The Nursery Nurse

The Nursery Nurse is a TikTok webseries by Charlotte – who also plays all the characters – set in a UK nursery and following the team based there as they deal with the daily challenges of running the nursery, dealing with parents and upper management, and the chaos caused by their coworkers. 
With over 1,300 episodes as of April 2024, the series is extremely popular, with many recent episodes far exceeding 1 millions views, sometimes getting 3 million views or more. As the series grew in popularity, a fandom grew around it, first in the TikTok comments section; then in other TikTok videos via stitches, duets or edits; and then out into other fannish spaces such as Twitter, Wattpad, Tumblr, and Archive of Our Own.
==Canon==
Set at a UK nursery, the series started out focused on the character of Charlotte, whose characterisation and experiences were heavily influenced by the creator's career. Initially, many of the videos were one-to-one interactions between Charlotte and a parent or Charlotte and a member of staff, but over time a cast of main characters has developed alongside a revolving door of parents and students. With the growing popularity of the TikTok account, Charlotte has moved from creating the episodes alone to working with the media company, We Create Popular. 
As of 2024, the main cast consists of nursery staff Charlotte, Marjorie, Autumn, Carly, Jody, Winter, Reece, and Sorscha; with other key supporting characters such as current Siobhan, Summer, and the clueless owner, Roger, potentially ex-antagonistic Mia; and occasional substitute, apprentice, and other professional characters. While various parents, carers, and other family members appear; no children are shown, though babies are sometimes portrayed through the use of a doll.
Alongside one-off episodes – which make up a large proportion of the episodes in the series, especially early on – there are longer multi-episode arcs focused on the same story line. One-off episodes tend to focus on interactions with parents about their children or interactions with ignorant staff members about students. In addition to day-to-day happenings, these episodes will include things like disability inclusion for staff and children, pushing back against bigotry from parents or staff, handling issues of domestic abuse or neglect within families, or other topics which may occur within nurseries. Longer story-arcs tend to be focused on the core characters and how relationships – platonic, familial, and romantic – develop amongst different staff members throughout the series.
Redemption arcs play a key aspect amongst the core characters, with fans of the series often commenting in surprise that characters they once hated have now become beloved and redeemed characters while still retaining their core original personalities to a believable extent.
== Characters ==
=== The Knight Nursery ===
* Charlotte "Char," (36 years old) the first character, who is a very kind and angelic worker and has been working at the Knight Nursery for 10 years. Charlotte can be distinguished by her feminine wardrobe, and calm demeanor and voice. She was married to a man and has two daughters with him. However, Charlotte later separates from her husband because they no longer are in love. Charlotte later becomes the girlfriend of Mia because Mia is nice to her and noticed what she was going through before anyone else did. She doesn't use any specific label, but is rather just "into Mia."
* Marjorie Van Gould, (36 years old) the manager of the Knight Nursery, who is very supportive to her staff. Originally, she was known to be a bit of an overbearing manager who didn't understand her workers' struggles, and she didn't like having to cover in the rooms for her or give them time off. However, later on Marjorie becomes very caring, emotional, sentimental, and supportive to her staff members, and more willing to pull her weight. Marjorie can be distinguished by her thick glasses, her thick accent, and her hair which is normally down.
* Carly, (17 years old) an apprentice who is Charlotte's best friend. Carly is an energetic teenage girl and loves to gossip and eavesdrop on drama in the nursery. Carly can be distinguished by her high, raspy voice, her high side ponytail, and her pink, blue, and yellow "I am Ken-ough" jumper.
* Jodie, (21 years old), is a coworker who is very air-headed and often makes dangerous mistakes at the nursery accidentally. Despite this, she is protected by Marjorie because Marjorie is concerned that she won't find work anywhere else. She is found to be a really good storyteller to the kids. Jody can be distinguished with the bun at the top of her head and her loud, childish accent. The creator says she is the epitome of innocence and likely won't get a love interest.
* Autumn Fortune-Knight (née Knight), (35 years old) She is the deputy manager of the Knight Nursery, who replaced Summer, and is also the daughter of the owner, Roger and gained the job through nepotism. Originally she was seen as worse than Summer due to her having a calm disposition while saying and doing negative things to the staff and kids, all while being impossible to get rid due to being the owner's daughter. However over time, Autumn's character became more of a "guard dog" who is tough and willing to use physical force to defend her coworkers and the kids at the nursery. Although she puts up a strong front, she can be tender, specifically with her love interest Winter and when she goes through hard times and needs the support. Autumn can be distinguished with her half-up-do hairstyle and thin glasses. Autumn seems to be into men and women and polyamory, as she invited Sara to have a fling with her and Winter one time.
