#whatever I'll talk about them later

[the1weepinqguitar]

A Bigass Post Explaining My Interpretation of the Here Comes Science Bunker.

I named my writing based off of this universe The Nanobots Are Taking Over, so expect that tag whenever I post abt this semi-fic.

First of all, It's a bunker. Created in 1982 by a group of scientists who feared that humans would render the surface world uninhabitable, it is a colossal maze of tunnels and rooms. By 2009, it houses about 350-400 scientists.

How these scientists got there:

Well, they were kidnapped. Brought to the bunker with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, most of the scientists in the bunker weren't born there. Some scientists were (some of the founders had kids), and they are raised as apprentice scientists to their more experienced colleagues. Most scientists were taken to the bunker because they showed true potential in their field.

Life in the bunker:

It's comfortable. Modest, but comfortable. Scientists pay no living/medical expenses as long as they do their share of research. In short, they just have to do their job. They each have their own small "bunk" unless they choose to share a room with another scientist. They are free to decorate their rooms as long as they, again, do their job well.

"Wings" as they're called, separate scientists by their roles in the bunker. For example, the assorted crew of engineers have their own wing, which contains their individual bunks.

Wrist tags:

These are how individual scientists are identified. It is a tattoo that they receive when they come to the lab (or if they're an apprentice, on their 18th birthday) that depicts their ID number and a dot of a random color. These dots used to be used for specific types of scientists, but, as there are so many, this practice fell out of use in the late-eighties. Colors are now randomly assigned.

Where do the Johns come into this picture?

Big Man (the last living founder, who earned his nickname for his booming voice and outlandish mannerisms) loved TMBG's music. He wanted so badly for them to survive the upcoming nuclear apocalypse that he decided in 2004 that he would bring them to the bunker, if only for the free entertainment. He knew he would get in trouble if he picked favorites, so he assigned Flansburgh to the medical sciences wing and Linnell to that of anthropology.

They weren't exactly pleased, as Linnell had to leave his family behind and Flans his wife and cats. They made do with what they got, though, and got to work. They lived there for a while until 2009, when Flans completed a prototype for the Nanobots, a type of robot that was designed to shrink down to the molecular level so that they could perform minimally invasive, delicate surgeries without worrying about harming the patient. He was almost finished working on the Nanobots when, one day, he left Linnell in charge of watching them while he ran some errands.

"Don't press any buttons."

"I won't."

But, as soon as Flans left the room, his friend made a beeline to the Wall of Gadgets, an off-limits collection of machinery that Flans had been working on for the last five years. Each one seemed equally captivating to Linnell, but one stuck out. Six buttons graced its surface, catching his attention and sending a wave of curiosity through him.

A single button sent the entire bunker into panic mode.

Flans came back to find Linnell duct-taped to the back of the door (totally not a Malcom In the Middle reference...) and the Nanobots gone. He managed to catch a glimpse of one of the clones as he climbed up into the vent on the wall. Upon being questioned, Linnell defended himself and stated that he didn't know any better.

A "BANG" behind them alerted them to the presence of a rejected clone. Green, named after his assigned color, was nearly strangled by Flans as the latter attempted to interrogate him. Linnell defended the clone and maintained that his knowledge on the other clones' secret plans would come in handy. However, Green knew nothing. He was only following orders from another one of the clones. Red, as he would be later named, would become the bane of Linnell's existence.

They searched through the bunker for weeks before finding Red and his companion Purple, the latter of which had been mutilated by his leader as part of his dream of creating the ultimate human weapon. Linnell and Green were understandably horrified at the shockingly sweet, innocent clone's condition and separated him from Red so that they could both be questioned individually.

A sinister plot was discovered by Linnell as he questioned Purple. Red wanted to seize control of the bunker through the Nanobots. He would insert one of the microscopic robots into the selected scientist's bloodstream, and once the blood reached the brain, he would direct the bot to the synapses, where he would, in turn, tell the brain what to do. It was a clever plan, Linnell reasoned, but a dangerous one. He decided to take Purple under his wing, the latter renaming himself Jay.

