History WMG / Hatchetfield

This theory started getting kicked around as soon as "Watcher World" came out on ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'', with Blinky mapping onto the Eye/the Beholding. People have speculated by extension that Wiggly represents the Extinction, and that in "Watcher World"'s companion story "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" Prof. Hidgens becomes an avatar of The Hunt. The associations for the other Lords in Black are less clear, but Pokotho/the HiveMind from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' could be the Corruption (since it's called "the Hive") or the Stranger (since it replaces people with "zombies"). Likewise, Tinky the Time Bastard fits the Lonely or the Spiral (with the Bastard Box adding a touch of the Buried), and while we know little about Nibblenephim ("Nibbly") the whole "eating people" motif makes him fit the Flesh. [[spoiler: And Webby, of course, would be a more-benevolent incarnation of the Web.]]

** In "Yellow Jacket", [[spoiler:Webby describes Pokey as an OmnicidalManiac out to destroy everything but himself, suggesting he is indeed no friend to his brothers.]]

What if Webby was originally sent to appear to Hannah by her brothers, posing as her "imaginary friend" to groom her for whatever it is the Lords in Black need her for? We don't know how long Hannah has known Webby, but it's been a long time. My theory is that Webby [[BecomingTheMask became the mask]] grew to truly care for the girl, and by extension, all of humanity. Rather than use Hannah to help her brothers take over the multiverse, she began to try and help her, giving her warnings of what's to come (likely keeping them vague to keep her brothers from catching on) and teaching her how to protect herself from her nightmares.

* It really ''wouldn't''. As the Hatchetfield Timeline notes, fitting as many ''Nightmare Time'' stories as possible into a single timeline result in "Watcher World" and "The Witch in the Web" seemingly leading us into a happy ending... in which [[spoiler: Paul and Emma have been killed and replaced, Ted has disappeared forever, Tom has gone mad, and Becky is possessed by Jane]]. Far more logical to assume that ''every'' Hatchetfield story takes place in a ''completely'' different timeline, with the SimultaneousArcs of "Forever & Always" and "Time Bastard" being an explicit exception that proves the rule.

* The presence of a John [=MacNamara=] in both main-stage Hatchetfield stories and the fact that he dies in both would suggest that the timeline resets don't center around Hatchetfield; the paranormal phenomena do, but the timeline resets apply to the ''entire'' universe. Alice used to spend most of each month at her mother's home in Clivesdale and has left Hatchetfield for college; Emma spent much of her youth traveling the world, and apart from Emma ''many'' Hatchetfield residents express a desire to live somewhere else, so the perception many fans have that Hatchetfield the town is some sort of ClosedCircle or SmallSecludedWorld that people never leave, and that the rest of the world continues turning as normal, would seem poorly thought-out. Remember, a good portion of ''Black Friday'', the parts where Wiggly is seen in person and intervenes directly, takes place in DC. All that to say, Hatchetfield's hatred of Clivesdale being fuelled by the magic of the Witchwood seems unlikely, though certainly not imposible.

After the downer of TGWDLM and the ambiguous up to interpretation one of Black Friday; this will have a better ending.

This theory started getting kicked around as soon as "Watcher World" came out on ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'', with Blinky obviously mapping onto the Eye/the Beholding. People have speculated by extension that Wiggly represents the Extinction, and that in "Watcher World"'s companion story "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" Prof. Hidgens becomes an avatar of The Hunt. The associations for the other Lords in Black are less clear, but Pokotho/the HiveMind from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' could be the Corruption (since it's called "the Hive") or the Stranger (since it replaces people with "zombies"). Likewise, Tinky the Time Bastard fits the Lonely or the Spiral (with the Bastard Box adding a touch of the Buried), and while we know little about Nibblenephim ("Nibbly") the whole "eating people" motif makes him fit the Flesh. [[spoiler: And Webby, of course, would be a more-benevolent incarnation of the Web.]]
** TheReveal that Nibblenephim's epithet is "The Thing That Feeds in the ''Dark''" means we might be able to switch his corresponding entity from the Flesh to the Darkness. Which is extra appropriate given the opposition between him and Blinky (the Beholding) -- one has a mouth but no eyes, one has a giant eye but no mouth.

