#university of what it is

[falenminds-blog]

we lost a lot of iconic characters due to the explanations of dr lubelle. we lost sarah sultan, we lost the glow clowd (all hail), even the brown stone spire was taken from us by the disgusting scientists from the university of what it is… but now, taking away our WEATHER REPORT??!?!? i’ve never felt such horrible pain, when cecil said “here’s a song for you to listen to.” i honestly almost wept. i think we all deserve an extra hour in the ball pit after this :(

[writingnotes520]

The University of What It Is and Losing Your Inner Child, an Analysis

This opinion may be silly, or odd or otherwise not holding water, but my personal interpretation of the entire UOWII arc is that it is a metaphor for losing one’s childlike wonder and creativity.

Think about it. What is Night Vale without its unexplainable phenomena that seem so out of nowhere and sound like a more surrealist version of something you would hear on a second grade playground?

“This rock is named Sara, she runs the college!”

“There’s another planet in the sky!”

“That cloud is glowing! And look, it has a kid!”

These are all things from WTNV that sound silly when you phrase them simply as what they are. Night Vale is a town whose citizens are very connected to their inner children and never let go of that wonder. Even if they can’t remember their childhoods or didn’t have good ones, the town ensures that they can keep the spirit of their childlike selves.

And then Janet Lubelle arrives. She and the University are the adults in a child’s life that come and squash their ideas and dismiss them as silly. The people that tell us to grow up as we change from children to tweens, and teens and adults beyond that. They are the world that comes at us at the most unexpected times, the science that tells us that what we imagined for years was impossible. And since it makes sense, since it’s been explained now, the magic of whatever it is disappears.

Carlos is the science that says that even despite these facts that diminish our imagination, we can still feel free to come up with those whimsical ideas again. We can still imagine what we want to imagine. So what if rocks aren’t alive? Sara can still be the dean! So what if the glow is an illusion? We can still call it an ancient god! We can keep our ideas while acknowledging that they aren’t possible. We can think like children again while knowing the facts that were supposed to explain why these thoughts are silly.

I also think that, with this view of the arc, the ending doesn’t seem so bad. Science that wishes to destroy and science that wishes to coexist clash, and the science that wishes to coexist uses the unexplainable to defeat that which wants everything explained. Like young children playing rock paper scissors. Gun, black hole, and all the other new moves we come up with aren’t part of the game, but we play them anyway and as much as the other tries to argue, we know we won. The glow cloud did what it was always able to do, but hadn’t before because it wasn’t in the rules of the game. It played gun. And Dr. Lubelle lost.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that Lubelle’s logic wasn’t going to work, anyway. She said earlier in the episode that Carlos’ middle name was inexplicably Dave. Inexplicably. It may have been a joke the writers placed into the script, but I like to think that she would have realized that since she had acknowledged something about Carlos she couldn’t explain, she wouldn’t be able to explain him away even if she got the chance to try.

So, yeah. Maybe this makes sense. Or maybe I just have trauma from severely repressing my inner child. Who knows.

[thevoiceofdesertbluffs]

OK so. I need to say. I have to say it because it's been bothering me since like. What. wtnv 229, but that whole Blake plot? Sucked. He was stuck up and a suckup. But then suddenly he just. Changed??? And we literally see none of it??? He's horrible to Carlos one episode, explaining Michelle another, and then the next he's just like "ohhhh boohooo lubelle is scarrrryyy i like night vale now :(" Like. Where did this come from. Finknor. Where the fuck did any of this come from. It would've helped a whole fucking lot if there was. Any indication of this change but there, literally wasn't??? Unless you count the whole Blake calling Cecil out of the station thing??? But like. Gragh. They shouldn't have rushed that arc, it needed to have been paced better, hell they could've made it last two years for better pacing but. here we are.

[julius-underscore-caesar]

I finally caught up with the wtnv episodes and i genuinely think ive felt this feral since the strexcorp arc. In fact, i PREFER kevin to blake jones. And also carlos as a fellow scientist (if you count stem majour as scientist) i feel the boredom and the pain.

Also imagine if bill nye was in night vale at this time

[sammiethemusicman]

What I would do for a man who'd attempt to punch my ex coworker cus he called me a failure.

[heisholdingacat]

ALL of those scientists at the University of What It Is and Dr. Lubelle couldn’t even be bothered to ask anyone to peer review her “research”?

[screamingsilentlyintothevoid]

Shower thought: Kevin coming back from the Desert Otherworld to save Night Vale from the University of What It Is.

On purpose or not...