* Winter Fortune-Knight (né Fortune), (35 years old) was originally a manager at a different nursery, but quit that job and went to the Knight Nursery to work with the kids as he didn't like doing administrative work all day. Winter is whitty, sassy, sarcastic and argumentative to the parents when they are causing him problems. He is the love interest to Autumn. He is distinguished by his short brown hair, glasses, and his mustache. He is also quite short.
* Sorscha Doyle (29 years old) is an Irish coworker who has worked at the Knight Nursery for a few years. She is from Dublin. She is married to her wife, Clodagh, and they later had a daughter named Quinn. She is distinguished by her double braids/ponytails, glasses, and Irish accent. She often wears green hoodies as well.
* Agatha is the no nonsense secretary of the Knight Nursery who answers phone calls and has a very serious and dry sense of humor. She is great at dealing with unreasonable parents. She is distinguished by her accent, her hair pulled back into a bun and large, thick glasses.
=== The Sister Nursery & Board of Directors ===
* Siobhan Serpent (30s) was the former manager of the Sister Nursery. Marjorie and Siobhan would often send workers between nurseries to cover for sick workers, and Siobhan was known to be cruel and heartless towards many of the parents and kids. She put into place many unfair, strict, sometimes discriminatory rules and policies that value making more money, rather than being humane. She caused many frustrating situations for covering workers from the Knight Nursery who often tell on her to Marjorie to get her to stop. Later, Siobhan resigns from her job, moving up to the board of directors. She is also known to be dating the owner and plans on marrying him to get more rights to his fortune. However it's later hinted that Siobhan may not want to be in this situation anymore. She has shoulder-length blond hair.
* Roger Knight (50s-60s) is the owner of the Knight Nursery. He is a millionaire and the father to Reece and Autumn. It's known that Roger only really cares about money and spying on his children. He has short black hair and a blonde mustache.
* Reece Knight (38 years old) is the older son of the owner and was hired to work at the Sister Nursery after Siobhan left. Known as "The Piranha," he had a bad reputation but later many of his bad actions were him being protective of his younger sister. He later gets into a relationship with Marjorie after they realise this and he reconciles with Autumn, even though they still have a bit of a sibling rivalry. He is a very caring boyfriend to Marjorie and father figure to Carly who gives her advice. He's against creepy male behavior and often calls it out. Reece also greatly improved conditions at the sister nursery, firing bad employees and being more supportive to his staff than Siobhan was. He is distinguished by his blonde hair and brown mustache. He is also really tall.
* Amelia "Mia" Rogers (no age is confirmed, but she is likely close in age to Reece as they went to school together) was hired by Roger to be the deputy manager of the Sister Nursery and also is the ex-girlfriend of Reece. She was also a secret board member. Roger secretly made Mia date her son for twenty years to keep him "on a leash" and easy to control and manipulate in exchange for information on her estranged father, who ran off with Reece and Autumn's mother. Mia however, is a lesbian, and didn't actually love Reece and often engaged in relations with other women while dating Reece, which he was okay with. During her time at the Sister Nursery, Mia mistreats other workers and children and makes everyone's lives harder and has a rivalry with Marjorie, especially when Reece and Marjorie begin dating and Reece broke up with her. After Mia gets fired, she reveals all of what Roger made her to do his children and Marjorie, who are shocked. Mia often showed malice to everyone except for Charlotte, who she had a crush on. Mia was the only one to notice that Charlotte was going through a separation. Charlotte later helps get Mia fired, and Mia was impressed that Charlotte finally showed a backbone. Mia and Charlotte begin seeing each other and dating. Mia has long red hair and bangs and often wears revealing black clothing. She is also rich due to being on the board of directors and goes on lots of vacations.
* Eric (17 years old) is apprentice handyman at the Sister Nursery who came from an all boys' school. He has a crush initially on Autumn, but gets nowhere with her because she is too old and is not interested in him. Eric also backs off of flirting with many different women at the nursery after Marjorie and Reece talk to him about consent and boundaries. Carly had a crush on him and tried being more like Autumn to get him to like her. However when she loses interest in him, Eric begins showing interest in her. Eric wears glasses and a hat.