(man, this is getting long)

Red would get thrown in the bunker's "containment unit", a semi-jail for potentially dangerous scientists. He breaks himself out after only a few weeks in there and attempts to kill Jay for betraying him. Jay tranquilizes him with a tranq gun built into his prosthetic arm, knocking Red out instantly. Red gets thrown back in jail and the bunker is safe once more.

Until he broke out again. This time he shot Jay in the leg. Flans, now in charge of the bunker as Big Man had passed away just a few months prior, decided to give Red another chance and kept him locked up for the entire next year.

After being let out, he hunted down and killed a scientist (Foss, a scientist who had been dealing with a lycanthropy-like disease for the last couple of years), right in front of Jay, who had been keeping Foss safe in the library whenever he turned. Jay was heartbroken and called Linnell to retrieve Red. Red attempted to escape but was caught by the Johns and thrown back into his cell where he was put to death for his crimes. He felt no remorse for anything he had done.

The bunker was finally at peace and everyone settled back down. Foss' partner, Francis mourned his loss for a long time, befriending Jay in the process. Now that they were safe, Flans decided to continue working on the Nanobots, and they proved to be a great tool for safe surgery. Everything was at ease once more.

-Ivan

This took me two hours to write, so I hope it covers any questions you might have! I enjoyed the worldbuilding greatly and this was super fun to create! Recently, I've been writing about Jay and his exploration of the bunker. God damn it, I got a little attached...

[EDIT FEB. 11, 2024: I posted the first three chapters on my ao3! Feel free to check it out if you'd like!]

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i seriously cant understand how people can ship saiki with anyone with the prospect in mind of him NEVER power revealing.. yallll he would NEVER do that and its probably impossible ☠️

ive read so many fics where he gets MARRIED and like maybe has CHILDREN with someone and they dont know about his powers ??? WHO ARE YOUUUUUUY

dude with the way the show was going, he probably was going to end up revealing his powers to his friends at LEAST before they graduated (u can hc whatever u want though) and he implies so many times that hes GOING to tell them eventually

ive seen people being like "noo he was only gonna tell them when he didnt have his powers and now that he knows thats impossible he might just never do it" NOOO THATS NOT TRUEEE

the reason he felt more comfortable telling them when he lost them was because he truly truly hates himself and believes himself with his powers to be a nuisance

but hes definitely starting to learn self love at the end of the series.. and either way, i dont think he was ever ONLY going to tell them under those conditions.. im pretty sure he implies hes eventually going to tell them (or at least that eventually theyre going to KNOW) way before he even knows hes gonna get rid of them

[rapha-reads]

IWTV rewatch

(book to show, show to book, the meta continues)

Season 1 episode 3 [Is My Very Nature That Of The Devil]

- Louis: *tries to read*

Lestat: *bla bla bla*

Louis: "if you don't shut up and leave me with my books I'm going to start a social commentary and ethics conversation"

Lestat: "... Never mind. Let's go hunt."

Louis in that white suit is daaamn fine.

Oooh, so the conversation about only eating the "evil" ones starts there. Louis munching on that cat kills me every time.

- Oh, hello Antoinette. Love that we go from 19th century violinist Antoine to 20th century music hall singer Antoinette. Very nice change.

[Louis] "'This ain't your kind of music.'

[Lestat] 'You can pretend you're a vegetarian. I can pretend the fool.'" - part of me thinks that Louis meant by that "this is Black music, a Black folk band, and you're still a white boy, even vampire that you are".

Lestat schooling everyone about music, sassing everyone and playing the piano divinily, absolutely delicious. And then Louis' absolutely fond little smile, even when he's arguing with Lestat, he just loves him so.

- Ah! [Daniel] "Yeah, you know, I gotta say, it's not so much the minute details, Louis, rather the total rewrite that's giving me pause here." - that's the part. That's the crux of it. That's the character development of Louis who's done rejecting the depth of his feelings for Lestat and the role he's played in his own tragedy, regardless of Lestat's abuse, and ready to accept it and talk about it.

Love Louis' face relistening to his 1973's words versus 2022. The face of a man going "ah shit, I really was messed up back then".

- [Daniel] "'Fuck the 'Wolverine Blues'. Ken Burns can choke on the footnotes. It's the abused-abuser psychological relationship I'm talking about.'

