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00fairylights00 · 2 years

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Prologue: It Wept Till There Was Nothing Left

Author's Note: Hi guys! Welcome to the inside of my brain, where I think about Little Nightmares every waking moment of my existence. Love these games and I just want the kiddos to be happy and safe so I thought it'd be fun to write a happy AU. Please note I have never read any other happy AUs for Little Nightmares so if you see similarities, firstly) they are definitely not on purpose, secondly) uuuh drop the link bestie I wanna see it. To make the explanation of the final boss fight a little more emotionally labouring for Mono, instead of there being three different room patterns, I’ve upped it to a number closer to ten, so please don’t come for me like “actually, you only have to hit the music box three times in the battle sequence” I am well aware, I just think it’d have more impact if The Tower kept forcing him to fight monster Six! (Cause obviously angst is neat).

Also, the game (Little Nightmares II) has now taken place over a series of weeks rather than a few hours, for immersion and whatnot. Wanna chat with me about this fic or other Little Nightmares-related topics, you can join The Pantheon discord server my friends and I run! The link is here!

Mono and Six escape from the collapsing tower by the skin of their teeth, deciding to bed down in the ruined apartment before moving on, Six’s hunger begins.

He’d just wanted to help, that was it. He wanted to save his friend after cowering in pain and fear from the Thin Man and get the hell out of this city, but when he finally got to The Tower, when he finally got to her, The Tower had stripped her of her innocence and turned her into a monster. Her limbs were twisted and broken, and her hair had grown out to cover her face but despite her intimidating size, she offered him sanctuary in that little room.

She offered her music box, a replica of the one she’d had when he found her in The Hunter’s cabin when he’d accidentally set into motion a series of events that would haunt them for the rest of their lives, most importantly, events that had put his friend in danger again, and again, and again. He felt as though he’d never forgive himself and as he sat there, watching the crank of the music box spin endlessly he realised that she had gotten what she wished for.

The Tower had turned Six into a Monster, bigger than any they’d encountered before, she was strong and formidable, nothing would ever hurt her again and that fact settled heavy like a stone in the pit of his stomach, The Tower had granted her wish for safety and strength in a way so twisted it had stolen her humanity, what was that old saying, something about being careful with wishes.

It seemed accurate given the world they’d grown up in, taking Six’s pleas and prayers and turning them into a cosmic joke. No matter how much they did to stay alive, to prove to the world that they belonged there, it would continue to spit in their faces and kick them while they were down. How hilariously cruel.

When he brought The Tower to him, the doors had opened in greeting and had welcomed him home. This building felt alive, the static of the transmission fizzing in the walls, climbing over his skin and wrapping around him like a safety blanket, he had to force himself not to buckle under the weight of feeling at home.

He’d never felt at home anywhere, not even before when he’d stayed with that group in the orphanage, way back when. A fire had started and then been put out, only for some nasty Adult to come along and snatch many of his pack away, to be consumed or passed along. He hid in a TV unit and when the creature looked down on him he wished with all his might to be anywhere else. Not a moment later was he spat out into long grass in the middle of a forest, found his way to Six, and as they became closer she had felt like home too.

Mono knew what he had to do, he couldn’t leave her like this. The Tower gave false promises, her Monster form wasn’t sustainable and eventually, the great monolith would consume her too, he could feel it in the way the transmission prickled on his skin, he could stay but she wasn’t welcome here.

At first he tried to reason with her, calling out to her, tugging on her sleeve but his voice seemed to hurt her, she flinched at his shouts and brushed him away as he hung off her arm. He hit the floor with a thud, sliding a little. As he brushed himself off and got to his feet he noticed the suitcase at the back of the room, a mallet lay on top of the wrinkled clothing. His heart sunk at the implication, he had to hurt her again.

And surely, this time, she wouldn’t forgive him.

He took a deep breath and picked the hammer up, he dragged it to her and he felt her looking down at him, could feel her begging him not to do it but doing nothing to stop him and with a heavy heart swung the mallet over his shoulder with all of his might.

It all happened in a flash, the tune he often found her humming when they bedded down for the night coming to an abrupt stop, the sound of twisting metal cut out to silence and when he opened his eyes all he could see was darkness, when he blinked again he was back in her room. The toys were replaced with Flesh and the building was collapsing, he was quick to move, running for the door.

