#I love wtnv

[bulkhummus]

I'm so glad you asked! (cw for discussions about unreality)

A. It's been a minute since we had an actual villain. Most bad guys/conflicts get resolved in an episode or two, and it seems like Janet Lubelle and the University are here to stay. She is being worked into everyday life on the show and is directly effecting the narrative every episode. You can't ignore her actions because they're encroaching upon the town. It's new! It's different! And most of all, it's a villain that I can envision coming to a small town and disrupting the status quo < more on that later.

B. Stories get boring when there are no stakes. Welcome to Night Vale is known for its unconventional plot structure (ie. vague continuity and plot from episode to episode lol) because it supports the happenings that are occurring in the show. A problem with this structure can be the inability to create tension or suspense, or have choices mean something within a narrative. I'm so happy to listen to the comings and goings of my little favorite podcast town, and I genuinely enjoy the silly episodes, don't get me wrong, but it's not fun for a writer or a listener when the same stuff happens over and over and everything is resolved and happy. The mini arcs they write are amazing. The time to build up the space around them is equally interesting. Conflict is interesting. Drama is interesting. Making smart choices that hold weight/ value to them is interesting, and the show would not still be running if the writers were unable to create that impact in spite of a more freeform narrative structure. Why isn't Carlos helping? Why is Lubelle so concerned with doubles? How is this all placing strain on Cecil's relationship to his husband and his town?

C. The show has been running for 10 years and they are cashing in on that time and commitment. The impact of Carlos' backstory after all this time (equal, might I add, to his time in the DOW) is immense. The killing of characters we have loved for over a decade is harsh and feels unfair and heart breaking. Patterns we are accustomed to in the show are being altered. Things we have been led to believe are changing before us, and it's almost like we are experiencing them and these feelings in real time with the townspeople of Night Vale. We watched a love story centered around the fact that a man was new to town, and we, along with the town, were tricked into thinking not all strangers are there to do harm, until it was too late. There has never been a villain that has been sustained for this long without turning into a joke (ie. Huntokar, The Distant Prince, etc.) other than maybe Strex, and even that was not so encroaching upon every show. Suspense is building, who or what will be explained away next? What will that mean for the town and for the story?

D. Lubelle is a fucking villain. I have seen a few people say they dislike her character and while I respect that this post is about why I love her haha so stay with me there. You aren't supposed to like her, but not liking a character is different from thinking the character doesn't do anything for the story. She is endlessly interesting to me because of what she represents. She has stated her intentions, clear and clean and is operating under her own moral code. That's such a tasty place to be narratively speaking. So far, she is a well written villain. Not to mention her past relationship with Carlos not even being touched yet, and that whole can of worms ( the only thing being the implication that Carlos used to be her right hand man). To me, the best kind of villain is the one who truly believes they aren't doing anything wrong. She is cold, she is condescending and she is out to do her fucking job, and no one is going to get in her way. She is not there to take over the town, or end the world. She is there to explain things. That is her motivator, and she is literally feeding off of the town. She is the embodiment of normalization, of conformity, of categorization. She is looking at something that is weird and unexplainable, a big gray area, and demanding black and white terms from it. Maybe it's just the queer in me, and the queerness that is Night Vale, but god isn't that horrifying?

E. The characters and dynamics Lubelle is explaining away are still leading to more questions. The monstrous Station Management is no longer a horrifying monster behind closed doors, but we are left wondering just who has been managing the station for all these years (40 years, from 1983 to be exact lol they're so good for this one) if no one was ever in the office to begin with. There are layers to the unreality that is occurring in Night Vale. Time is still weird. They are still sectioned off in some way. Cecil is still caught amongst these intersecting time frames and realities. Shit is still weird. Not to mention Lubelle being there is coinciding with doubles, Cecils parents and childhood, Carlos' backstory, and time/reality weirdness. It's also so DENSE right now and I'm loving it. How is she gonna effect all that? Is she gonna propel any of it?????? She is as much of a tool to spur the stories onward as she is to disrupt them.

F. Cecil is being directly effected. Do you understand what it means to question the narrator? It's so easy to forget that Cecil is an unreliable narrator because we don't often hear other townspeople question him. Janet looked directly at Cecil and told him that he is disturbed, that his reality is fractured. We as listeners all know that, and Cecil sure as hell does, but he does his very best to avoid it. One of the main new sources in town, and the narrator of a show we let tell us biased opinions and stories as fact, is suddenly ripped out from beneath us like a cheap rug. His credibly is at stake here and this began the moment people started questioning why Carlos wasn't speaking out against the University.