[Louis] 'I do not consider myself abused.'

[Daniel] 'I mean, usually when you're a little too close to it, the abused still loves the abuser, but you flipped it completely on its head.'

[Louis] 'I'm not a victim.'

[Daniel] '50 years later, you talk like he was your soulmate, like you were locked in some fucked up gothic romance. Why?'"

First: Daniel's a petty bitch and he's getting to the bottom of this business whether Louis works with him or not. And Louis is equally petty and bitchy, answering Daniel by reading part of his own memoir and mocking him.

Secondly: well, yeah, it is a gothic romance, that's the genre. But it is a Contemporary Gothic romance. Contemporary Gothic expands on Classic Gothic. I wrote an essay about Contemporary Gothic using the movie Only Lovers Left Alive last year, I need to translate it from Spanish to English so I can share it. But I feel like I could reuse part of this essay to talk about IWTV book (inscribed in Classic Gothic) versus IWTV show (tending towards Contemporary Gothic). One more essay idea to develop later. Let's table this.

Thirdly: my little Loustat shipper heart is very happy.

And fourth: hey, Danny boy. Remember that conversation in a dozen of sessions because that will come in handy to explain a looooooot of things... Devil's Minion fans gleefully cackling in the background. And Armand isn't even in this scene. Talk about irony. And foreshadowing.

[Louis] "'This is the odyssey of recollection.' The tapes are an admitted performance. This is the premise of our interview. Half a century later, allow me my odyssey. [Daniel throws the tapes in the trash] Now who's performing?"

Louis being heartfelt but still hiding beneath his veneer - you know when he starts to be honest, or as genuine as he can at this point, when he starts to drop the accent. I swear I'm going to stop raving about Jacob's voice work at some point, but it's such an important part of the character, of who Louis is and how the audience can understand Louis, that it deserves an entire essay of its own.

And then Louis sasses Daniel and sets the tapes on fire, because that's not a performance at all, that. Pot meet kettle.

- [Louis] "Rigged to burn, Daniel" - foreshadowing...

- [Louis] "I barely had the energy to hold a book. My libido was not what it'd been. I understood the indulgence. I let it happen." - why are you such a liar, Louis. Stop fucking lying, Louis.

On a serious note, Louis' eating disorder emerging from his identity crisis, the clash of his religious upbringing with his new reality colliding with his lifelong depression... Who made that guy so relatable. But notice how there's a slight part of Louis' new diet here that's in direct reaction to Lestat's refusal to hear him and talk to him. They each punish each other for their perceived failings by acting in the way that'll hurt the other the most, even if that way hurts them too. Louis by letting himself starve and losing his energy when that's all Lestat wants him to do, Lestat by having several affairs and flaunting them, even when he explicitly says "I do everything for Louis". By the way, that little throwaway line? Lestat being genuine and fully honest about his feelings and motivations but playing it as a joke. If Louis had been hearing he'd have caught it and maaaybe we could have avoided some of the drama. Maybe.

- Oh, the whole Antoinette seduction scene is fascinating. Notice how Lestat barely looks at her? He only has eyes for Louis. And Louis cannot stand his gaze, he has to retreat. Says he understands, but then leaves in a huff. Disasters.

[Louis] "'So you didn't kill her.'

[Lestat] 'No. She has talents.'

[Louis] 'Aren't I enough?'" - excuse me while I go scream.

[Lestat] "We're communicating so much better now." - baby, no. That ain't communication. You two are still talking two different languages.

[Lestat] "Of course. Of course. Of course. As long as you come home to me." - that's way too many "of course", 'Stat. Maybe add a couple dozen more to reeeeally make your point that you're not bothered AT ALL by the idea of Louis seeing other people. Hypocrite...

- Welcome to WW1. Business, racism, capitalism, and the fantastic Miss Bricks. Can't wait for Tom Anderson to get eaten, that guy rubs me off the wrong way. Gotta love that Louis' standing up for himself. Aaaaand hello Jonah. Oop, Lestat's already staring and going insane with jealousy. Meanwhile Louis doesn't even remember he's got nieces. Looots of little crucial hits in this scene, between the poker game, WW1 come a-knocking, Loustat's fuckery and Louis' getting further and further away from his human family.