The plot of Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals was a standard MTF mission gone horribly wrong, whereas the dimensional portal sequence in Black Friday is a classic testing log gone horribly wrong.

The plot of Black Friday is almost a textbook illustration of TheEvilsOfFreeWill rant Hidgens gave in TGWDLM -- humanity wantonly destroys itself due to our own selfish greed and fear, born of our flaws and insecurities and our fundamental inability to trust each other. The Wiggly cult is almost the opposite of the HiveMind, a bunch of narcissists trying to climb over each other's backs in hopes of being more special and more worthy than those beneath them. The HiveMind vs the Wiggly cult is a classic OrderVsChaos conflict, with the two possible extremes they represent for the human race, becoming immortal StepfordSmiler zombies or dying horribly in a HatePlague to feed a SoulEater, being equally horrifying to us -- but the HiveMind may from its own perspective be a WellIntentionedExtremist saving us from an otherwise inevitable apocalypse.
** WordOfGod has all-but-confirmed that Pokotho is the origin behind the HiveMind. Regardless... perhaps the Lords in Black aren't the unified front they appeared to be when they debuted as a quintet. [[spoiler: Pokotho, if he is indeed responsible for the Apotheosis, currently rules the reality in which TGWDLM took place. Wiggly may have started WorldWarIII, but he failed to pass through his portal and take over the ''Black Friday'' reality. Wiggly may now resent his brother for taking over one of the realities before he, Wiggly, the group's ostensible leader, could do so.]]

It's almost an exact match, so much so that I'd be shocked if the Creator/LangBrothers (who are connoisseurs of horror films) didn't have this movie in mind when writing "Time Bastard". Tinky's MO is, apparently, constructing intricate and confusing {{Time Paradox}}es that involve dragging a screwed-up person into a MindScrew via {{hallucinations}} and the like, designed to manipulate them into eventually getting themselves killed in a StableTimeLoop.

Along the way, other people affected by the StableTimeLoop (called the "Manipulated Living" and the "Manipulated Dead" in [[AllThereInTheManual ancillary materials]]) have their actions carefully arranged to mislead the CosmicPlaything into thinking he's the ChosenOne, have him explore the greatest heights and lowest depths of what he's capable of, push him to the limits of his sanity. People who die as a result of the StableTimeLoop appear as avatars of the mysterious force arranging the loop -- whether before or after their deaths actually occur doesn't matter (since the loop itself is driven from a PlaceBeyondTime by a PredestinationParadox).

The similarities are uncanny, especially the degree to which Jenny is a parallel to Gretchen and Tinky himself is to Frank the Bunny, with the disturbing nature of the Tinky goat-man "costume" being an almost exact match for Frank's groteque "bunny suit" (meaning that Andy Kilgore is a candidate for human!Frank and Tinky may actually look like Creator/JeffBlim BeneathTheMask).

There are obviously also many things that are different between the movie and "Time Bastard", but the basic concept is such a specific idea and the plot of "Time Bastard" is so close to it that it's very hard not to see it as a SpiritualAdaptation.

This has become a very popular theory thanks to the large number of {{Call Back}}s to Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals in Theatre/BlackFriday, which almost comes across as RippleEffectProofMemory from some of the characters in question. Maybe the "alternate timelines" literally involve some kind of fail-safe where, every time the people of Hatchetfield experience some kind of apocalypse and the world ends, a new timeline splits off around the time of Jane Houston's death and they try again until a different threat, which they'll only be free from once they succeed in defeating it. Hints in favor of this theory include the idea that "Wiggly" is just one guise worn by the Ruler of the Black and White, and that the song that name-drops the idea of an "alternate reality", "Take Me Back", is all about the idea of going back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. It's also a payoff for [=McNamara=]'s rant in TGWDLM about how "time is a precious thread in the fabric of the universe."

