenced in Channels 1 and 3 is either the Signal Tower itself or something within the Signal Tower. It was what corrupted/distorted the world, and it was what gave the Scissor Man (as well as the other Corporation members aka the other adults/monstrous humanoids) more powers and turned him into the Thin Man.
  • The eye symbol was originally the symbol of the Corporation because they were practically everywhere in TCoM, keeping an eye on anyone that tries to defy the conformity imposed on Metronome's citizens. After the Scissor Man became the Thin Man and gained a lot of power and the Corporation eventually crumbled, the Thin Man adopted the symbol for himself, signifying his newfound hold and surveillance on the entire world.

Kids A and B: The Boy, New, Mono, and Six

This all might be a bit of a shot from the dark, but the fact that Mono is one of the protagonists of LN2 along with Six made me look up and think of a few things, with them possibly being connected/related to the Boy and New, the protagonists of TCoM. Some of my thoughts on them include:

• The Boy and New bear a passing resemblance to Mono and Six, if the latter two were older, wore different clothes, and weren't very small compared to almost everything else in the LN 'verse. It is also possible that Mono and Six are the Boy and New, but distorted by the Transmission and viewed as small and insignificant by the monstrous adults.
  • The only thing that might disrupt this line of thinking is the fact that Six was officially stated to be nine years old by the developers. (Of course, this limitation isn't really there when it comes to fanfics and other fan-created content.)
• There are elements in LN2 that are quite similar to TCoM:
  • a sense of conformity with almost everyone else except the protagonists, who notice that something is off and are trying to stop what's possibly the source of the evil that runs in a city
  • two young protagonists with strange names trying to stop the evil source and have to help each other to achieve that goal
  • antagonistic adults that are trying to ruin everyone else's lives in a strange-looking city, and they're associated with a device that is said to help them ruin everyone else's lives but their own (the Corporation's machine and the Signal Tower; also the Scouts and the TVs)
  • and the fact that both games require the protagonists to use their wits and puzzle-solving skills (apparently in TCoM, the Boy has to use a recording machine that he carries on his back to interact with sounds and use them to deal with enemies and puzzles)
• Also, though not directly related to LN2, the Nomes in the first LN game are similar to the Metrognomes in TCoM. Not only with their appearances, but also their function: as seen in the DLC of the first LN game, the Nomes are used to fuel the Maw's engine with coal, while the Metrognomes are essentially slave laborers for the Corporation's machine.
  • SPOILERS! Considering that the Runaway Kid had his soul taken away by the Lady at the end of the DLC, and the Metrognomes were the result of children being kidnapped by the Corporation and having their souls cut out by the Scissor Man…

A poster depicting a Metrognome, the Boy (left), and a Police Scout (back)

A Metrognome maintaining a part of the Corporation's machine?

Things that Don't Fit Nicely Into the Previous Sections

Just some more observations and thoughts that don't really fit in with the sections about the Thin Man and the kids.

• The reason why I had the Boy remember a time when he was being chased by the Scissor Man in an area with abandoned train cars is that 1) it's a reference to how the Thin Man chases Mono in a later (?) part of LN2 through abandoned train cars and 2) there are actually trains that go around Metronome; in fact, the Boy was said to be "training to become a steam-train engineer one day" until he met New. Which sort of leads to the next point...

• The Pale City is what Metronome became after everything went to shambles. Also, notice how the architecture appears distorted and stretched (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, anyone?) in TCoM and LN2 (as well as in LN and VLN).

A scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Note the crooked buildings.

• One thing that I've noticed about the game cover arts is that there's always an eye symbol located at the top that also depicts the protagonist of that game (Six in LN, the Girl in the Yellow Raincoat in VLN)… except for LN2, which has the flashing beacon at the top of the Signal Tower. At first glance at least.
• But if you look closely at LN2's game cover, as well as one of the screenshots that were revealed last year, the one that depicts Mono and Six holding hands in the rain with the Signal Tower in the distance, there actually is an eye symbol. (Hint: read the third section of the story portion of this Channel! Or just check out the last picture shown here.)

• If you really want to find something similar to my thoughts, check this out (post is not mine, I just found this one some time ago and thought it to be very interesting): (https://www.reddit.com/r/LittleNightmares/comments/j9o8xf/the_little_nightmares_games_might_be_a_reboot_of/)

Concluding Thoughts

In a way, I see the Little Nightmares games to essentially be The City of Metronome, but reborn. Of course, I can't exactly say if that's the truth or that Tarsier intended for the LN games to be that way, but there are several things about the LN games, especially LN2, that made me think. My intention for researching and typing all of this stuff wasn't to beg for Tarsier Studios to make TCoM soon (even though they have said somewhere that they "haven't made it yet" https://tarsier.se/studio/); in fact, I think having them develop and release TCoM any time soon is a pipe dream, as awesome as that would be given that they've become more well-known with the Little Nightmares series and found themselves a publisher in Bandai Namco for those games.

No, one reason why I did all of this is that I wanted to explore a bit of the history of an indie game company after I've become a bit disappointed with a few certain triple-A games and companies and have looked into indie games to broaden my horizons. In fact, one of the indie games that I've fallen in love with besides the Little Nightmares games is Team Cherry's Hollow Knight, which was made by THREE people, so kudos to them for making such a great game.

Lastly, after researching and typing up all of this, I found the Thin Man to be a very interesting character, even though he's probably still going to be scary once we confront him when LN2 is released. To me, he's less of an eldritch, Slender-Man like figure and more of a dark embodiment of escapism and dreams, especially nightmares. Because if you think about it, there are many ways that we can escape reality and enter fantastical, dream-like worlds, with him being there to meet and keep us in said worlds.

That's all for Channel 3, "Carry on My Legacy, Kid". If you'd like, please leave a comment below.

This is AHandWriter, signing out.