Dialheart

The Transmission gives them all they need, and demands only one thing in return...

…

For me, The Signal Tower is the most iconic place in the entire Little Nightmares series, and it's a shame that I only drew it now. 

Also, I would like to share some of my headcanons: 

1. There's some debate in the community regarding the nature of the transmission; I interpret it as an originally ordinary television broadcast that was taken over and corrupted by the Flesh Walls. 

2. The black tower itself was also an ordinary building. Well, how can you say it? It was the only skyscraper in the old capital, which cost the city a great deal of money and was supposed to represent a desire for the future and progress. 3. However, after its completion, the tower wasn't very popular among residents. One could even say the opposite. The skyscraper became the most hated building in the city, earning nicknames like "black tombstone" or "burnt trunk." Despite its intended meaning, even in the city center, the tower looked unnatural, standing out sharply against the background of other buildings.

4. Inside the tower, on the highest and largest floor, there was a major television broadcasting company and a studio where The Broadcaster (aka The Thin Man) previously worked. The skyscraper also housed various offices and residential apartments. 

5. The Flesh Walls occupied the tower as the largest and most conveniently located building in the city. Also, by settling in the tower, The Eyes gained access to the signal, which they used to corrupt the Pale City residents. 

Boy being shorter than Girl before the ritual but so much time has passed since then that when they meet in undeath, he's her height

Well, this is my first Little Nightmares fanart in my entire time in the community (which is a shame, of course; I've been following the fandom for five years). I'd love to do designs for all the important characters, but for now I'll just show my all-time favorite, The Thin Man, aka the Broadcaster of the Pale City. No matter how long the debate about who he is continues, for me, he and Mono will never be the same character. I'm aware of the time loop hypothesis and the plethora of fanarts it's spawned in 2021. And yet, I believe such a charismatic figure deserves to be a separate character. I understand that the time loop is the most common viewpoint in the fandom (and certainly the one favored by the game's creators), but as senior narrative designer Dave Mervik said, "It's all of that." In other words, everyone sees something different in the game, and there's no single right answer; everyone is right (which is why I absolutely adore the games and LN community). For example, I find it easier to see the long-suffering boy with a bag over his head as a successor to the man in the hat. The game's creators gave fans much more freedom of interpretation with Mono and Thin Man than, say, with Six and the Lady (it was stated that the Governess of the Maw we see in the first game and Six are not related in any way). And it's certainly sad that this rockstar of the franchise was severely curtailed, leaving a huge amount of fascinating content in the art book and game files. Aside from the cliched exploitation of Thin Man’s image in Altered Echoes, there's not as much reference to him in Little Nightmares 3 or subsequent DLC (except for the tower, and even that's more of an Easter egg for the second game as a whole).

Also, I'd like to add some trivia.

1. I still have to catch up with all the new details about the universe, but I like to think that Nowhere was once an ordinary world in which everything got mixed up (throughout the game, we see references to different eras; the children also arrive there from different times) and "twisted" as a result of some catastrophe. All these grotesque monsters were once ordinary people who lost their human form and became the embodiment of their worst qualities. So, the Thin Man (I was very inspired by stuff from the art book) was a TV anchor. 

2. The Lady is his ex-wife, and The Pretender is their daughter. After the divorce, he started smoking. Yes, despite all the controversy around "thinlady" and The Pretender's rather unclear position in the Little Nightmares universe, I really like this interpretation (the works of @lmaoumagadjieva on Tumblr convinced me of this). 

3. The Thin Man we see in the game is the first Broadcaster of the Pale City. He was appointed to this position by the Flesh Walls (a malevolent, super-intelligent eldritch entity). Initially, the anchor, of course, wanted nothing to do with all this abnormal shit change, but The Eyes gave the future Broadcaster a choice: either help guide The Transmission and brainwash the city's inhabitants (They listened to you before, they will listen to you again!), or become a mindless freak like the rest. In essence, he simply became a slave to slaves, an “auxiliary” of this creature. He also gained many remarkable abilities, eventually losing his physical form and turning into the fading shadow, a "living" signal. In fact, he works like a living prism, consolidating the signal, giving it the direction and effectively controlling it. He or she (this position is not strictly gender specific!) has extensive, yet incomplete, control over the signal. The Flesh Walls could (and can) maintain the signal without the Broadcaster, but it would be more diffuse and ineffective. Thin Man can, of course, leave his tower (throughout LN II, Mono and Six encounter his images on the walls; a drawing of a stick figure in the hat can be found in The Pretender's mansion), but only for a limited time (how limited depends on the circumstances). For example, in LN II, after Six is ​​kidnapped, Mono escapes the Viewers, who continue to pursue him despite the TVs around (the monsters are usually willing to drop everything and watch their favorite shows). This happens if The Broadcaster leaves the tower for a long time; the Transmission dissipates (fortunately, Thin Man can always quickly return through any nearby TV and fix everything).