Six was at his heels, screaming out in gargled distress. He felt his heart breaking for his friend as he once again tore her safety from her, he hoped to all hope that she would forgive him for this. But until she was herself again he had to focus on not getting flattened.

He weaved through the hallways, jumping chasms and trying to keep himself oriented as The Tower’s influence changed the form of the rooms with each doorway he passed through, he suspected The Tower wanted him dead, or at the very least trapped. He almost scoffed at the idea, considering it was The Tower that had left the mallet in her room. How was it his fault that he’d jumped to the most logical conclusion?

Six screamed again, as he flung himself through a hole in the wall, scrambling to take cover under a table, he held his breath, keeping as still as stone as she tore through the room, looking for him. She pushed her way through a closed door, thumping down the corridor and out of sight. He made a run for her but just missed her as the door she entered closed behind her.

But a familiar axe, stuck in the wood of the door that emitted a purple glow, told him everything. The Tower was mocking him and just like when he’d doomed Six in The Hunter’s cabin by carelessly chopping down the door to free her, he would have to doom her here too. This time he swore it would be different, he was never going to let anyone lay a finger on Six ever again.

With steeled determination he jumped for the Axe’s handle and broke through the door, she was in the centre of the room, hands covering her music box protectively. The static in The Tower felt different, stronger. The tune of the box was lilting due to the damage it had sustained, Mono picked up his axe and yelled.

“Hey!”

Six tore forward, smashing her fists as she went while he slipped through the hole in the door and was transported to the other side of the room, he sprinted as fast as he could, swinging down on the music box just as Six turned back around. The impact on the music box, which he now understood was some kind of tether that was causing her monster form, split the concrete floor, changing the shape of the room before he was plunged again into darkness.

He rushed pained, frightened breaths between his teeth as he felt the force of being thrown against concrete settle in his bird-like bones. He called out again, his voice echoing through the empty plain as he wandered aimlessly. Eventually he stumbled across his axe, stuck in the door again. The axe clattered to the ground as he grabbed it and with a powerful grunt he broke through the door once more.

He continued on like this, each time he made headway with the music box the room became harder to traverse, he had to think clearly about his movements or he’d be killed by his angry friend. Every yell hurt and angered her, drawing her away from the music box to move in on the static form he was leaving behind, it became a cycle.

Call out, run for your life, hit the music box, wake up in the void, find the door, do it again.

He’d lost count of the amount of times he’d opened his eyes to complete darkness but by what he guessed was the tenth time he almost couldn’t find it in him to get up, he felt tears welling up from the feeling of hopelessness that was consuming him. His body ached, his head was swimming and he could taste blood in his mouth. The Tower would keep making him fight her, he was sure this was his Divine punishment, for sentencing her to death all those weeks ago in the cabin, forcing her back out onto the street where it was infinitely more unsafe than being kept alive by a Hunter who seemed to be playing family. This was all his fault.

He wiped his eyes, breathing deep. This was it, he was putting an end to this now. If he and The Thin Man were alike enough that he could beat him at his own game, then he could bend The Tower to do his bidding too. He swung the axe, he counted the doors and the warped levels of the floor, looking for the axe and when he found it he screamed.

“HEY!”

Six was up, leaning down to swat at him as he tore through the doorway, he warped to the other side jumping for the axe, when he had a grip on it he moved swiftly as to avoid her next swing. He was through another doorway, yelling again and when he warped through, her back to him, he knew this was it.

He ran for the music box, heaved the axe over his shoulder and with one final, earth-shattering blow, the music box bent. When he pushed himself up from the floor this time, the room was different. The Flesh having closed in around them, it reeked of death, silt and ash. He looked up, Six was on the floor reaching forward in a final attempt to protect her music box.

She covered the bent metal trinket with her hands as Mono pulled the axe from the floor, when he approached he looked up at her again, her eyes pleaded with him, tears welling up in the corners of her bloodshot eyes, he cast her a sad look, there was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. None of it would fix this, it wouldn’t fix his mistake in The Hunter’s cabin or her kidnapping in The School, or setting The Doctor alight in The Hospital and it definitely wouldn’t fix his decision to not reach out to her in that apartment when The Thin Man chased them. The Thin Man that he’d freed due to his own morbid curiosity.

