#im sorry to everyone who says shes hot but shes basically a colonizer

[bardinthezone]

Night Vale and the Power of Stories

So I’ve been losing my mind about this latest arc. Full hyperfixation. Studying for finals? Calling my parents? Enjoying other hobbies? Eating?? Who’s she, never heard of her. There is only the “#wtnv spoilers” tag.

Anyways, inspired primarily by this post, this post, and this post, I have been thinking about Night Vale as a place of stories.

Night Vale is a deeply weird place. It is a place where all the crazy conspiracies and contradictions and creepy crawlies can coexist (try saying that 5 times fast), and it is built on stories.

We know from “109: A Story About Huntokar” that Huntokar singlehandedly saved the town from nuclear destruction in 1983. This in and of itself is beautiful, tragic, terrifying and wonderful (I could write a whole essay on the lasting effects of the Cold War on the American psyche and how that’s impacted our media, but that’s not what this post is about). But what Huntokar says in describing this moment is fascinating: “ The people of Night Vale huddled, waiting for the end to their story.” The use of the word “story” here is so poignant and poetic. This was her town, a narrative she had lovingly followed since its inception, with an ever rotating cast of characters, finally seeming as though it would come to an end. And yet she managed to continue their story. The people of Night Vale, of every alternate universe Night Vale, are kept alive because Huntokar wanted to keep the narrative going. It is a town kept alive-- inverted and shattered and bizarre, but alive-- because someone saw the tale coming to an end and wasn’t satisfied with that. Night Vale is a place of stories.

And Cecil. Cecil Gershwin-Palmer is such a wonderful enigma. He’s a deeply troubled man, he’s the town’s beloved radio host, he is the voice of Night Vale. As the town’s only (?) regular source of news, he carries incredible weight in shaping the public’s perception of reality. It is his radio show that keeps the people informed through all of these earth-shattering events-- it is Cecil who, for as goofy and cringefail (thank you @bigcommunist for that phrase) as he can be, has been responsible for keeping his citizens safe. In “227: A Word With Dr. Jones,” Dr. Janet Lubelle notes that one of his traits is “town leadership.” When Cecil speaks, things happen. He rallies the people, against Strexcorp or the Beagle Puppy or Steve Carlsberg and his dry, dry scones. Hell, he says “weather” and everyone stops, or sometimes (Like in “204: Audition”) it literally saves his life. @lostboywriting raises a fascinating theory about Cecil having inadvertently brought the Faceless Old Woman into existence through his repression of his complicated relationship with his mother-- and while this contradicts with the backstory presented in "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Inside Your Home," who’s to say that both origins can’t be true, with how splintered and fractured Night Vale’s existence (and especially relation to time) is? Perhaps Cecil, as the Voice Of Night Vale, is capable of changing the world more than he knows.

Either way, this is why Dr. Lubelle’s Explaining of the town has so much of a tangible effect on it-- because she’s coming in and using something “empirical” to change the narrative. That is why she’s so threatening-- because how do you argue with the facts? How do you argue with science? She is using logic to insist that her reality is right, that these stories and poetics used to keep the town alive are meaningless. That it would be better for them to not exist than to exist outside her narrative. She said it herself-- she cannot imagine that anyone thinks differently to herself about anything, and she is all to happy to provide any who disagrees with an Explanation. No matter the cost.

In 227, Cecil remarks that “Science is not good or bad, as language is not good or bad, as religion is not good or bad, because humans are not inherently good or bad.” This sets up a fascinating play between science, language, and religion that I think is perfectly encapsulated by Dr. Lubelle, representing science, Cecil, representing language, and Huntokar, representing religion. Whether she knows it or not, Dr. Lubelle is directly undoing all of the hard work of Huntokar, and attempting to use Cecil as the most powerful tool at her disposal.

And this works in conjunction with my distinction of the What vs. the Why. We can take the incursion point of November 7th, 1983, and view it through both lenses. From Huntokar’s perspective, we get the Why: Night Vale was in danger, and it needed saving, so she saved it. But from Dr Lubelle’s perspective, we just get the What: Night Vale was the target of a nuclear missile. Nuclear missiles are unstoppable by any force known to science. This is a town that should have been empty for 40 years.

