#wtnv 122

[go-to-the-mirror]

Every Time Mirrors are Mentioned in Welcome to Night Vale that is Halfway Relevant

[Plain text: "Every Time Mirrors are Mentioned in Welcome to Night Vale that is Halfway Relevant"]

Unabridged

Episodes featured: 19A, 26, 30, 33, 67, 87, 106, 108, 120, 122, 137, 148, 149, 160, 171, 209

Liveshows featured: "The Librarian," "The Investigators,"

CECIL: And now, a look at financial news. A fallow wheat field, grey sky, cut by black Vs of black birds. There is a child dragging a hatchet. His eyes cast down. His eyes tight. His eyes white and red and superfluous. He know not what he sees, but he knows what is there. A single black-wingéd beast, beak cracked, feathers rotting, alights roughly on the child's shoulder. They stop. The bird picks at the cartilage of the boy's ear, as if biting secrets into it. The boy groans, not unpleasantly. Heavy, slow clouds roll and rise, starkly contrasted against the flickering daguerreotype hills, which stoically keep the poisonous rains at bay. A sudden little river, partially walled by palsied shafts of grain, rolls by. The boy walks to it. He bends forward. His blank eyes stare into his reflection. Neither he nor his mirror knows the other is there. But the bird. The bird knows. The bird cackles. Or perhaps cries. Even the bird is uncertain. The boy takes a palm full of the dark water. Most of it runs out through his long, zig-zagging fingers. He licks the remainder from his dusty skin. A sound. Like thunder. Like drums. Like steps. The boy turns and hurls his hatchet behind him. The bird flies up and away. There is a hideous thump. The boy knows not what he has hit, but that it has been wounded. He waits for its retort. This has been financial news.

(Episode 19A - The Sandstorm)

CECIL: Maybe you should try paying more attention when you're at home. Or better yet, destroy all of your mirrors. As my mother used to tell me: "Someone's going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Mark my words, child." and then she would stare absently through my eyes until I giggled. I miss her so much. 

(Episode 26 - Faceless Old Woman)

CECIL: McDonald’s wants to remind you that the most important meal of the day is Breakfast. So why would you let a morning go by without staring deeply into the mirror until you no longer recognize the face staring back at you, mimicking your every gesture, mocking your every movement.

(Episode 30 - Dana)

TEENAGE CECIL: My mom seems really proud of me too. She hid from me for three days, the longest ever! And she’s covered all the mirrors in my house. I’m not sure why, but I think it must be because of pride. Being proud does all sorts of things to a...person. Uh, sorry, got distracted. That weird movement is back. It’s closer now.

TEENAGE CECIL: Interning is going great! Mom is gone. Leonard is super nice to me. My brother is gone too. Family, right? I think I’m learning a lot at the station. All of the mirrors in my house are uncovered now. Not sure who did that. I’m standing in front of the hall mirror right now. Am I changed? Am I becoming an adult? I look more grown, I think, more professional. Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day. Leonard said he once was smaller too, but that he is larger now, that everything is larger, that everything in the universe is growing to towering sizes, but all at once, all in unison, so no one notices and it is all the same relative to itself. Leonard lolls his tongue out of his thick purple lips. Leonard hisses. Being an intern is great. That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror. I see the flickering movement and I know. I know it. I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet, lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be. I’m looking in a mirror. The mirror is not covered. The flickering movement is just behind me. I- [He screams. There is gurgling. A body falls to the floor. Tape hiss continues. The tape shuts off. End teenage voice]

CECIL: No matter! I’m taking the tape, just now and I’m [GRUNTS] crushing it into little pieces. None of us have to think about it again. I’ll just double check that the mirror in the station bathroom is covered as usual and then that will be that. Done. Forgotten. 

(Episode 33 - Cassette)

CECIL: The City Council warned that the mess left from Leonard Burton’s death is likely to draw Street Cleaners and that we should all take shelter. Cover your mirrors. Shade your eyes. Stay indoors and mourn. Stay indoors and mourn.

(Episode 67 - [Best Of?])

CECIL: Item: Big Ricos Pizza is looking for a new cashier. Must have retail experience and be good at not talking if they know what’s good for them. No funny business. No secret wheat speakeasies. Why would you even bring that up? Who have you been talking to? To apply, look at yourself in the mirror for a long time, until your face no longer seems to be your own.