- [Jonah] "'Ain't aged a day since I seen you last.'

[Louis] 'That's the moonlight lyin' is all.'" - hi, Nicholas Sparks called, he says that line belongs in The Notebook and he's claiming copyright for it.

[Jonah] "'And most of why I signed up is I kept hearing something about something they call 'European sensibilities'. They care less what you look like or who you're lookin' at.'

[Louis] 'Yeah, I got someone.'

[Jonah] 'I figured as much. No ring on your finger?'

[Louis] 'Not a woman.'

[Jonah] 'Well, what's he like?'

[Louis] 'He's... a lot. It's not perfect. But we kind of have this agreement.'"

Yeah, believe me, racism and homophobia are very alive in Europe too. Though... The roaring twenties are right around the corner and that's a decade I would have loved to experience in Paris.

Hey, look! Louis has come around about his sexuality, is that the first time he comes out willingly and peacefully? Yey, progress. Also I love that he has explicit permission from Lestat to have his own affairs, but he feels uncomfortable about at it at first. But still goes for it 'cause you know. Gotta show Lestat he ain't bothered. Should have fed first tho, stupid. Also, Lestat overhearing Louis calling him "a lot" and "not perfect" > direct parallel to Claudia hearing Louis calling her a "burden" to Armand in s2. Louis is so good at being casually cruel to and about those he loves.

[Louis] "'Good fit, this uniform.'

[Jonah] 'Well, it's the moonlight.'" - sorry, Nicholas Sparks on line 3 again, he said that moonlight line is actually too sappy for even The Notebook. Said we can keep it, he doesn't want to pay our dentist note.

- Daniel Hart's music is fantastic.

- Ah, Lestat's jealousy crisis. Aw, the domesticity. Ooh, wait, love how the memory changes. You can see Louis struggling to remember which memory is accurate.

- Arf, Louis being rejected from his own family house and then breaking down the door. Mamaw du Lac, Mother of the Decade, everyone. Poor baby. The curse of the vampire. Downward spiral getting worse. And then coming home and seeing Lestat entertain the regiment? And then the news about the Azalea. Nervous breakdown about to happen. Oh, Lestat flexing his powers. Love that. Notice the blood trail coming from his ear? It appears again when he saves Louis during the trial. He's not without his limits. Regarding his powers or his feelings.

[Lestat] "I heard your hearts dancing" - so first of all, awards for Sam, when? Secondly, brb, need to sob a little. And third, Nicholas Sparks on the line again, wants to know if the writer of these lines is available to come work with him.

[Lestat] "'This is not a life!'

[Louis] 'That's' cause you took my life! I got nothing! I lost everything! I lost my brother. I lost my family. 'Bout to lose the last fucking thing I care about.'" - where are the awards for Jacob and Sam for heaven's saaaaaaaake. Also, love how the music briefly stops between 'everything' and 'brother'.

- [Louis] "When your mother sees the Devil in your eyes, it's a hard assessment to abandon. Am I from the Devil? Is my very nature that of the Devil? I had hedged against the question, but now it completely overwhelmed me." - Lestat and Armand had that conversation a century earlier...

[Daniel] "Take a Black man in America, make him a vampire, fuck with that vampire, and see what comes of it." - thanks for the social commentary, Danny, don't even need to do it myself. Now eat those assholes, Lou.

- [Louis] "You said I'm arrogant? Maybe I am arrogant! [...] I'm a vampire." - okay, can I soliloque about Louis please? Have I said he's my favourite of the entire books lately? As someone who has been called pretentious more than once just because I know my own value and refuse to play stupid, that part, yeah, that part gets to me. Louis finally knows who he is and refuses to pretend he's less just to please others. And as a lesson that I've finally embraced this year especially too, I like that. I like that a lot.

Oops. Louis just started a civil war in New Orleans. Fun. Like Lestat says, it's not on Louis tho. He merely "provided them the excuse".

[Louis] "And that's why you and me ain't never gon' work. That's why you're always gonna be alone." - oooh man, that was harsh. And only half deserved. And cruel in that typical Louis way. Also, wrong. But you're gonna have to wait another century for that. Oof, Lestat's face as Louis leaves, the crumbling, the desperation oozing out of his entire soul, heart and mind...