* Deliah (no age is confirmed, but she is close in age to Reece as they went to school together) was hired by Roger to be the new deputy manager at the Sister Nursery. She was hired without Reece and Marjorie being told, even though they was planning on making Charlotte the new deputy. Reece and Deliah both went to school together. It has been implied that there is bad blood between Deliah and Mia. This is because Deliah has a crush on Mia and thinks she's the love of her life and is waiting for her to realise she feels the same now after Mia and Reece split. She has pigtails.
=== Other Recurring Characters ===
* Madison is a former nursery practitioner at the Knight Nursery. She started out as an agency worker, but later got a permanent position at the nursery. She had a fiancée named Katrina. In January 2024, Madison got offered a different job with a £100.000 yearly salary and great benefits, leading her to quit her job at the Knight Nursery. It's not known exactly what her new job is, only that it involves a lot of travelling. She has glasses and wears her hair long.
* Summer, who was the previous deputy manager of The Knight Nursery, who was an antagonist who made life harder for the other workers. She later was fired due to gross misconduct and replaced with Autumn, however she still shows up from time to time, as she signs up her son, Latrine, for nursery. She is still a nasty person to others, as seen by her gossiping negatively about other people. Summer can be distinguished by her low side ponytail and valley girl accent. She was the character who started the "seasonal name" running gag.
* Kenny Killerman was a man who tried taking Autumn to prom when she was a teenager, however he was in his early twenties when she was fifteen, therefore Reece kicked him down the stairs when he realised that a grown man was after his sister. Autumn thought it was Kyle Killerman, Kenny's younger brother, because the note in her locker asking her to prom was signed "K. Killerman." Reece took the flowers Kenny got for her, and Autumn opened the door, assuming that Reece pulled a prank on her. Reece let her believe this so that she didn't know that a grown man was creeping on her. Mia saw this and uses this against him so that he will be together with her and she will get the information he needs from Roger about her father. Later, when Marjorie was convinced Reece was a bad person, Kenny asks Marjorie out on a date and she accepts it. Kenny then winks suggestively at Carly while walking by her in the hallway, showing he still is a creep to teen girls. Carly later tells Reece about Kenny and Marjorie's date, who then goes to crash the date and scares Kenny away while Marjorie went to the bathroom.
*Sara is the waitress at the local bar. She is interested in women and flirts with Marjorie until Marjorie reveals she is dating Reese and is straight. She later flirts with Autumn and it ends up with her going over to Autumn and Winter's place to spend the night with them for a one night fling. Later, Sara flirts with Mia which makes Charlotte a little jealous.
* Stephen is a parent at the Sister Nursery who is the father of a child named Raymond and co-parents with his other father but isn't with him anymore. Siobhan doesn't believe he's Raymond's father because she already met his other father, and makes him give her information to prove he's Raymond's father. Siobhan tells Stephen that children deserve a mother and a father and other homophobic things. Stephen also flirts with Reese at some point, who respectfully turns him down.
* Vivian is a mother whose child Jamie attends the Knight Nursery. She has gotten close with Siobhan and is helping her to deal with her rocky relationship with Roger. She has a short black bob and a blue striped shirt.
==Fandom==
The comments sections of The Nursery Nurse videos frequently contain thousands of comments, with people responding to the events of the episode, discussing and predicting future story-arcs, shipping characters, or talking about their experiences of topics relating to the episode. Charlotte also creates one-shot episodes based on submissions by people who watch her TikToks.
Edits of the series are becoming increasingly popular on TikTok, including some introducing new watchers to the characters and stories, and other focusing on specific characters, or using scenes from the series to participate in a current trend on TikTok. Episode dissections and discussions, headcanons, and theorising about future story-lines have become popular fan activities of their own as well. Incorrect character quotes are becoming popular on Tumblr and Twitter, while themed series' of videos such as 'The Nursery Nurse Characters Once Said...'The Nursery Nurse Characters Once Said.... by marjoreece and 'Alphabet with the Nursery Nurse'The Alphabet with the Nursery Nurse Characters by marjoreece where clips from episodes are used are also popping up with greater regularity. 