I posit a world in which Dr. Lubelle reduces Night Vale to what it “should be:” A town ruined by nuclear destruction. The empirical facts, the anchors that held Night Vale down to reality, the threads that Huntokar broke-- Dr. Lubelle is seeking to tie them back together. And with the Voice of Night Vale on her side, Explained and ready to share the Truth, of course she can make that happen. Perhaps Huntokar takes center stage again to show that science is not the end-all-be-all. Perhaps Carlos steps in to replace Dr. Lubelle as the Scientist in this equation, to provide a good alternative to her callous methods. 

Or I could be totally off-base with that prediction. I imagine the bodies being dug up in the sand wastes and the murals of flesh will play a major role in the finale. Maybe she’ll uncover the splintered realities of Night Vale and won’t know how to explain them away. Hell, people keep hyping up a Desert Bluffs return, what with the Sandstorm tapes and the talk of doubles-- Maybe Kevin and Lauren will be the “religion” in the triumvirate, and drive Dr. Lubelle mad with their unrelenting fervor. Who knows? I have my theories, but I’m just excited to see where this all goes.

.

Also from a meta perspective, this is 100% harkening back to all those early-days fan theories that “Night Vale is a normal town and Cecil is just off his rocker” (Thanks @maxgicalgirl for that one!). Welcome To Night Vale is a show that has never been about continuity and tight lore-- it’s about spinning a fun narrative, it’s about the poetry, the music, the aesthetics; it’s about everything that Dr. Lubelle HATES. From a meta perspective, Dr. Lubelle is every theorist who tries to ruin the magic of a story, who nitpicks it endlessly because it doesn’t adhere to how the “real world” functions. She doesn’t care about why story elements are included, she just needs what’s included to adhere to her worldview. And I can’t wait to see her get taken down, no matter how it happens.

Thanks again to @maxgicalgirl, @lostboywriting, @eclipse-song​, and everyone who’s been sharing their thoughts about the latest arc on tumblr. I would not be writing this without y’all!!

#im sorry to everyone who says shes hot but shes basically a colonizer #''im new to your community but your culture is backwards and wrong'' #''let me fix it with my superior science and reasoning'' #shes so evil i hate her /pos #finknor wrote her so well #and janet varney is an incredible VA #i cannot express how much I love this arc so far #i really hope we get more on the 1983 storyline because that is just positively fascinating #a town that should have died long ago #that should have been reduced to ashes #and yet here they are #lubelle would fucking hate that if she found out #also WHATS GONNA HAPPEN TO EVERYONE WHO GETS EXPLAINED??? #cause if cecil is getting explained i dont think itll be permanent #but #ough its just so GOOD #also carlos. my man. where are you. when are you gonna show yourself #when will we get to know your tragic backstory cause there is SOMETHING going on there #i swear she was just trying to get to carlos and the rest of the town was an added bonus #wtnv spoilers #wtnv 227 #wtnv #welcome to night vale #welcome to night vale spoilers #cecil gershwin palmer #dr janet lubelle #uowii #huntokar

[choujiro]

ph

so i spent 3 weeks at ph and oh gosh

week one: 

the flight wasnt bad at all tbh i got to watch my kdrama & listen to my favorite music

scratch that was kinda annoying because my brother took a xan & instantly knocked out once we were seated, my mom and a flight attendant got extremely worried because he wasn’t really opening his eyes

i told them he was just really tired

he fuckgin drooled and it smelled

i couldnt sleep for like an hour or two because we saved his dinner but on my tray and it bothered me

incheon airport is so nice omfg !!!!! bought a macaron at a starbucks there & i wish we had that here at u.s

my uncles picked us up from the airport and our younger uncle (20 yrs old) got chubbier and said he got really fat so we were like no ur jst thicc

while we were waiting for my mom to fix her phone he was talking to me about kdramas because he saw the iu photocard on my phone LOL but its really interesting because guys arent really into stuff like that

found out his girlfriend makes him watch kdramas lol

found out the portions at jollibee were wayyy smaller so my uncle told me to buy two of the same food yah huge shock to me

the wifi was incredibly slow; we had to buy this portable wifi in which we bought 1gb of connection for idk 300 pesos??? wow first world problems for sure

my mom, brother & i slept on the same bed & it was just so hot i honestly could not sleep (we couldnt really sleep anywhere else)

the next day my cousins and i walked to our other cousins house & the aircon in her home was just fucgkin AMAZING 