- "I ran from the Quarter that night, ran to where the violence spread most wild. I stumbled through the streets like an irrational child who had tested his strength on the small bird and now asked 'can I make it whole again?' - Can I help you? Please let me help you. - Their faces ran past me like snow in a terrible wind, unaware that it was I who had brought this retribution. It was I who should pay for this sin. And then... [Help me!] one of those inconceivable moments where who you were before and who you would be forever after is marked in time. [Help!] A rooming house, now a fire trap. I could not save the Azalea. I could not save Storyville. I could not save the aunt on the wrong side of the wall, but I could save her. My light. My Claudia. My redemption."

... Brb, need to scream in a pillow. Oooof. What a tirade. Louis, Saint Louis, Saint Louis, bearing the weight of the cross on his shoulders... Selflessness being selfishness, trying to help to try to alleviate his own pain and guilt. Doing good things out of a need to feel useful or at peace with your own conscience is not a bad thing, you're still helping whatever your motives, but when it starts making you unable to see the people you're trying to help as people, and starts making you see them as tools to relieve your tortured soul and conscience, are your good actions still good? Or the pavement on the road to a very dark place? Guess we'll let Claudia tell us her opinion.

episode 1 | episode 2 | episode 3 | episode 4 | episode 5 | episode 6 | episode 7

[smittyw]

i wanted to make some dinky elevator pitch introductions for my fav ocs because.. i dont talk about them very coherently it seems. or at all! what!!

to finally make up for that i'll put my extended edition under the cut below. love peace taco grease and stay frosty forever

so from what i gather in my notes, razz is the only recognizable one around here who got their lore blasted from a megaphone the second i came up with it. after that i got shy.. i was too busy having thoughts to ever explain who molly and Q were or where they came from. and its been like 2 years. well!

nat and molly are formerly codependent childhood friends and funhouse mirror versions of each other who split paths after high school. theyre like if two besties fated to be a detective duo spat on fate's shoes and ran off in different directions to do the same thing but badly & alone.. molly actually hit the books to become a private investigator, champion of truth and justice, while nat hit the pavement to become a paparazzo, champion of clickbait. they hate each other a lot but given the slightest chance they will attach at the hip again and drain the life from each other.

Q is later to the party, a terminally exhausted college dropout and shut-in with a notable (anonymous) presence in the online music scene. every slight inconvenience in his life is a straw and when the last one hits boy is he ready to just drive into the sunset or maybe the ocean or maybe just live in his car and stop talking to people forever. if the band they joined out of peer pressure makes it big or they get found out for their alter ego its so over..but luckily they started dating the most nosy and paranoid idiot alive & inadvertently pissed off the second most nosy and paranoid idiot alive in the process, so surely nothing like that could ever happen

these goobs run in slightly different circles that overlap juuust enough to be a problem, and its hard not to run into the most annoying eccentrics in their unserious version of LA slightly stuck out of time. if i were reintroducing lore important characters itd include plenty more than just them (eg freddy mysteriously missing from this description of events as if he isnt also there) but imho i have no obligation to pay attention to anything outside the range of my hyperfixation blast. the important thing to me rn is just to let yall know what the hell im talking about when i make stupid jokes everyday about girlies who dont exist <3

[lyril]

lumpus is a fascinating specimen glad theres other people also fond of him

HE SURE IS i will be honest i almost like him a Little Too Much because i Also live in my fantasy world of make believe where camp lazlo is a little more than a 6.4/10 show (I STILL LOVE YOU SWEETHEART!) and instead also includes all my insane 20k spiels of backstory stringing and talks about character writing but

(also. i do think it's funny how popular slinkman is in comparison, i love him just as much, but i actually see people mention really liking slinkman pretty frequently if someone happens to posts about camp lazlo which is GOOD because he DESERVES IT MAJORLY but the lumpus bug has Also caught me something awful even though i hate him and he sucks so i'm alone adrift in the world out here...)

edited this just for him

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

just learned that people are like legitimately pissed that mackenyu buffed up for season 2 ???

