.Flux Buddies is a Minecraft Lets Play series by Duncan Jones and Kim Richards, who role-play as Lalna and Nanosounds respectively. This series has quite a few twists and turns, and it seems to be Darker and Edgier than most other Minecraft series that the Yogscast makes.
Flux Buddies really began with Kim's The Apprentice series note , wherein she was learning the basics of Minecraft from other Yogscast members. In the second part of the apprentice, Kim's character Nano is apprenticed to Duncan's character Lalna, and this is where the story elements of the series began. Nano falls into a containment sphere containing a dangerous Vis node (from the Thaumcraft mod), and the results of this accident serve as a basis or as a jumping-off-point for much of the plot (see the Synopsis page for a full summary). The Apprentice was followed by a second series called Galacticraft, where the duo try to reach the moon in the eponymous mod, and finally by the first season of the main series, Flux Buddies. Flux Buddies ran for 150 episodes over almost a year, and was followed by Flux Buddies 2.0, which wrapped up in early December 2015.
Flux Buddies sets itself apart from many other Let's Play style series by having an original plot whose threads are consistently visited. Several different story threads are intertwined but in some ways independent as well. Flux Buddies actually runs between the fully story-driven, almost cinematic brand of some Minecraft series and the more common free-form type of Minecraft series. Most episodes are more like the latter, with Nano and Lalna working on whatever their current goals are in the various mods they play with. Interspersed every 20 episodes or so will be a few episodes dealing with one of the main plot threads in some way, and these are the primary way the story is advanced. For most of its time, Flux Buddies generally left more questions than it answered each time, as the story advanced and was fleshed out, but towards the end of Flux Buddies 2.0 some resolution began as well.
The story currently follows Nano and Lalna and includes their interaction with their evil clones Specimen 5 and Lalnable Hector, respectively.
Despite Kim making two vlogs saying it will return, on Hannah's 28th February 2018 Civilization VI stream she said it was most likely that it was cancelled as very few of them played Minecraft anymore.
Masterfully averted on October 12th, when Kim announced that filming for Flux Buddies 4 had begun; on October 24th, the first episode of Flux Buddies 4 returned. On June 28th, 2018, episode 29 saw the end of Flux Buddies 4, and likely the end of Flux Buddies, though whether or not it's the end of Lanla and Nano's adventures together remains ambiguous.
Flux Buddies contain examples of the following tropes:
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: The pair defeated Mother and the Flux, but at the cost of Nano's life.
- Chronic Pet Killer: What are we on, Tiddles V?note
- Chekhov's Gun: The dispersal of plot episodes makes this trope common in Flux Buddies. Details and objects from many episodes before may suddenly become relevant. Often these are deliberately foreshadowed, but sometimes it isn't.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Dolly Mia, the pink dolls Lalnable places as surveillance. They show up many, many times, and always in the creepiest way.
- Clone Angst: Lalna is a bit distraught after being told he’s not the original.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Nano used to be the Butt-Monkey of this in the Apprentice days. Over time, she takes a level in badass.
- Continuity Nod: They reference a few happenings in the universe, such as Yog Labs, Strawfingers, etc.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Turns out ever since she fell in the flux sphere, Nano has been the avatar(?) of a Eldritch Abomination that she knows as Mother. It deliberately pushed her to spread death and violence, and intends to use Nano to break out of the Dark Realm and bring about The End of the World as We Know It. Despite getting Lalnable and Five to help them build a nuke and setting it off right next to Mother's apparent heart, it seems to have done nothing as of episode 28 of part 4.
- Ultimately, it takes a Heroic Sacrifice by Nano to defeat Mother.
- Distressed Dude: Lalna, captured once by the Magic Police, and a second time by Lalnable.
- Easily Forgiven: Considering Nano spent a hundred days alone after being quarantined in her tower by her teacher, they pick up her apprenticeship rather quickly.
- Evil Is Hammy: “FEEL THE HEAT!”
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Finding the Dolly Mias dotted around the Flux Base became this.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Nano stayed by Mother's heart when they set off a second nuke in Mother, and this time it worked.
- Interrupted Declaration of Love: In the final episode of Flux Baddies, Five's last words to Lalnable before he pushes her into the timegate are, "Boss! I love-!"
- Knight of Cerebus: Meeting the Magic Police was one thing, and the war with Hat Films was just for kicks - so when Lalnable Hector becomes the main villain, the series done change a bit in tone.
- Mysterious Past: Nano, as her first memory was being kidnapped by Strawfingers. Lalnable’s past is fairly unknown, and even Lalna’s turns out not to be what he thought it was, after being told he’s a clone.
- Out of the Frying Pan: Invoked by Nano upon landing at Lalna's castle and being told that there is a dangerously high level of flux. Lalna tries to assure her it's actually safe. Then warns her that opening a certain door would instantly kill her. And also not to go anywhere near the nuclear sphere.
- Sanity Ball: Lalna and Nano alternate between being the Only Sane Man and the Cloud Cuckoo Lander, sometimes within the same scene.
- Trademark Favourite Food: Noodles for Nano. Grape soda too, to a degree, though Duncan hates the stuff. This actually becomes a minor plot point when trying to reveal whether or not the Duncan that was with her was real or not.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Most clones seem to be treated as just as valuable as everyone else (perhaps because it’s incredibly hard to tell who the original is), but the Clone Army made by Lalnable seems to be considered expendable.
- Wham Episode: Episode 7, Silence of the Villagers depicts Panda Labs from the first Flux Buddies series. It is completely operational and is not destroyed like it was previously. This implies a Stable Time Loop, since this proves Hector and Five travelled back in time to during the original series!.
- Flux Buddies 4 - Episode 16: Transmutator has Lalnable Hector and Specimen Five return. It involves lots of cackling. And fire. Business as usual.
- Flux Buddies 4 - Episode 25/26 We finally meet 'Mother' Turns out Mother's an Eldritch Abomination who intends to use Nano to end the world.
- Flux Buddies 4 - Episode 28 Mother seems to have pulled a No-Sell on a nuke made to take her out and put right next to her heart, and it seems that Lalna and Nano are out of tricks.
- Flux Buddies 4 - Episode 29 Mother and the flux are defeated, but at the cost of Nano's life. Then we see the Baddies again, talking about this and that, and in the attic, we see what appears to be a clone of Nano.
- X Days Since: Due to Lalna's absentmindedness, Nano installs a "Days Without Lalna setting fire to himself" inside the sex dungeon in Galacticraft.