“You just had to know what was behind that door, didn’t you?” He whispered to himself.

He felt sick, but he couldn’t leave her like this. She'd been endlessly generous and kind to him despite it all, helping even though she wasn’t obligated to. At first, maybe she stayed out of necessity, knowing that parts of the city would be too dangerous to be alone in, but he was sure by the time they’d made it to the hospital that she was staying because she chose to, they’d played for hours in that toy room, trading secrets and knowledge, she’d taught him how to play make-believe and he’d taught her how to draw flowers.

And when she’d curled up on his lap to take a short nap, feeling her tension leave her, he promised himself that he’d continue to protect her, but Mono was never very good at keeping promises. He had always been unlucky and just like every other thing he wanted but could never have, Six was torn away from him too.

He called out to her one final time, fury at himself, The City, The Thin Man and The Transmission for ruining everything, poured into his desperate scream, Six flinched and he took his opportunity. The axe head collided with the music box and both he and Six were thrown backwards, he was on his feet quicker this time, and as her cries of agony bounced off the walls, she reached for the music box, its form glitching and tune warping, it’s true form becoming clear, it was a vessel keeping her distorted, Six’s monster form shifted and bowed under the pressure, limbs changing length and ragged pained breaths wheezing from her throat, she was so close, almost touching the metal but Mono swung quicker.

Mono’s final call echoed off the walls endlessly, the room went dark and when the strange purple light filled the room again, the music box was destroyed and his best friend was sitting there, looking at him. He couldn’t see her eyes but he felt the relief through his whole body. They stared at each other for a while, in shock that they were finally reunited and reality came crashing in, literally.

The Flesh that was The Tower’s true form was closing in, Mono yelled for Six frantically and they raced down the hallway. All he knew was run, don’t look back, just keep moving, the mantra he’d yelled in his head whenever something gave chase. Mono couldn’t hear anything over the rushing of blood in his ears as he hurried to keep up with Six, not daring to spare a look behind him at the brick and mortar that had given way to walls of flesh.

They jumped, climbed and weaved as The Flesh closed in and as he could see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel the flesh eyes tripped him up, Six made it across the skinny crumbling walkway, chunks of it falling away under her feet, she jumped a small chasm that had fallen and collapsed to her knees on somewhat solid ground, catching her breath and then turning back to him and reaching out her hand, like she’d down a thousand time before.

Six had seen it before Mono had, he was going to run out of road and he’d need to jump the gap, he would fall short without her help, he reached for her and leaped as he felt the ground give way beneath him. He closed his eyes and hoped that she’d catch him, just one more time he pleaded in his head. He felt her fingers around his wrist gripping for dear life.

He chanced a look up at her, The Flesh had stopped moving in, she was looking down at him with a blank expression as he hung limply, helplessly, vulnerably over the ledge. Was she going to drop him? She wouldn’t, would she? He thought briefly that she’d be right to do it, after everything he put her through. He swung his legs, sweaty hand scrabbling at the concrete of the broken ledge for support, trying to pull himself up, but he couldn’t get a solid hold,

“Six!” He yelled, chancing a look at the abyss below, he wouldn’t survive a fall this high, “please pull me up.”

She didn’t answer, continuing to stare, like she wasn’t really there. He looked down again, panic welling up in his stomach, oh my god, she was going to drop him.

“SIX!” His frantic, panicked desperation seemed to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. She shook her head minutely and breathed his name with a kind of horror he never wanted to hear again.

She heaved him up over the ledge, and he shook violently as he placed his hands and knees on solid ground, Six looked perturbed, unsure of what to do or say, which didn’t last long as Mono rushed forward to crush her into a hug.

“I thought you were going to drop me.” He repeated over and over again in a terrified whisper, Six didn’t say anything but she did return the hug.

“Let’s get out of here,” She whispered as she stood up, pulling him along with her. They hobbled to the TV screen plastered to the wall, arms slung over each other's shoulders to keep them standing upright, the static felt warm on their skin as they pushed against the glass.