4. The position of Broadcaster condemns its bearer to… celibacy. A servant of the Eyes must be loyal only to their master and love all their audience (the Viewers and other inhabitants of the Pale City) equally, showing no preference to anyone. By the time he assumed the position, the future Thin Man was already divorced, so The Flesh Walls had no issues with him. This restriction doesn't particularly bother the old, disillusioned Broadcaster. For his successor, Mono, it's quite unfortunate, as he was in love with Six, and later with the Broadcaster's daughter, The Pretender.

5. Thanks to his ghost-like nature, Thin Man cannot die from physical damage (although he can feel pain). Also, the Broadcaster has no biological needs. He can't freeze or overheat, get sick or poisoned. He doesn't need to eat, drink, or sleep (by nature, he simply can't, even though sometimes he'd like to!). He can be wounded or even disintegrated, as Mono did at the end of LN II, but not killed. The only way The Broadcaster can "die" is to simply "fade away" (become increasingly depleted by the signal until he disappears completely). Nevertheless, the Eyes can reduce the signal's intensity (here, without the help of the anchor, of course) to maintain the Transmission and prevent the Broadcaster from depleting too quickly, sustaining his existence for a very long time, if not forever. Also, the Thin Man cannot leave his post whenever he wishes; the Broadcaster must leave behind a successor. If the keeper of the Signal Tower refuses to take on an apprentice, then he condemns himself to eternal service to The Eyes, and a rather miserable existence (the reasons for this miserable existence are listed above). This is why the Thin Man kidnapped children and did everything to ensure that Mono (the boy with the same abilities as himself; the chosen one of the Eyes) ended up in the Tower.  6. After the Broadcaster has trained a successor (a lengthy process) and passed on their position, they are relieved of their post and lose all their abilities. If the keeper of the Signal Tower is relatively young and hasn't been a Broadcaster for long (say, 10 years or more), they will regain their physical form and be able to lead an ordinary life. If the Broadcaster is old and has been transmitting the signal for a long time, becoming sufficiently exhausted, they will simply disappear after the transfer, as I mentioned above. The same Broadcaster cannot hold their post twice, so if the young ruler of the Pale City leaves a successor and resigns, they will not be able to return to their position later.

7. At the very end of LN II, we see Mono's gradual transformation into the Thin Man. This scene is also actively discussed in the community, but again, everyone interprets it as they wish. Although everything is shown quite quickly in the game, we cannot judge how long the entire process took. Perhaps we are simply looking at a time lapse. We don't know what happened between these stages: Mono could simply be sitting in a chair, or he could be doing something; here again, we're given freedom of interpretation. So, I like to think that the boy became the Broadcaster's apprentice, learning from him how to operate The Transmission (a dynamic very similar to that in the @virtualgalaxysuit’s comic). All of this just doesn't appear on screen. I'm sure they would have been a great duo.

8. The Thin Man deliberately orchestrated Six's betrayal to appeal to his apprentice's trauma (You did everything for this girl, and she betrayed you. Be a good apprentice, and I won't betray you. Be a good Broadcaster, and the Eyes won't betray you.) and manipulate him. That's a topic for another post, so I won't go into detail here. 

9. In my story, the Thin Man isn't a kind old gentleman like the inimitable @redrumrose’s, but he still hasn't killed anyone. He kidnapped children in the Pale City before Six and Mono, but none of them proved suitable candidates for the role of successor. They were all released and sent out of the city after only a relatively short time in the tower (The Broadcaster has enough grotesque monsters both in the tower and among his audience; he certainly doesn't need more!). However, for no kids the stay in the Tower and such close exposure to the Transmission was not without consequences...

10. He's about 2.2 meters tall. At the time of LN ll, I'd guess he was about 45-50+ years old. 

11. It doesn't play any role in the plot and isn't mentioned in my story, but his real name is Walter Nachtigall. Everyone prefers to call him just the Broadcaster.

Art collab with imaginary.alone on tik tok!

Bonus👀

Just like the base game, it's very interesting with a decent amount of mystery in the air as to what the fuck is actually going on.

It's entirely set in the city that the final section of the base game takes place in.

In the DLC you play as The Prisoner, a mysterious child with a sack over their head who is constantly freezing, and The Soldier, a young girl in military costume.