The mention of Wilbur Cross disappearing to become Uncle Wiley 13 years ago is oddly specific, and WordOfGod has since clarified that Hannah is supposed to be 13 (like her actor) and just acts younger than her age because of her AmbiguousDisorder. It may have some connection to her abilities -- maybe he seduced Lex and Hannah's mom because of her genetic potential in order to conceive TheChosenOne. (It wouldn't be too different from what he did with Linda)

For as long as it's been clear that there are five Lords in Black, they've always been presented in the exact same order: Pokotho, Bliklotep, T'Noy Karaxis, Nibblenephim, Wiggog Y'wrath. Jane's patient lists them in that order, Willabella disguised as Lex presents them in doll form in that order, and we see them in that order during "The Web I Spin For You". It's hard to call this a WMG, just not sure where else to note this observation. Might there be cosmic significance to that order? And if so, why did we the audience not meet them in that order?
* If Pokotho is, as speculated, "the Hive" that the Assimilated speak of, then the order in which they're listed ''is'' the order in which the audience has met the lesser ones, with Wiggly going at the end instead of second because he's their leader, and Nibblenephim being the only one that hasn't actually taken action yet. Might the multiverse be out of balance somehow because Wiggly got impatient and made his move immediately after Pokotho did, instead of waiting his turn?

[[WMG:Webby had a HeelFaceTurn prompted by Hannah.]]

What if Webby was originally sent to appear to Hannah by her brothers, posing as her "imaginary friend" to groom her for whatever it is the Lords in Black need her for? We don't know how long Hannah has known Webby, but it's clearly been a long time. My theory is that Webby [[BecomingTheMask became the mask]] and grew to truly care for the girl, and by extension, all of humanity. Rather than use Hannah to help her brothers take over the multiverse, she began to actually try and help her, giving her warnings of what's to come (likely keeping them vague to keep her brothers from catching on) and teaching her how to protect herself from her nightmares.

Perhaps Webby's sudden disappearance prior to "The Witch in the Web" was due to her brothers working out that she'd turned on them and was choosing Hannah and humanity over them.

"The Hatchetfield Ape Man" is the only story that explicitly '''cannot''' fit into a continuity containing the other Nightmare Time stories as [[spoiler: Ted's HeroicSacrifice at the end precludes the events of "Time Bastard" from occurring.]] Beyond that, it would make sense for Nightmare Time to be its own continuity.
* It really ''wouldn't''. As the Hatchetfield Timeline notes, fitting as many ''Nightmare Time'' stories as possible into a single timeline results in "Watcher World" and "The Witch in the Web" seemingly leading us into a happy ending... in which [[spoiler: Paul and Emma have been killed and replaced, Ted has disappeared forever, Tom has gone mad, and Becky is possessed by Jane]]. Far more logical to assume that ''every'' Hatchetfield story takes place in a ''completely'' different timeline, with the SimultaneousArcs of "Forever & Always" and "Time Bastard" being an explicit exception that proves the rule.

[[WMG: The leading man and leading lady of NPMD will be Hot Chocolate Boy and Grace Chastity, but they won't actually get together due in part to incompatible orientations.]]

[[WMG: One of the Nerdy Prudes will be an alternate version of Sherman Young; another, the squeaky voiced teen from the movie theater played by Joey Richter.]]

* It would definitely be ironic to have Alice's actual girlfriend Deb and the girl her dad would rather she be dating be played by the same person.

[[WMG: This one will have a more happier or at least BittersweetEnding.]]

A slasher-style story would bring the scale of the story back down to the ClosedCircle of a small group of teenagers in Hatchetfield, and the slasher being an undead revenant like [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason]] would fill in the P in PEIP, a Paranormal threat, after the meteor in TGWDLM was Extraterrestrial and Wiggly in BF was Interdimensional). It also sounds like the title of ''Nerdy Prudes Must Die!'' is a parody of the FinalGirl, with this slasher being offended by the concept and specifically targeting potential Final Girls for being "nerdy prudes".
* This theory gained a lot of support after Creator/TeamStarkid did a livestreamed reading of ''Film/{{Scream}}'' for their fans during the UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic.