They slid through the static, passing through The Flesh tunnel and then hitting the floor. The TV behind them cast white light onto the ground and they both breathed hard, trembling uncontrollably on the cold wood flooring.

Six was the first to stand, her movement catching Mono’s attention, in her casted shadow was a glitching image of… herself?

Was The Tower not destroyed? Surely it couldn’t survive without The Thin Man, the shadow stared Six down, her hands shook in fear as the shadow cast a glance over to a flyer laying on the floor in the corner, she looked back at Six and giggled, the sound making Mono’s blood run cold.

And as fast as the glitching shadow had appeared it was gone, the room bathed in darkness as the TV powered off, it was silent and then Six’s stomach growled painfully, she keened forward, hugging her torso and falling back down to her knees.

Mono was on his feet, grabbing Six by the shoulders, her face was twisted in pain.

“Are you okay?” He asked, Six grabbed one of his wrists and shook her head frantically.

Mono turned his attention to the flyer the shadow had been so preoccupied with, he pat her shoulder before going over to investigate.

The flyer had a picture of something fish-like, with the word “MAW” in big, bold letters across the top.

“Always the same time, never the same place, all-you-can-eat ocean vessel experience,” Mono read out loud with some difficulty, “all-you-can-eat! Six, look at this!”

He rushed over to her, paper in hand. She took hold of the paper, reading it over herself, flipping the page where three words were scrawled in black ink.

East Coast Harbour.

“East… Coast… Harbour?” She read, eyes squinting at the near illegible handwriting. “East coast? That’s not far from here.”

“So that’s where we’ll go!” Mono suggested excitedly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“What?!” Six exclaimed in shock.

“We’ll go to The Maw! There’ll be an endless supply of food, we’ll be far away from the shore and the city, it’s perfect!” He paced back and forth, getting more animated as his plan fell into place. Six wasn’t so sure, waving her hands out frantically to grasp his attention.

“Woah, Woah. Hang on, let’s think this through-”

“What is there to think through?” He argued.

“The fact that The Maw is an Adult experience, if we sneak onto that boat and get found out, we’ll be killed. You’ve heard the stories just as much as I have, no kid who boards The Maw escapes.” Six didn’t have to mention what kind of food was on the menu, they both knew very well what happens to the kids who are found in the bowels of The Maw. The Janitor was blind, not stupid.

“But don’t kids get shipped out there all the time?”

“Yeah, dying kids.”

A silence was drawn between them. They weren’t going to come to an agreement on this so instead, Six offered a compromise. Clearing her throat she wrung her hands together, speaking carefully now.

“Look, we don't even know if what just happened will happen again. We’ll move east anyway, no use staying in the city but let's keep The Maw as a last resort.”

“Fine, but I’m keeping an eye on you, and if I think your pain is getting worse we find a way to board The Maw. Deal?”

“Deal.”

It took them two weeks to get from the lonely little apartment in the city to the coastline and along their travels, she’d managed to find a paper bag to replace the one Mono gave up to fight The Thin Man, she’d been keeping an eye out after he’d told the story to her, how terrified and powerless he’d felt, she took it upon herself to find a replacement as he cycled through the growing hat collection he had stowed away in his coat. Mono was ecstatic when she gave it to him, quickly but carefully tearing out some eye holes and modelling his look.

“How do I look?” He giggled, Six smiled reaching forward to adjust the bag a little bit.

“Perfect, it’s just like the one from before!” Mono gave a silly bow at her acceptance, the pair laughing at his antics, he pulled the bag off, however, folding it up and putting it away. Six’s expression was puzzled.

“You know what I look like, and you don’t think I look strange so I don’t have to wear it around you,” Mono’s genuine grin made Six’s chest warm, happy that her friend felt more confident with her around, “I’ll hang on to it though, it’s a gift from you so it’s even more special!”

And things were good for a while, scavenging for food, finding safe shelter to sleep in, exploring all manner of abandoned buildings, that was until Six’s condition started to worsen.