Initially fanworks for the series were primarily posted to Wattpad, but the tag on Archive of Our Own has started to see some works posted there, too. Some fan art for the series can be found on Tumblr and TikTok. 
Charlotte, the creator, encourages the fan interactions and shipping of the characters, including joining in joking about her basically being shipped with herself. She has created playlists such as Marjoreece and Mialotte to help fans of certain ships find videos relating to the pairing in question. 
===Pairings===
* Marjorie/Reece (Marjoreece)
* Autumn/Winter (Wintumn)
* Charlotte/Mia (Mialotte)
===Fan Commentary===
As with many TikTok series, fans often find themselves surprised by how engaged they become in story-lines, to the point of forgetting that all the characters are a single person in different outfits and wigs:
=== Controversies ===
Once The Nursery Nurse became a popular account and particularly after it moved under We Create Popular, the increased popularity brought with it a growing number of controversies. Some people felt that there was an overblown response to some controversies, which was a common occurrence on TikTok and some other social media spaces, where relatively minor issues were being escalated by the algorithmic nature of TikTok and that controversy bred engagement. There is a lot of argument about how a fictional world does not have to be reflective of the real world and the arguments for and against fiction vs reality.
==== Theft and Plagiarism ====
As Charlotte's account popularity grew, her videos were increasingly targeted by re-post accounts which are widespread on TikTok. This became a significant issue when those accounts took videos from her Facebook account, where she posted episodes earlier than on TikTok, and uploaded them to TikTok. TikTok recognised the re-posting account as the "original content owner" and demonetised Charlotte's videos and considered them plagiarised.
Charlotte asked fans to report these re-posting accounts. Most fans voiced a willingness or enthusiasm for doing so, but others are less supportive, arguing Charlotte should post to both platforms simultaneously if she wanted to stop it happening as they didn't want to wait a week to watch new episodes on TikTok. While watching the episodes on Facebook did not require an account to access, eventually Charlotte began to simultaneously post to both platforms to resolve the issue. 
==== Confusion over universe "rules" and internal consistency ====
Up until early 2024, there was more flexibility about the internal consistency of the Nursery Nurse universe. However, as the series moved from being predominantly one-shot episodes or short story-arcs into longer and more complex story-lines, the flexibility of characterisation and universe rules decreased, leading to some confusion. 
For example, in earlier videos recurring antagonists often got away with actions long-term that would likely be dealt with swiftly in many real-world settings. Additionally, characters such as Autumn enacted comedic violence against abusive parents with no repercussions and Jodie would carry out ridiculous behaviours to fulfill the role of 'hopeless staff member'. Charlotte had stated that the reality of consequences was dependent on the story-line at the time, so as to develop good quality "villains" or simply for entertainment purposes. When users sent in requests that involved staff at their own settings, existing characters would be used to exemplify those staff on multiple occasions.
With the transition to long story-lines — and the need to redeem Mia, which caused minor controversy on its own — some characterisations and inconsistencies were retconned. For example, Jodie's incompetency became a significant plot-point during one story-line in April/May 2024. This fluidity in realism has caused confusion for some fans of the series. This is in part due the large number of episodes and the rapid-moving pace of TikTok (in addition to the difficulty locating comments and replies) which results in Charlotte's explanations being difficult to find. As there is no central source for "canon lore" of the series, why some events in some story lines are now treated with serious responses while others seem to have been left unexamined can lead to fans getting confused over why one character is experiencing repercussions while another is not.
Other fans have also noted that under We Create Popular and the move to a sitcom style of story, there has been a flanderisation of characters that wasn't previously present:
==== Redemption Arcs and Story-lines ====
As more story-lines developed with the moved to under We Create Popular, and more antagonists began to be redeemed, some fans began to criticise and critique those redemption arcs and stories. The developing relationship between Mia and Charlotte was the first of these to be criticised, with fans feeling that Mia's actions made it difficult for her to be redeemed, something which Charlotte had previously voiced. Some fans felt that the redemption only took place because so many fans in the comments were asking for the Mialotte pairing to happen; other fans pointed out that even if that was the case (which did seem likely), from an engagement perspective, it made sense for the series. In amongst this, there was some homophobic backlash to the character of Charlotte having an sapphic relationship (More at: Charlotte/Mia).