Apart from being in a different dimension, ''Black Friday'' takes place some (unspecified) time after ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' (since in that dimension, Emma and Paul didn't ever get as far as they are at the beginning of ''Black Friday''). Just like ''Black Friday'' did, ''Nerdy Prudes'' will continue some time after the previous musical, in an alternate dimension that didn't perish. Halloween is a few days after Black Friday - assuming that ''Nerdy Prudes'' is going to be a slasher-style horror story, it would be fitting.
* Black Friday is ''after'' Halloween (Halloween is Oct. 31, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, i.e. the fourth Friday in November). That said, NPMD sounds a lot like it's going to be a slasher pastiche and there's a [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} grand tradition]] of slashers taking place on Halloween.

The line in "Monsters and Men (Reprise)", "If Wiggly is burnt, who knows what we've unlocked?" implies major long-term consequences to humanity's ability to defy Wiggly on Black Friday, even if the show seems to have a DownerEnding with WorldWarIII. Incorporating the GroundhogDayLoop theory above, the idea may be that humanity is collectively learning and growing across the various timelines as the apocalypses happen, and there will be a timeline where -- as John [=MacNamara=]'s ability to challenge Wiggly and AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence implies -- humans finally break through and are able to challenge the gods on their home turf. (It's the only way the message of the song "Monsters of Men" ends up not feeling like a cruel joke.)

So far, the shows in the Hatchetfield trilogy have dealt with one of the phenomena mentioned in PEIP's acronym (Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, and Interdimensional Phenomena) respectively- TGWDLM was about musical extraterrestrials, and Black Friday was about an interdimensional Cthulhu expy. If Nerdy Prudes follows this pattern, it will deal with the paranormal- and if the slasher parody theory above is correct, it may end up as a parody of movies like Film/ANightmareOnElmStreet, or Film/TheBlairWitchProject, where the killer is a ghost or other supernatural entity.

It seems there's a pattern by now: even-numbered stories (''Theatre/BlackFriday'', "Watcher World", "Time Bastard", "The Witch in the Web") have the Lords in Black in them, odd-numbered stories (''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'', "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man", "Forever & Always", "Jane's a Car") do not. They might be ''involved''--as their magic is employed in "Jane's a Car" and WordOfGod has hint-dropped that one was responsible for TGWDLM--but they won't appear in person (or, well, doll) and the story won't be ''about'' them, since NPMD was supposed to be the third installment in the series. So it'll be grand in scope like the two stage musicals rather than the intimate horror of ''Nightmare Time'' stories, but ''not'' advance Hatchetfield's cosmic MythArc.
* This got one step closer being to confirmed when Creator/NickLang revealed the concept of ''NPMD'' is both the "silliest" of the premises for the full-length Hatchetfield musicals and conceived before any of the Hatchetfield MythArc was established in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'', and {{Jossed}} the common fan theory that Nibblenephim/"Nibbly" is the GreaterScopeVillain of ''NPMD''. (He is, instead, the villain of a later idea for a film that may end up recycled as a ''Nightmare Time'' episode.)

Most fancastings for Grace Chastity pick an older veteran actress for her -- Creator/LaurenLopez, Creator/JaimeLynBeatty, Kim Whalen -- and while all of them certainly can pass for teenagers if they have to, the whole reason Mariah Rose Faith was cast in ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' (and Angela Giarratana was cast to replace her in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' when she was unavailable due to being cast in ''Theatre/MeanGirls'') is that they wanted an actress in her 20s to more realistically portray a high-school-aged main character. This is the same reason 20something Robert Manion was cast as Ethan Green and the "Hot Chocolate Boy" -- both of whom, unlike Creator/JoeyRichter's "Obnoxious Teen" character, are meant as main characters the audience is supposed to get invested in.

That's why it's possibly making a virtue of necessity that ''NPMD'' has been so long delayed -- long enough for Kendall to age out of playing a "child" character and into a "teen" role. (If the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic should end on the most optimistic possible timeline, by early 2021, then Kendall will be 15 before a stage show could possibly go up; more likely it'll go up after she's turned 16.) The Creator/LangBrothers in ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' seem to have enjoyed giving actors the chance to show off their range and play contrasting characters, especially the newer ones -- Angela playing EnglishRose Lucy to contrast with Lex, for instance -- and "nerdy prude" Grace Chastity would certainly be a huge departure from playing Hannah (and would allow Kendall to play someone slightly less weird and closer to her real-life personality).