They dubbed the pain and aggression she’d been exhibiting Hunger Pangs or more simply Hunger. It had started small, almost nonexistent at first, easily satiated by scavenging for food scraps but by the end of the first week Six had started becoming more aggressive than normal, often turning on Mono when he tried to help. He knew not to take it personally, that she wasn’t well, that she was in pain, but that didn’t stop his feelings from getting hurt when she lost her temper or pushed him over.

By the end of the second week, however, Six had developed a fever. She ignored the burning of her skin initially, making it to the harbour, whether they decided to try and board The Maw or not, was the most important thing.

She did not account for how awful it would feel to push her body to its limit to manage that feat, and one evening, as she and Mono were walking through a back alley, she collapsed. Waking up inside a building, with Mono fretting over her, her memory had been spotty as the fever set in, making her delirious. She tried to use what little strength she had to fight Mono as he tried to remove her layers in hopes of cooling her down, the ordeal ending in her sleeping fitfully with her blue cardigan resting under her head and her yellow raincoat draped over her lower body.

Mono chanced a look through the kitchen cabinets in the other room, finding a couple of cans of soup. He wasn’t able to warm them up, the oven unit being too big to use on his own. He was just relieved that the cans had pull tabs.

Despite her hunger, he found it impossible to feed her. She wasn’t really awake enough to eat but they’d gone so long without anything he wasn’t sure what else could be the cause of her sudden illness, it was hours before her fever came down enough for her to be lucid, Mono hadn’t slept a wink, terrified that a stray Viewer might find them.

“Six? Are you awake?” He wondered as he stroked her bangs away from her sweaty forehead, she made a small noise but didn’t say anything else. “You don’t have to worry about anything at all! I’m gonna take really good care of you, before you know it you’ll be back on your feet and we can get onto The Maw and you’ll never have to go hungry again.”

Mono worries his bottom lip at her lack of response, her breath was shallow too and something about that made him worried, but he wasn’t sure why.

“You know I’m really worried about you, when you fell down outside I thought you’d died, and it was so hard to drag you in here. I didn’t realise how heavy sleeping people are.” He paused. “You are just sleeping, right? ‘Cause if you’re just sleeping, it’ll be okay! And I’m your best friend, you can tell me anything you want. So if it’s bad you can tell me.”

Mono curled in close to Six, letting her rest her head on his chest. Continuing to comb his fingers through her damp hair.

“Yeah, you’ll tell me.”

Next Chapter

#little nightmares #little nightmares happy au #LN Fairy's Happy AU #six little nightmares #mono little nightmares #i love these kiddos so much and they deserve all the love #i put my whole soul into writing out the boss fight scene can you tell?#hello little nightmares tumblr it's nice to meet you #pls be kind i am very afraid #been about 5 years since i wrote fanficiton #found family trope my beloved #And So The Rain Stopped #edit: changed my mind no more reader insert character cause I got attached to my own one lol #dec 2021

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sandybrett · 2 years

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The Slings & Arrows timeline

[Reposted from my previous blog, which I'm going to deactivate soon.]

I’ve attempted to compile as much information as possible about the timeline of Slings & Arrows as a resource for myself and other fic writers. By “resource” I do not mean “definitive guide,” because, as I suspected going in, it does not hold together very well. There’s one obvious inconsistency—Richard has supposedly been at the festival for eight years, but doesn’t know Geoffrey. There’s a sense I get, which I’ve seen at least one other person agree with but I don’t know if anyone else does, that based on the way everyone talks about the famous Hamlet and how much Oliver and Ellen have aged since then, it must have been more than seven years ago.

Under a cut for length and spoilers.