These concerns re-emerged later when there were hints that Siobhan, a long-term antagonist, might also undergo a redemption arc and there were also indications that she might be developing a sapphic romance with another, new character. This led to a number of complaints that there were too many lesbian or sapphic characters in the series, with a number of these complaints being homophobic in nature as with the Mia complaints. However, other fans felt that relationships were being used as a quick way of going through redemption arcs, which they dislikedReddit thread on r/thenurserynurse discussing Mia and Siobhan and redemption arcs, 29 September 2024.
A small number of fans felt that sapphic identities and relationships in particular were being used as a shield to deflect criticism: if anyone said something negative about characters who had done awful things being redeemed too quickly, they were accused of being homophobic.
This latter complaint was addressed in a controversial (and now deleted) 10 minute response video put out by Charlotte after another wave of backlash following the release of the Nurseryverse song, and the response video seemed to only exacerbate the issue.
==== Skits vs Storylines ====
On the 3rd June 2024, a large number of The Nursery Nurse videos were deleted from TikTok@ilovechar.._ video referencing the video deletions and harassment, TikTok, 4th June 2024.. These were, primarily, videos of the newer story-line focus as opposed to skits. Responses to the video deletions identified a growing number of hateful comments and hate videos about The Nursery Nurse and its fandom as the likely reason for the videos being deleted; others suggested that it was due to the aforementioned plagiarism issue and this caused some brief confusion.
On 4th June 2024, Charlotte made a video (in character) about what had happened and what would happen going forward'You know you’ve made it when you get your first hate video', Charlotte, The Nursery Nurse TikTok, 4th June 2024.. She confirmed that it was the hate comments and hate videos which had led to the video deletions. Due to the tagging, stitching, and comment notifications on TikTok, she saw a lot of the hate directed at her and the fandom and, in her words, let the comments get to her and reacted by removing videos. She said she would be restoring the videos to TikTok and instead putting increased barriers and measures in place to keep herself from seeing the comments.
The two main strands of hate she received were:
* Fans directing hatred at her over either wanting more skit videos and less story-line videos or vice versa
* Disdain for the 'spiciness' or the romance focus of the storyline
Going forward, Charlotte said she would be indicating in the video title whether the video was a skit or story-line, but stated that she would not be stopping doing either type of video. 
==== Nurseryverse Song and Response ====
In September 2024, Creator Universe released the song NURSERYVERSE, which sounded akin to a theme song for the show and the proceeds of which went to charity. It received a strong reaction on TikTok, with people mocking the song and the fandom. Charlotte responded to the hate comments in character, as she did to the controversy about Skits vs Story-lines, and that ended up escalating the situation when she used the term "bed rotting" to refer to people, which some respondents felt was an ableist term. More details at NURSERYVERSE.
==== Perceiving series Charlotte as creator Charlotte ====
The creator has made it clear in some comments and videos that while the Charlotte character from the early episodes was something of a self-insert, as the series has gone on she has moved the character further away from herself and her experiences. However, due to the aforementioned difficulties finding the videos and comments, some fans continue to believe that the character of Charlotte reflects the creator's life.
During the Mia/Charlotte arc, this resulted in some fans asking or just assuming that Charlotte was having marital issues, or that she was also divorcing her husband. A few fans even located her most recent social media images and commented on how infrequently Charlotte's husband featured in them. Despite other fans of the series discouraging the theorising, comments about Charlotte's relationship continue to appear occasionally on her videos, particularly those featuring Mia and Charlotte.
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
* autumn 🍁 by GeminiJenna, an Autumn focused work, starting from before her joining the nursery.
* Adventures and Dramas in the Nursery by Hummelberry07, a fanwork developing and expanding on storylines seen in the series.
* black rose by fork_07 - A Mia/Charlotte fanwork set after the events of episodes released in April 2024.
===Fan Art===
* 
===Fan Vids===
* Meet the Nursery Nurse Characters by marjoriesglassesxoxo
* The Queer TNN Characters by charlotte_vsp
* Charlotte edit by autumnst4n
* Autumn edit by tnn_editsx
==Resources, Archives and Fannish Links==
* Thenurserynurse stories at Wattpad (other tags also used)
* The Nursery Nurse tag at AO3 (uncategorised in April 2024)
* The Nursery Nurse search at Twitter
* The Nursery Nurse tag at Tumblr
* r/thenurserynurse at Reddit
==References==
Category:TikToks
Category:The Nursery Nurse