This is seemingly universally-accepted {{Fanon}}, so... might as well mention it here.

As it was widely known that HCB would be, at the very least, ''among'' NPMD's main characters, fans took Bill's mention of Ted having a nerdy younger brother in "Watcher World", along with HCB's tender interactions with Ted and Charlotte in particular in the final number of ''Black Friday'', to be hints toward this theory.

However, Corey Dorris, on the ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' Season One talkback livestream, let slip that "It's not really ''Workin' Boys''" -- something Nick Lang quickly shushed him about. This ''might'' just mean what was said above -- that the film won't actually be a three-hour-long snoozefest that takes place in RealTime [[BottleEpisode confined to the location of a football field]] -- but it could have a deeper meaning.

* It really ''wouldn't''. As the Hatchetfield Timeline notes, fitting as many ''Nightmare Time'' stories as possible into a single timeline results in "Watcher World" and "The Witch in the Web" seemingly leading us into a happy ending... in which [[spoiler: Paul and Emma have been killed and replaced, Tom has gone mad, and Becky is possessed by Jane]]. Far more logical to assume that ''every'' Hatchetfield story takes place in a ''completely'' different timeline, with the SimultaneousArcs of "Forever & Always" and "Time Bastard" being an explicit exception that proves the rule.

As it was widely known that HCB would be, at the very least, ''among'' NPMD's main characters, fans took Alice's mention of Ted having a nerdy younger brother in "Watcher World", along with HCB's tender interactions with Ted and Charlotte in particular in the final number of ''Black Friday'', to be hints toward this theory.

This theory started getting kicked around as soon as "Watcher World" came out on ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'', with Blinky obviously mapping onto the Eye/the Beholding. People have speculated by extension that Wiggly represents the Extinction, and that in "Watcher World"'s companion story "The Hatchetfield Ape-Man" Prof. Hidgens becomes an avatar of The Hunt. The associations for the other Lords in Black are less clear, but Pokotho/the HiveMind from ''Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals'' could be the Corruption (since it's called "the Hive") or the Stranger (since it replaces people with "zombies"). Likewise, Tinky the Time Bastard fits the Lonely or the Spiral, and while we know little about Nibblenephim ("Nibbly") the whole "eating people" motif makes him fit the Flesh. [[spoiler: And Webby, of course, would be a more-benevolent incarnation of the Web.]]

It would be tough to pull off, but it wouldn't be surprising at this point, considering how much Nick Lang enjoys shocking plot twists and {{Wham Episode}}s, for ''Workin' Boys'' to suddenly swerve away from the ostensible plot abotu Prof. Hidgens' theatrical ambitions and reveal itself to be a major WhamEpisode in the Hatchetfield MythArc, maybe even one involving some kind of meta twist that retroactively changes the title of the movie that it's in.

This has become a very popular theory thanks to the large number of {{Call Back}}s to Theatre/TheGuyWhoDidntLikeMusicals in Theater/BlackFriday, which almost comes across as RippleEffectProofMemory from some of the characters in question. Maybe the "alternate timelines" literally involve some kind of fail-safe where, every time the people of Hatchetfield experience some kind of apocalypse and the world ends, a new timeline splits off around the time of Jane Houston's death and they try again until a different threat, which they'll only be free from once they succeed in defeating it. Hints in favor of this theory include the idea that "Wiggly" is just one guise worn by the Ruler of the Black and White, and that the song that name-drops the idea of an "alternate reality", "Take Me Back", is all about the idea of going back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. It's also a payoff for [=McNamara=]'s rant in TGWDLM about how "time is a precious thread in the fabric of the universe."

[[WMG: NPMD will be the first appearance of Ziggs from ''WebVideo/NightmareTime'' S1E1 Pt. 2 "Watcher World"]]