S1E1 • The Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated in the first round of the 2003 Stanley Cup playoffs, so the 2003 season at New Burbage has to have opened in mid-April. (Apparently the guy sitting behind the Minister of Culture during the show is a Philadelphia Fliers fan.) • Kate saw Geoffrey’s Hamlet when she was 12, which would put her at 19 now. • Oliver has directed the Dream 10 times. Ellen has played Titania 6 times. Stratford does the Dream roughly every five years. • Basil says “Here’s to another 25 years with the festival.” He doesn’t explicitly say Ellen’s already been with the festival for 25 years, but that seems to be the implication. If we assume she has a college degree, she must be at least 48, meaning she would have played Ophelia at 41. If we assume she arrived as a teenager, like Kate, she’s more like 44 and played Ophelia at 37. Either way, it would mean she had already been with the festival 18 years by the time of Geoffrey’s breakdown. • This is the festival’s 44th season, meaning the festival was founded in 1959. • Oliver saw Burton’s Hamlet in ’64, and it sounds like he was an adult. That would put him at least in his early 60s. • Oliver seems to claim that his sleeping with Ellen was responsible for Geoffrey’s great performance. Obviously this is a stretch, and Oliver later admits it wasn’t true. But I doubt he would be even making that claim if he had slept with Ellen between the second and third shows, as many fans have assumed. It sounds like they slept together before the show opened. • Ellen angrily whispers “Tell him!” to Oliver, confirming that they’ve already slept together by opening night. But Geoffrey doesn’t know. So Oliver is claiming that by sleeping with Ellen and not telling Geoffrey about it, he somehow made a major difference in Geoffrey’s performance. • Past!Ellen still seems to be of typical childbearing age—probably closer to 37 than 41. Although given that Geoffrey is extremely drunk and probably already not in the best mental health, he might be overestimating how easy it would be for Ellen to get pregnant.

S1E2 • Anna knows Geoffrey, but Richard doesn’t, even though Richard has supposedly been with the festival for eight years. • One of the speakers at the funeral met Oliver at the Manitoba Theatre Center in 1978. • Geoffrey says “There was a kind of electricity in this place I have not experienced anywhere else,” which I’m guessing means his professional theatre experience is not limited to New Burbage and Theatre Sans Argent.

S1E3 • Geoffrey’s other roles at New Burbage included Romeo, Mark Antony, and Prince Hal. It’s not specified whether he played Antony in Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra. • Darren directed Titus Andronicus in ’97, one year after Geoffrey’s breakdown. Geoffrey seems to have seen it, implying he was out of the hospital by then. • Geoffrey stormed the stage in the middle of a college performance. Admittedly, it’s implied to have been an insensitive one, but still, this suggests to me that he already had some mental health issues. • Geoffrey and Ellen played “all the great love scenes” together—probably an exaggeration, but there was definitely more than just R+J and Hamlet.

S1E6

• The actor playing Laertes was named Brian, and seems to have been someone both Ellen and Geoffrey knew well. Is it the same Brian we meet in Season 2? He looks way too young. There could easily be two different Brians—after all, there are two different Barbaras. You’d think if there were multiple Brians Geoffrey might distinguish among them, but then again, Ellen probably remembers which Brian played her brother.

• This is kind of a tangent, but does anyone else get the sense our heroes have more of a history with Basil than we’re being told about?

• At this point Claudius is not being played by Brian Cabot, but by a guy named Alan.

• The end credits distinguish the past and present actors by listing Jack’s castmates as “Horatio” and Geoffrey’s as “Horatio (1996)”, confirming that the show does take place in 2003.

S2E1 • Kate receives and accepts a marriage proposal from a well-established actor, which makes me doubt that she’s really supposed to be 19 or 20. • When Ellen asks whether Geoffrey really hasn’t slept with anyone in 8 years, Geoffrey says “You have to remember I was in an asylum.” I think this implies he was hospitalized for a fairly long time.

S2E2 • Veronica Tennant is a real person; I don’t think she’s supposed to be related to Geoffrey. • Geoffrey says he’s known Ellen for ten years. Does that include the seven-year gap? If so, they only knew each other for two years pre-Hamlet; if not, it’s more like nine years. Two is highly unlikely given the number of times they’re implied to have acted together, but possible given the structure of the New Burbage season (see S2E6). Nine seems a little too long but is plausible, although presumably they weren’t dating for that entire time. • Henry refers to New Burbage as “home”, implying he spent a substantial chunk of his early career there. It’s not clear how much he overlapped with Geoffrey and Ellen.

S2E3 • Henry and Brian played Hal and Falstaff opposite each other. It was probably since the disastrous Hamlet if Brian is indeed the same Brian who played Laertes. Henry has also played Hamlet, and Macbeth three times.

S2E5 • Oliver directed Geoffrey in R+J twice, and the first one was 20 years ago—12 years before Hamlet. He was upstaging Mercutio during the Queen Mab speech, so he was either Romeo or Benvolio. • Ellen played Paulina in The Winter’s Tale at some point.

