#its far superior

[industrations]

Some pictures from my little adventure to Utrecht

[mags-writes]

me, 14 and reading the end of mockingjay:

me, 24 and reading the end of the ballad of songbirds and snakes:

[cowboysmp3]

watching laios/kabru take over farcille is like watching a beautiful diverse ecosystem slowly wither away and die

[cdroloisms]

also, (sorry to soapbox, i promise this will be the last of it), as an added note to the little conversation from yesterday about dreblr--i have to say that there's been ,,, uh, a slightly concerning amount of "us versus them" rhetoric especially about c!tommy apologists recently, as far as i've observed. and look, i get how the fandom's history plays into this, but dreblr isn't some separate special "better" version of the dsmp fandom. we're just dsmp fans who tend positive towards c!dream, which is a valid way of enjoying the story, but you know, so's hating c!dream's guts, lmao. people aren't unable to have valid opinions on the story or on c!dream just because they're negative about him and positive about c!tommy, which is like, literally just normal too, lmao, c!tommy is the generally good-aligned character we follow for most of the story and c!dream is the generally evil-aligned character that hurts him? being an analyst in dreblr doesn't automatically equal being "more correct" just because it's dreblr, and dismissing others' opinions just because they're a c!tommy apologist or whoever apologist isn't exactly a helpful way of approaching meta, either.

obviously no one is obligated to interact with anyone in this fandom that they don't want to interact with--we're here to have fun, it's not actually a professional field of analysis and debate. that being said, there is nothing about liking c!dream that is inherently superior to other dsmp fans. i know i've made a lot of general posts about dreblr versus "the greater fandom" which probably haven't helped with this feeling -- they're largely generalizations based on my experience in this fandom, and i don't want to come off as meaning that bad analysis is something that is Only found outside of dreblr (i've definitely been guilty of shit analysis more than a few times, lol) or that there's nothing that the rest of the fandom outside of c!dream apologist spaces has to offer. when it comes to individual enjoyment of the fandom and the characters, the point im making isn't that everyone has to do outreach to communicate with a c!tommy apologist or anything, lmao -- just that, you know, the general shady comments about how much better we are at analysis than those darn c!tommy apologists when they're not really relevant don't reeeeeally have to be as common as they are.

[tectoniccyborg]

Ashley’s drinking it cause she craves the former

[zorosroronoas]

unpopular opinion but idc, i need batcat & dickbabs to die & for comics to go back to brutalia & dickkory pls.

[remadra]

wanting him to succeed

[rainingmbappe]

The rise of "let people enjoy things" is single handedly the backbone of the rise of anti intellectualism

[ravings-of-a-mad-scientist]

I'm glad to say that science is well on its way to making a real-life Tumbler sexy man Dr. Two Brains.

[wickmitz]

was once again glancing at the lackadaisy reddit and i genuinely feel a little crazy about how people perceive the wick and mitzi arc from retinue to sneakthief? or, honestly, their arc in general. to act as though wick is some patron saint greatly amuses me when it’s implied by mitzi and the comic that wick had either proposed a business deal himself or had been very amendable to talk about it after their kiss and / or other intimate acts last night … mitzi didn’t pull this out of her ass! she did not put this upon wick randomly. it was something they mutually agreed to do, and given how hard wick tries to wiggle away from the conversation without outright saying no ( aka giving excuses to stall ) i would even guess he essentially already agreed to such a deal, in the throes of passion, only for him to not fully mean it later. this doesn’t mean it was right at all for her to then steal from wick! this isn’t me excusing that! but wick isn’t some poor meow meow either in this scenario, even if he is the ‘lesser’ evil overall.

and tbh i also think the conversation was doomed from the start : wick was horrifically exhausted and was still too shaken up by rocky’s ‘joke’ to fully engage with mitzi, as well as finally having church’s warning start to weigh on him … and then there’s mitzi, who wasn’t faring any better! what with viktor out of commission, asa turning on her, mordecai threatening her, and then having spent most of the afternoon hearing her dead husband’s name be thrown around. in order to hurt her and scare her into obedience, mind you. like, neither were in any state to discuss business or romance!! so it’s no surprise it went poorly. especially when both of them were equally sore and testy during their date.

[malewife-urahara]

reading the best part of bleach (deicide) again and this is just so funny out of context

[nodominion]

I need Daniel's 'assistant' to be Jesse.

[brw]

"Brieuc why do you think The Vision is autistic" well–

[supermaks]

WEC, I will be there

period wasnt verstappen.com aiming to have 2 cars running in gt3 by 2025 how much u wanna bet that as we speak bro is thinking about saying fuck it and being inside 1 of them

[dahldahlbills]

Gonna talk about my writing project but in typical ‘dahl talks about their wip’ fashion it’ll be extremely vague and won’t make any sense lol I just really need to say this, especially now that I'm so close to the end and it’s been something I’ve been feeling for a while too

so the further I get into the project, the more I feel like I've ventured so far from the original inspiration of this story and it makes me a little bit sad.

I wrote the original version in 2021 and looking back at it, it’s a completely different story than what I’m writing now. it was silly and lighthearted which… is not at all what its current state is like. I’m not entirely upset about it, because this new version has so much more substance and I'm extremely proud of it. I feel like I'm finally saying something and the message overall is really meaningful to me.

last night, I realized how I should title the story. Usually that’s a great feeling. Titling is one of the hardest things after all. But honestly it just left me even more conflicted. For the longest time I thought I knew what the title would be: something very similar to the original title (cryptlandia, the reason why i often refer to it as ‘cryptids wip’, which is extremely ironic bc the story doesn’t even focus on cryptids much anymore). That plan won’t work anymore though, because it no longer fits the tone of the story. Another reminder of the story’s evolution. I’m debating something different now, something more sincere, which has me feeling like I’ve completely lost the heart of the story.

Idk on one hand I’m really happy and proud of how this story’s evolved, but ngl it also hurts to see it shift so far from what i originally wrote.

[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!!