we could not stand the heat tbh it ruined us

we went to the next town over to buy stuff at the market because we found out my uncle had fake gucci slippers

i bought fake nike slippers and some of us got the same along with gucci ones lol

went deeper in the market and found hella fake stuff like fake vans and addidas (i was planning to come back to buy them and when i came back to the market we didnt have time to get them so im really bummed esp since they’re cheap like 200 or 300 pesos only)

went to the local mall the following day & found this really cute shop that resembled h&m, i ended up buying this overall dress & used up 800 pesos out of 1000 & didnt have enough to buy anything else lol

went to the supermarket the following day inside another mall & ended up buying a bunch of snacks in BULK (my cousins bought wine & alcohol, ended up tasting really weird)

bought a LARGE ASS bulky bag of corn chips called bawang na bawang & when my auntie found out i called it “bah-wang” instead of “buh-wang” she kept laughing & told everyone else because apparently im saying town instead of garlic

met my other cousins’ family (they live in the same town, a 2 minute drive basically) and ate good food, talked to their uncle about palawan since we were going there soon

attended our parent’s high school reunion and watched them perform this dance line lol

we werent really interested in their reunion, i mean it wasn’t really for us anyways??

i actually got really sick the day before new years, i had a bad fever & had cold sweat. i told my cousins to move the fan away from me despite the weather being 80+ degrees :-(

i took antibiotics & got better several minutes before the new years hit lol

week two:

got sick to the point where i lost my voice 

went to pagasinan and ate rly good sisig & etc

went to the same supermarket from the one back in my family’s hometown and ended up buying more snacks in bulk

my skin got super worse & im just like fuck it dammit

on jan2 we were supposed to go to palawan but our flight was delayed, we were transferred to a super nice hotel nearby, free of charge of course

got a massage with two of my other cousins for the first time, the lady thought i was korean so they were like “oh !!! korean!!”

i couldnt speak so my manang talked for me lol

gosh the massage was both relaxing and hurtful LOL

i understood the lady speaking to her coworkers as she was massaging me as she said she felt sorry for me because my skin has alot of scars

i didnt mind at all, i felt bad that she had to see it tbh

she told me to turn my body facing the ceiling so i did and omfg she pulled the towel and massaged my ..... armpits and boobs (im so ashamed because i shaved before i left the airport and it grew fast oh my god)

my cousins and i were talking about how our butts hella hurt after they massaged that part because FUK it hella hurt oh my god i have never clenched my buttcheeks so hard in my life

my kuya said he was ticklish there so he let out a giggle

we boarded our flight to palawan the next day and went island hopping right away. i felt really bad because my skin got even worse so it made me uncomfortable & i couldnt talk to anyone so yeah bad time lol

island hopping was nice nevertheless, we couldnt explore the cave because the tides were high

my cousins, brother and mom got a massage at the hotel we were staying after finding out we got one in the other hotel

the masseurs come to the room instead of having a separate room

so i couldnt go to sleep right away since the bed was being occupied smh

we went to a place called bakers hill the next day & it was really nice idk how to say it, it was much of a hill tho. lots of places to take pictures there i guess??? theres only one bakery there and its small, the families bought alot of pastillias and hopia to bring back home, basically we left the store with a box full of sweets

went to bagiuo the day we returned back to our town and went to a place called mines view where we had an amazing view of the hills/mountains

its realllly nice and green and man !!!!! gr8 view

went shopping for gifts at the local market and bought a jacket & two wooden keychains shaped as a small ..... dicc

my brother bought a wooden flute and he really used it throughout the whole trip like he played in the house AND during car rides. i think the good part was that it wasnt annoying at all, he actually knew how to play and did some covered a bunch of songs that made all of us laugh (my cousin recorded it and has the videos on her phone so i cant show everyone here)

we went driving at pengbenga park, but not literally driving. we got to drive these plastic race car things and it was sososo fun!!!! i overtook some kids & adults but mostly kids on the driveway & i crashed like only twice

we were given the choice to use a bike/multi-seater bike, race car, & other stuff but yeah race car boi

ate really bomb waffles and pancakes at this pancake house and LORD !! GOOD AMAZING AAAHH OOOOO

went to a small mall the following day and bought 50 peso facemasks and i spent like 15 dollars worth of them??? idk i just bought hella without counting my money lol