S2E6 • Darren and Geoffrey were in college together in 1980. If they were freshmen, that would mean Geoffrey was about 34 at the time of his breakdown and 41 when he returned to the festival. • Sarah says that Romeo and Juliet is going to run for twelve weeks. This implies that New Burbage productions don’t run for the entire season the way Stratford productions do, which would also explain why, in Season 1, Hamlet starts later in the season than the Dream despite being the flagship production. If we assume that this season, like the previous season, opens in mid-April, Romeo and Juliet would only run until mid-July. Then, if the next set of plays opens immediately afterward and runs for twelve weeks, the season ends in mid-October.

S3E2 • Ellen says “We’re not in the Young Company anymore” implying that she and Geoffrey were both in the New Burbage Young Company. • Ellen was in Three Sisters with Charles at the National Arts Center—she played Masha, Barbara played Olga, and I’m guessing from their relative ages that Charles played Chebutykin. This seems to be the only time they’ve worked together, so presumably he hasn’t worked at New Burbage much during Ellen and Geoffrey’s adult lives, unless Ellen and Charles just happened to never be cast in the same play. • Geoffrey and Charles, however, have obviously worked together quite a bit, but we never learn where or when. • Barbara has been cast as Ellen’s older sister twice, so I’m guessing either they’re very close in age or Barbara’s a bit older. Barbara is getting hot flashes earlier than expected, which would imply that Ellen is not yet getting hot flashes.

S3E3 • Oliver directed Geoffrey in seven plays at New Burbage. This does not eliminate the possibility that he could have directed Geoffrey in more plays elsewhere, or that Geoffrey was in other plays at New Burbage with other directors.

S3E5 • Ellen says that she and Barbara were “roommates on tour,” implying that’s how they met. I don’t know whether this was for Three Sisters or something else. Judging from the fact that Geoffrey already knows Barbara, this seems to have been before Ellen and Geoffrey got together. Ellen was apparently “crazy about” a guy named Mike Greenfield, whom she found having sex with a girl named Mary in the green room. • When Barbara says she and Ellen are “bitter and menopausal,” Ellen starts to say “I’m not—” and then breaks off. She’s admitted to being “bitter” in the past, and “I’m not menopausal!” would be the funnier response, so this is further evidence that Ellen is not yet menopausal. • Barbara says that Ellen’s been at New Burbage “her whole life,” although clearly there’s been at least one short break.

S3E6 • Frank says he’s been with New Burbage “ever since it was a tent,” even though, according to S1E3, he wasn’t there for Geoffrey’s breakdown.

Other notes • In 2003, Paul Gross and Mark McKinney both turned 44, Martha Burns turned 46, Stephen Ouimette turned 49, Don McKellar turned 40, Susan Coyne turned 45, and Rachel McAdams and Luke Kirby both turned 25. (Of course, Rachel McAdams played a high school student in Mean Girls that same year.) Paul Gross would have been 41 when he played Hamlet at Stratford. Martha Burns played Ophelia at some point before that, but I wasn’t able to find any indication of when. • It’s never explained what differentiates the apprentices from the Young Company, except that the Young Company get large roles instead of playing “maids and fairies.” If we accept that Kate really is supposed to be 19 when we meet her, perhaps apprenticeships are for college students on vacations or actors starting their careers directly out of high school, whereas the Young Company is for people who’ve just finished their acting degrees. However, that seems not to have been how it was for the Stratford Young Company, on which the New Burbage one is presumably modeled: Susan Coyne was in several Young Company productions when she was nearly thirty and had already performed in a regular production at Stratford.

Additions, theories, input from people who know more about theatre than I do all welcome!

#from the archives #dec 2021 #slings and arrows #the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune #canon character: geoffrey tennant #canon character: oliver welles #canon character: ellen fanshaw #canon character: anna conroy #canon character: richard smith jones #recycled character: kate mcnab #canon character: jack crew #canon character: henry briedlove #canon character: brian cabot #canon character: barbara (slings & arrows)#canon character: basil cruikshank #canon characters: frank and cyril

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