[crowfromfoggyforest]

Who else up having gender thoughts

I'm thinking about names. About how i've found a name that makes me feel euphoric when it's used online + a list of other names that i love and that i'd love to switch between for the perfect gender gremlin chaos... but how i'll probably never feel comfortable with them irl. Because my brain is weird and will go into "look for all the signs you just made a grave mistake" mode the second someone uses them in front of me. (I don't expect anyone to get this. It might also have to do with it making me painfully aware of the fact i'll never feel like any name is truly me...) In any case, using it irl will ruin any name for me.

So i'll either have to stick with my birthname forever (because it makes me uncomfortable but i've gotten used to it) - or i'll go by a name that absolutely doesn't match me or my gender and that isn't dear to me. Like Tobias. Or Michael. Because then, nothing can feel off, nothing can be ruined - that name clearly isn't me, and clearly wasn't the "right" name choice anyways. So i guess... that would actually give me the most gender euphoria.

Idk. Gender is weird, names are weird, my brain is weird. I should probably go to sleep.

[ftm-megamind]

me and my boyfriend are sooo javid (he invited me over for a family dinner)

[cookinguptales]

now that I'm done imagining a jar of peanut butter, can I just say that I love that Shane and Ryan have shifted away from traditional true crime to just shootin' the shit about weird-ass mysteries?

I always liked the "let's talk about weird mysteries" aspect of buzzfeed unsolved, but being real with you, I'm uncomfortable with true crime and the culture surrounding it. like... as someone who lost a loved one to a violent (and temporarily unsolved) crime, I've seen firsthand how internet theorizing can make a traumatizing time even harder and like. it's fucking rough, man.

I get that it makes money and all (which... is a whole other can of worms) but when you view human suffering as entertainment, it's so easy to forget about the real people who will actually be affected by what's put out there on the internet.

so I'm happy that Shane and Ryan seem to be leaning a lot more into "wow, some unhinged shit happened! how fucked up is that?" on mystery files. more of this, please!!

[averlym]

whshdfhfjf.,,,

[elytrafemme]

i know it's not good for me to think about this but sometimes i remember how i had very close mutuals borderline friends who ended up soft-blocking me and becoming hard core zionists and i feel like i should be allowed to claw off my wallpaper and scream

[youremyonlyhope]

why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up why won't my brain shut up

[kuiinncedes]

:|

[hamletisintown]

I'm so fucking annoyed at the number of english-speaking hoyoverse players who play with the japanese subtitles

I'm only speaking about like, streamers and youtubers because those are the ones i see playing, obviously (and i'm only talking about genshin impact and honkai star rail bc those are the 2 hoyo games i play but i'm willing to bet the trend is the same in other hoyo games, and possibly in other chinese "anime" games)

The number of times i click on a video and the person speaks english but has their game set to japanese dubbing for no reason, like. Can you guys stop being weebs for just one second please.

[straykats]

sometimes i entertain the thought of like. everything ending up okay and then i get even more scared and anxious and idk why

[impostorsshow]

Link always wears his knight outfit, which makes sense y'know he's a link he's on this big adventure but I noticed that there are NPCs that don't wear they're uniform so either link is really high strung and the adventure is putting him constantly on edge, which actually this version of link being anxious has alot of weight to it in cutscenes and in dialogue, where people tell link to not worry or how he for the most part is either courageous or panicked/worried/surprised in cutscenes. Or like link is a huge fuckin nerd and just is proud of the fact he's a hero and a knight maybe, which is also probable considering while he definitely has the heart of a knight the beginning cutscenes characterize him as a sleepy lil guy and that zelda whos dad is THE OWNER OF THE KNIGHT ACADEMY and i bet zeldas status and her care for loftwings is the only reason shes a knight to begin with, is pushing link to actually. Yknow try and get a bit farther than he's pushing himself so he can succeed, and since this link really loves Zelda [definitely platonically she's his best childhood friend and romantically if it's your fancy there's evidence for that too] he probably is proud of the fact that they! He's a knight he gets to spend time with his childhood friend! He won the race for his friend! Look at how well he's doing as a knight which is a thing his childhood bestie is also probably proud of him for! Idk I like link :]