drove to manila few days later and went to a place called greenhills (famous for fake brands like nike and gucci) and my cousins and aunties bought alot of gucci, ray bans, louis vuitton (wallet, belts and bags lmao). went to a store called miniso and it was so packed i wasnt able to look around as much, & i really wanted to go here ;___; it was okay tho

so there are basically two malls in one, one small one with a food court and market with the fake items and a REAL mall; they’re connected by a yard which is partially a church lol (there was a tv outside so we assumed it was a concert of some sort, found out there was a priest praying inside the building along with so many others)

next morning, instead of going to another pancake house we were accidentally taken to a coffee house but honestly, it was the best choice ever

it was so fuckgin AESTHETIC I LOVED IT they decorated the place with flowers and it wasnt like overwhelming full of flowers it was just right and the iced latte?? AMAZING and ugh man i loved ittttttt

we went to a museum after and learned so much about jose rizal and the history of philippines before and during spanish colonization and it was super interesting

darn u white ppl go away

it was really ironic to see white people check out the museum too like.. first u colonize us then u wanna check our museum hm

went to eat after at a place similar to pepper lunch, so basically hot sizzling food

i ordered a sizzling tapa and it was so fuckgin AMAZINg gattdamn ugh i love sisig

we went to the mall after hoping to check out another museum inside the place (an ice cream one) but we found out that it was opened until feb 

anyways we checked out the whole mall and ate some aesthetic looking ice cream which was amazing also

dropped off two of our cousins at the airport since they were only here for two weeks (the rest of us dreaded over the fact that we had one more week left when our trip here was originally 2 weeks)

went back to my familys town at la union and didnt do much

spent two days at baguio, day 1: found a kbbq and ate lunch there, it was only 300 pesos per person so we werent complaining

we went to the mall after and i checked out this store that had really amusing shirts, bags and pouches. i ended up buying a shirt with a bunny that said “bunnies like carrots but not this one. this one chose the jacuzzi” it was so amusing omfg

i bought a pouch that said “lechon is my lifeforce” aka pig and my friends were like “thats really amazing”

we left the mall to buy tea and i didnt have enough because i bought the bunny shirt so my uncle bought a drink for me LOL (i felt so bad tho)

watched netflix the whole time till it was time to sleep

the next day my other cousin was dropped at the house and we went to go out for a different kbbq place, it was much better (500 pesos per person too!)

went to the mall again and watched jumanji

watched black mirror when we came back

left the next day & went back to the mall since it connected to the other large buses to go back to town

week three:

next morning i met a faith healer who looked for the cause of my eczema, she cured my mom the day before because someone had cursed her food (she had stomach cancer several months back but she’s better, she occasionally has stomach problems tho)

one of the amazing things i have heard from her was that when she was cleaning my moms body with a white towel, she squeezed out the remaining water & black sand came out. she says the curse has been removed & that she’ll feel better soon

she looked at my skin and proceeded to put a special oil everywhere and said it mightve been the burning of a dwende outside the house when i was kid (when he was hurt, he probably hurt me too)

the next day she came by again and lathered a special oil again and came to the conclusion that when i visited the house when i was about 4-5 years old, the dwendes decided to play with me (which actually hurt me so)

she said to only have faith and keep praying, virgin mary will come by to heal you in the form of a sudden breeze with a nice scent

i know that alot of people might think this is crazy and all, but since i come from a spiritual family and had actual experience with something like this, its really easy to believe 

it seems like the dwendes dont like modern medicine so everytime i put on my creams or ointments, the healing effect didnt last long

the next and final day, she put on oil once more and concluded that the dwendes have been playing with me since i was a kid so it was the root of my eczema. she had personally asked them to stop yesterday so she said they wont play with me anymore

as she was lathering oil on my skin, she said that i had nice legs and hands, the dwendes had played with me because i was “pintas” or pretty

so that kinda shocked me like me? pretty?? lol

but after that she said i will get better, i need to have faith and pray all the time. once you believe, it will happen (i have great faith in both the faith healer and myself healing, my wounds are slowly closing so im really determined to recover from eczema)

the thing about faith healers is that they DONT ask for money. you could donate, but they dont ask for anything at all. i believe that they heal people in the form of good will

my mom & i gave money and clothes, and soap as a payment for her time and faith healing and im sososo thankful for her

she also did this thing where she could figure out things by putting oil and water in a plate and picking out rice grains and letting them either sink or float in another bowl