[stained-watercolour-skies]

Spoilers//

I LOVE YOU SHAUNS FROM SALES AND YOUR NEGOTIATION TACTICS!!! But no for real the way I want to wring Dr. Lubelle's fucking neck! Killing station management caused a domino effect of stress and chaos, yes, but also the amount of stress on Cecil! The way I wanted to give him a hug??? And he's definitely trying his best but he's literally a fish out of water in this situation! I am happy though that the entire town is ostracizing anyone who works for the University of What It Is. Good. Make them leave. No one likes them

[moved-to-piersgender]

Welcome To Night Vale current season spoilers under the cut

This is probably me making a big deal out of a joke but was there any proof that Michelle Nguyen's hatred of popular music didn't already have a perfectly mundane origin? If it didn't, then business as usual for the University of What It Is. But if it did...then they straight up have the ability to make people more "normal" with there explanations and that is fucking TERRIFYING

[eonian-nightmare]

***WTNV Spoilers***

Look, I understand how cool it is that WTNV is using dumb common sense to explain mysteries. It says alot about cryptid culture and religious hysteria- honestly I could write a million essays on this. But like- can we talk about Cecil Gershwin Palmer's derealisation issues and how the current arc fucks with that? (Written by someone who suffers derealization)

From early on, Cecil's perception with reality has been warped, we've seen countless examples of him struggling with his understabding of what is real and what is not. Many things contributed to this, from his mothers psychological abuse, to his fear/confrontation of mirrors, to his general mental health: essentially he is constantly struggling with delusionals and paranoia.

Then along comes this scientist determined to explain everything, and she starts poking holes in his reality. The things he was sure were real; his job, his friends, his town, suddenly start falling apart, and he's suddenly at this point that where he can't differentiate what's real or not.

And now, rather than him just questioning his own existence, he's questioning the existence of those around him, and the fear of loosing them grows to something more. Before we know it, he will start fearing the existence of his child, start fearing the existence of his sister, of Janice of Steve, and most of all of Carlos. And Dr Lubelle will be able to use this to break Cecil apart.

I do not know how long nightvale plans to run for, but i truly believe there is possibility for a great and powerful end with this concept. Watching your reality unravel is greater than any fear, and the fact Cecil could be undone by such simple logic, is a fear in itself. I would love to see this avenue explored more, for us to see where the doctors explanations bring her, as she continues to destroy others lives.

But the idea of nightvale banding together, to possibly bring Cecil back to reality, to make him real once again Is something close to my heart. And even if not directly expressed, any scenario where nightvale wins against the university we are essentially seeing that. I don't know. There's just something beautiful in trusting the unexplainable when you can barely trust yourself. And I hope that Cecil is able to recover from whatever doubt is starting to fester once again within himself.

[hummingbirdspark]

My first wtnv theory!

I recently finished watching all of Night Vale so far, and it took me about a month but I am so intrigued by the mysteries, especially about my favorite character, Carlos, and his past. I have a lot of questions and theories. 

Is Explaining mysterious stuff away just what they do at the University of What it is? Has Carlos ever done something like that? Maybe he left for a reason, because he didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. But they previously had a picture of him in the academic building for a reason. What if the University of What it is, including Carlos is responsible for the lack of magic in the rest of the world? Perhaps it never had as much mystery as Night Vale, but what if, in the past, faerie rings were real, and moss grew on the north side of trees? What if the reason magic shows (like Makarov the Magical) are not real magic is because Carlos Explained it away while he was at the university, just like Dr. Lubelle? Maybe that’s why he just insisted it was magic whenever Cecil questioned him about it? 

Maybe the University of What it is was almost cult-like and Carlos had to run away to Night Vale to get out? that would explain why he was saying there was “no reasoning with them” despite the fact that scientists were supposed to be reasonable people. And they do not look favorably on people who turn their back on them, or who believe differently (though that could just be a Dr. Lubelle thing).

 And maybe what they do at UWII is Explaining, and that’s why the people that do that are just “scientists” no specialization. Perhaps that is why Carlos is never described as being a particular type of scientist, and maybe the reason he is always called by his first name and not Dr. (whatever his last name is) is because he wants no part in the kind of science he got a doctorate in. After all, Dr. Jones says “You forgot what it meant to be a scientist”. Carlos is deciding for himself what it means to be a scientist now. “I don’t know, but I’m trying to figure it out, okay?”

[thevoiceofdesertbluffs]

Blake is such a fucking pissbaby coward, hiding behind his boss because he's scared of being burned by the mob. What a pussy.

[asydicsydney]

They finally made UOWII merch btw

And the description is a cold open: "Let me be brief. Let us all be brief. Let us briefly be. Welcome to Night Vale."

I knew that wasn't from this year, so I searched through my cold open book

It's from 55... The University of What It Is

[sammiethemusicman]

Listening to WTNV 229 again

If that wasn't an allegory for the anti trans laws I don't know what is.

[neriumdelusion]

Carlos calling Kevin after however many years being like I’m so, so sorry Kevin pwease help me out my scary old boss is in town and I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry for abandoning you alone in a desert after ten years when you were at your most vulnerable pwease help :(

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I'm catching up with WTNV and I'm really concerned with the University of What It Is? and how they will change the town.