G. She's so fucking hot. this arc and its potential is so. so so fun.

#anyways #so ill stop there #I didn't even include like episode specific “evidence” or whatever #it would have gotten too long and im lazy #I love wtnv #and I love janet lubelle #this arc is so so so fun for me #wtnv #welcome to night vale #cw unreality

[reddstardust]

This fucking scene. I swear to God. I can't even---

#i love wtnv #i wish gay people were real #🤧👍 #wtnv #transcript #welcome to night vale

[chewaai]

As Welcome to Night Vale is gaining another burst of popularity, I do wish to send out a warning to people who are very sensitive to psychotic episodes: be careful if you want to listen to it

If you're the type of person who has #unreality blacklisted, don't listen to too many episodes in a row/maybe avoid it all together?

Stay safe <3

#I love wtnv and I don't want to scare off people with a strong sense of reality #but when I first listened to wtnv about 8 years ago I did really mess up my sense of reality #wtnv #cecilsweep #welcome to night vale #cecil palmer #also you know yourself better than I do so do whatever works for you

[i-am-just-a-skeleton]

night vale is wild cause you'll have quotes like "Respect does not need to include getting along with or fully understanding, but simply acknowledging that those things are possible" and "WE DO NOT COME IN PEACE. WE COME WITH LAWYERS." within like a minute of each other

#don't get me wrong #this is great #i love wtnv

[spacerockband]

i voted for reigen

#i hated coloring this but you have to understand how important the colors were to the comedy of it #wtnv #welcome to night vale #cecilsweep #cecil gershwin palmer #cecil palmer #comic #tumblr sexymen poll #tumblr sexyrematch #comics #digital art #personal comic #reigen arataka #bc hes not exempt from this #trans #transgender #sometimes a dispicable enemy can be a loving partner of 3 years #wtnv fanart #sorta???

[xenolinn]

He wants to show off his husband real quick.

#never in my life would I have thought I'd draw Undertale and wtnv art together #but here we are #this is messy but I needed to throw this out cause I need people to know how much Cecil loves his husband #and would probably take this opportunity to talk about him #tumblr sexyman poll #welcome to night vale #wtnv #cecil sweep #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist #undertale #sans undertale #my art

[soupercreeper]

they are running from the horrors

(individual characters under the cut)

#HOLY SHIT THIS PIECE TOOK ME 11 FUCKING HOURS!!1!1!1!1????!/1?!? #anyways i love seeing crossovers with podcasts #i wanna see them all hang out and be buddies #tma #the magnus archives #wtnv #welcome to night vale #malevolent #tpp #the penumbra podcast #jonathan sims #jon sims #cecil gershwin palmer #cecil palmer #arthur lester #john doe #juno steel #podcast #audio drama #crossover #my art #art #fanart

[somehow-progressing]

he’s traumatized. he’s an Aquarius. he’s got more love in his heart than he knows what to do with. he’s battling Lyme disease. he takes his coffee black. he named his dog aubergine. he named his cat khoshekh, like darkness. he’s Jewish. he’s weird about mirrors. he has a complicated relationship with his mother. he has a complicated relationship with reality. he can’t pronounce Michigan to save his life. he writes fanfiction. he’s petty. he squeals over baby animals. he thinks spiders are cute. he finds beauty in all things. he’s a bright shining light in a weird, dark little town. he’s a gay character with a gay actor established in a time where it was dangerous to be any flavor of queer. he’s love poured into the shape of a radio host. he’s a tax evader. he’s not very good with social cues. he’s everything and nothing all at once.

#Cecil fucking Palmer #wtnv #welcome to night vale #cecil palmer #cecil gershwin palmer #text #txt #tumblr sexyrematch #sexyman contest #sexyman poll #have I mentioned I love this guy? he means so much to me

[heeheeheen]

Unmmm I just realized I never posted this on tumblr… my bad… here is a nice Cecil, one of my favorite little guys

My current headcanon that rotates constantly in my brain is that Cecil has soooo many tattoos but he never actually went to have them done. They just showed up and he was like “neat!”

#cecilos #cecil palmer #cecil gershwin palmer #wtnv #wtnv cecil #wtnv fanart #carlos the scientist #welcome to night vale #podcast #i love him so much.

[vvanillavveins]

"I’ve tried spending more time with dad in my dreams and in my art. But he’s- god, he’s impossible. Just give me a straight answer, man. A word, a gesture, a look at your face even. I think he was like this in real life, Cecil. I think his ambiguity, his vagueness, is why mom hated talking about him. He's not enigmatic or magical. He is fucking frustrating. All these cryptic images, but I don’t think there’s much to understand about an absent father."