3 rice grains had floated while the others sank and she concluded that there was something wrong with me, both spiritually and physically?? i couldnt understand quite well since they were speaking in ilocano

but something along the lines of that, she had called me soul in order to protect me so i can heal. and that kinda boggled me like soul? is that always with you? is my soul somewhere else? why was it that my soul had to be called? so yeah interesting

she also found out that my grandpa had visited (he visited last week too, along with my grandma) and he’s just watching the family in the living room

also odd thing but last week a white butterfly came inside the house while my cousins and i were just doing whatever and it landed on the couch my manang and i were sitting on

my kuya said there was a butterfly behind me and i was like fuk imma move couches cuz i just dont like bugs in general (my cousin had entered the back door the other night and felt something crawling on his head so he slapped it away, turns out it was a HUGE spider so yeah FUK that lol i wanted to throw up when i saw it)

so i switched couches and the butterfly followed me and went on my head so i shoo’ed it away

the next day after it had happened a lady who had a third eye/some sort of spiritual power said my grandparents visited last night and i guess i shoo’ed my grandpa away lol

anyways, going back to the rice grain thing, the faith healer knew i couldnt sleep well because my body has been burning for the longest time, so she put those 3 rice grains in a cotton ball and safety pinned it to my shirt

my mom said that her mom would often do the same thing to her sisters back when they were kids, it was really effective in to protecting yourself

i think its really crazy how theres so many spirits and the like in philippines, and also in vietnam and other asian countries as well. i thought it was because it was 3rd world countries or countries that had been colonized

i searched it up and 1) when PH was colonized, the conquestors often scared them with stories about spirits and 2) when the angels had fought lucifer and his army out of heaven, alot of them fell on earth, landing on the islands of PH

we all packed our stuff last minute and my mom was having a hard time since everything could not fit in the luggage, i told her just to put everything in our large balikbayan box and she refused, she eventually gave up (even the stuff barely fit inside the box). we left at 1am that day for the airport at manila and man, i guess i’ll miss ph

our stopover was at incheon again and this time we had more time to buy stuff at the airport. my mom bought her starbucks mug in which she was excited about. i bought another macaron and planned eating it on the airplane but my mom misplaced it & once we came back i found out it was smashed lmfao

i went to the duty free store and looked around for some snacks, the ladies were rly kind in helping me, i tried speaking in korean but had no luck at all lol all i said was kamsamnida after they had helped me

while waiting for our flight, my mom and aunties were telling us about stories about our other auntie since she’s really mean and all lol we were all curious to why she had treated everyone so unkindly basically the their whole lives

my cousins dont like this specific aunt and i dont have a good judgement of her either but my other aunt told us to always be kind despite that. 

i had planned to watch the rest of my kdrama on the plane but i knocked out for 9 out of 11 hours of the flight

the men at the airports where they check our passport were so handsome omfg. the ones both at manila and san francisco like... so... handsome. i told my mom that they’re really good looking and she assumed it was because they were light skinned but even if they werent light, they were SO handsome like i dont discriminate against color man if youre handsome you are HANDSOME

arrived back at SF at 2pm and my manang welcomed us by making us cajun shrimp and it was literally the best meal ever ugh i miss american food

i had school the NEXT day, and i had barely realized that i signed up for a class at UC DAVIS instead of sacramento and oh my god i was truly fucked up lol (ended up fixing it tho)

i checked up on my character on maplesaga and found out that literally everyone had outleveled me like ok fuk 

to summarize the 3 weeks there, my skin did not get better at all lol. although we were originally going to stay for 2 weeks, my mom couldnt fix our flight time and ended up staying there longer. despite it being dreadful at times, im really lucky that i had met a faith healer the 3rd week for my eczema. if i had left the 2nd week, i would not have been healed (the doctors here in u.s were completely useless so...) i was sick 80% of the time of the trip which made me feel bad lol but its my immune systems fault :-/// im really prone to extreme changes in weather, so coming from a 50 degree city to a 80 degree country took a toll on my body. it was the same back at home, during the summer the weather was often bipolar so that also took a toll on my body

anyways its so good to be back home except for the piles of homework stacking up ;__;

#i hope i can look back at my post and wonder oh wow i remember this happening #im quite forgetful #super long post but lots of stuff happened #the photos are on my ig if anyone wants to check them out