Just like in the base game, we're not told where the kids are going or why. Or, pretty much of anything to be honest.

But what's easy to deduce from the DLC is that it's set either prior to the base game or during the first act.

As the final enemy of the first DLC is this fucker:

And, it's seemingly the exact same one from the base game. The area you encounter it in the DLC seems to be the network of tunnels it resides in under the school and afterwards, The Prisoner encounters a child.

And this Child basically says (paraphrasing here) "Don't worry, she gets what's coming to her."

Indicating A) like I've said, this is the exact same entity from the school level in the base game.

And B) this creepy kid that we keep running into in the DLC is seemingly aware of what's going to happen to The Mother in the base game.

Oh, yeah, I haven't mentioned this little shit have I?

Yeah, so, throughout the DLC you will encounter this strange little kid a total of three times from what I saw playing the DLC.

With the exception of the end of the DLC, this child will be relegated to the background; I first them on a walkway while Jeb and I were trying to escape a burning basement.

I actually called this out to Jeb but he didn't notice them.

Then you encounter them again after dealing with The Flamethrowing Soldier; you stumble upon a ruined bathroom and see the child approaching a horse in the distance.

Which, this horse also pops up once or twice during the DLC as well.

I assumed that naturally, since the kid is now front and center; Jeb would notice them and I actually bring this up to Jeb a while later.

Only to learn that no, he hadn't seen the little shit. Only the horse.

And this is because he was playing as The Soldier and I was playing as The Prisoner.

Whoever is playing The Prisoner is the only one who can see this mysterious child, even in the end of the DLC where they make their last appearance of the DLC, Jeb cannot see them.

Neither can he hear them. All that's happening on his end is that The Prisoner is seemingly talking to themself.

There's also seemingly this running thing in the DLC in regards to The Prisoner being cold and The Soldier offering them her coat and them turning her down.

It's one of the first bits of dialogue we get in the DLC and it's a bit that's repeated at least once, when the pair get on a train.

The only difference is that on the train, you can see the air around The Prisoner begin to freeze as ice spreads from where they're sitting.

Jeb has a theory that maybe The Prisoner is near death or actually dead, hence the icy ability and being able to see a strange disappearing child.

But, there's more

So, at one point while we're in train station midway through the DLC, Jeb and I stumble across a room with a clearly dying and suffering white rabbit.

It's on this broken bridge that has rubble blocking the way on the other end.

You have two options here: either you leave the rabbit to die or you can, well, shepperd it onto the other side of the Mortal coil.

If you choose to do so; you're shown what appears to be the ghost of the rabbit emerging from the corpse and leaping to the other side of the broken bridge, where a similar shade of a child is waiting for them.

The child shade cuddles the rabbit shade and then disappears into the rubble.

This marks the second time in the DLC we see some sort of connection between a child and an animal, the first being with the aforementioned Strange Child and a horse that pops up twice in the DLC.

The first time it appears is shortly after you get the polaroid camera, you can see the horse feasting on a corpse in an alleyway (which I think some herbivores do on occasion eat meat)

But then I've seen people online point out that when the Horse lifts up it's head to see you.

It looks directly at you, which a standard horse is not supposed to do since it's a Prey animal, meaning it's eyes are positioned to the sides of its head to grant it a wider degree of vision so it can spot predators.

People have pointed out that this marks The Horse as some sort of Predator. Which, is a possibility, yeah.

But regardless, it also further emphasizes just how fucking weird the world of Reanimal is, especially it's fauna.

The Horse appears during The Strange Child's second appearance, shortly before bombs are dropped on the pair.

The Horse survives, we literally see it get back up after the bombs go off while on fire and just run off as if it hadn't just been blown to kingdom come.

Which seems to be a recurring thing with Reanimal and it's animals: them suffering from a grievous injury and just, walking it off.

But anyway, back to the white rabbit; you also see graffiti of a white rabbit scattered through out the DLC, and it's always in a place where you put up these weird posters that unlock concept art.

Then there's the briefcases: while you're travelling through the DLC, you may run into briefcases you can open.

Some are empty, some are booby-trapped with mines so don't open those ones.

And then there's briefcases with a strange circle on the inside of the lid. If you flash the camera at this symbol it changes into an eye connected to five rats by their tails, you even hear the squeaking noise of a rat shortly afterwards.

What this means, I don't know. Jeb and I only managed to find two of these suitcases so, we don't know how many of them there actually are.

It could be these are akin to the shadow children in the base game and by gathering them all, you unlock a slightly altered hidden ending that gives a bit more information about the world.

I dunno.