#OH MY GOD THIS EPISODE #OH MY GOD I AM NOT OKAY #I THOUGHT I WOULD BE OKAY BUT CLEARLY I WAS A FOOL TO BELIEVE THAT BECAUSE OH FUCK I AM ACTUALLY NOT OKAY RIGHT NOW #crying and shaking #side note: i would die for abby's VA- her voice is absolutely perfect for this #i know i'm just imagining it but abby really does sound related to cecil #god i love everything about this #wtnv 246 #wtnv spoilers #wtnv #wtnv podcast #welcome to night vale #wtnv cecil #wtnv abby #abby palmer

[bulkhummus]

i just know he’d be insufferable

#and he’d be RIGHT #im not saying cecil wouldnt murder for the crown but— no i am saying that actually #hes a bitch #babygirl supreme <3 #you deserve it king #i love sans but unfortunately i love cecil more #cecilsweep #sans undertale #cecil palmer #sexymanotd #wtnv #welcome to night vale #art tag #this is prolly the last sexyman art ill make except for the one ill post to patreon #tumblr sexyman poll

[bookshelfdreams]

the thing about night vale that makes it stand out to this day and makes even the old episodes hold up is how unabashedly unashamedly queer it is

and I don't just mean that cecil declare es his undying love for a man he saw once within the first 10 minutes of the entire show. I don't just mean the many, many casually lgbt+ characters

I mean that it's just. So fucking weird.

like the first thing to understand about it is that long-form fiction podcasts like this weren't really a thing before. night vale was foundational to not only it's genre, but it's format. audio dramas weren't dead exactly, but they were going out of style, who listened to the radio for fiction in 2012?

and Fink & Cranor just came along and went fuck you, we're gonna do what we want. we're gonna tell the stories we want to tell how we want to tell them.

there's a giant glow cloud that drops dead animals. DO NOT APPROACH THE DOG PARK.

like. I can't really express it. but from its very first moments it was just so. genuine. like you could really feel that this was written by people just doing whatever they thought would be fun or cool or interesting, who wrote for themselves and didn't really care about reaching an audience.

hey apropos of nothing let's do a psa about what color helicopters are most likely to abduct your children. have you heard about throat spiders?

and it works! too this day it still works because it's fun and scary and heartfelt and weird as all fuck

of course a website full of queer weirdos would fall in love with this

#truly the roots of this fucking website #I honestly believe wtnv showed us what fiction could be if people were allowed to just. do whatever. #idk y'all it's late but man I love night vale #welcome to night vale

[leatherandcigarettes]

The ultimate tumblr sexyman rematch has middle aged tumblr users that haven't been heard of since 2015 clawing their way up from the grave to vote for a disembodied voice as the ultimate internet sex symbol

#welcome to night vale #cecilsweep #cecil gershwin palmer #tumblr sexymen poll #wtnv #tumblr sexyman rematch #tumblr #honestly why i love this website #literally who would've guessed when round one started that we'd end up here

[theglowingeyeballz]

Men from my favorite podcasts (I’m so unwell)

#totally paying attention in class #I love them beyond all the paranormal horrors of this multiverse #sydney o sargent #chnt fanart #camp here and there #cecil palmer #wtnv cecil #welcome to night vale #arthur lester #malevolent #jonathan sims #tma #the magnus archives #my art #fanart

[magicalboycupid]

I really want to make a Night Vale quilt, the show is so comforting and nostalgic to me it feels like a big soft old blanket, so I feel like immortalizing the show as a quilt would be perfect

#if anyone has any quilt making tips please let me know #I’ve never made a quilt before but I would love to learn the craft #my art #wtnv #welcome to night vale #night vale

[variksel]

in all honesty i had a great time with the reigensweep on twitter back in the day, hes my babygirl, of course i voted for him. BUT. there is no goddamn way on gods green earth im going to let that millenial twink win over my og 2010s canonically gay eye man. cecil has always walked along the beach with me and when ive looked down and only seen one set of footprints in the roughest parts of my life its because he has carried me through. i will not abandon him now, in his most dire need

#CECILSWEEP FOR THE WIN BABEY #look reigen i love you but you do Not need the ego boost #this website was built on the backs of characters like cecil baldwin #i will not let us get sidetracked by the first blond bitch that saunters down the sidewalk #we have to stay loyal man #thats what sexymen are all about ! #(no theyre not) #cecil baldwin #tumblr sexyman #sexyman contest #sexyman poll #reigen arataka #mob psycho 100 #mp100 #welcome to nightvale #wtnv #cecilsweep