(Episode 87 - The Trial of Hiram McDaniels)

CECIL: I was so frightened, but still I looked into the washroom. He was standing in front of a mirror, looking right at himself. I never look into those things. Or at least I haven't in a long long time.  "I think the radio station is fun," he said. "I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet, lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be," he said.  I wanted to cry out to warn him. My mother told me to stay away from mirrors. And I knew he was in danger. I opened my mouth and tried to step into the room, but I could not speak, could not move forward.  "I’m looking in a mirror," he said.  "The mirror is not covered," he said. "Stop. Don't look into the mirror," I tried to say. But nothing came out of my mouth, only spit and inaudible wheeze. Tears stung my eyes. I waved frantically, trying to catch his attention. "The flickering movement is just behind me," he said. And then he looked right at me in the mirror. His eyes grew wide and wet. He said "I-. He said again "I-" and then he choked. Then he screamed. Then I screamed, only again no sound came out. He fell to the floor, and for a moment I remembered. I remembered blue lights and blood in my throat and a dark planet lit by no sun. And then I forgot it, or at least what it looked like, only that it was. Or never was. Or still is. His wallet was no longer in my studio. His...my driver’s license was no longer in my hand. My familiar teenage intern was no longer lying on the ground. The mirror he was looking into is now shattered into thousands of intersecting cracks like parched desert dirt. I approached the mirror, hoping to see a face I knew. A young man's face I just barely remember. But I only saw a multiplicity of me, a man divided, unrecognizably, under razor sharp lines. And behind me a glowing slash in the bathroom wall.

(Episode 106 - Filings)

CECIL: "Better not look in the mirror," Cal said as he nervously simulated the sound of laughter. A dribble of blood ran down his chin and onto his chest.

(Episode 108 - Cal)

KEVIN: Jason and Falisha wanted their friends to know they were happy, so they began to practice smiling in the mirror, but even they couldn't see a change in their faces. Plus, mirrors were upsetting because of all the people who would gather behind them in the reflection but that weren't actually there when they turned around to face them.

KEVIN: Their long house was a long pit. And every single mirror in their home was gone, along with the ghastly figures who gathered in the reflections. 

(Episode 120 - All Smiles' Eve)

CECIL: Nazr did not see Barks Ennui. But he was not without his own troubles. He would find, some evenings, that when he looked in the mirror there were two of him. One of him sitting behind the other. He would stand and the second reflection would stand too. It would follow all of his movements from behind his primary reflection. This went on for days. Then, one night, he looked in the mirror and there was only one of him. He sighed, feeling some relief to the tension that had been with him so long as to become his new normal. And that is when, in the mirror, his second reflection stepped into the room, followed by Frances Donaldson. Nazr whirled. The room he was in was empty. He looked back in the mirror. There was his own face, terrified. And behind that, on the bed, there was himself again, with Frances. The two of them were kissing, passionately. He watched himself kiss. And then his reflection and the Frances in the mirror stopped kissing and looked up at him, with startled faces. They stayed frozen that way, and he stayed frozen too. After several moments, the mirror couple smiled. Their smiles got wider and wider, and then they were both dead, blood covered and sprawling at irregular angles. And then they were alive again and smiling at him. He shouted and stumbled back from the mirror. From then on, he took to covering his mirrors, and that worked for a few days, but then one day he came home to find himself in his bedroom, already sitting in front of the covered bedroom mirror. The him that was in his bedroom looked up at him who had just entered with wide eyes and a yawning mouth, and Nazr (who believed himself to be the real Nazr) turned and walked out his house. He checked into a motel and decided to stay there for awhile.

(Episode 122 - A Story of Love and Horror, Part 2: "Spire")

LAUREN: These shadows don't even have faces. We cannot discern their intentions or feelings. They move around in quick jerks and starts, flickering in and out of our vision, sometimes standing just behind us while slowly tilting their heads. And unless you're looking in a mirror, there's no way you can even see that. 

(Episode 137 - The Mudstone Abyss, Part 3)

LEONARD BURTON: Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He is a line of leafless mesquite trees. He is a glass factory. He is golf ball-sized hail. He has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes. He wears tight clothing and has never once worked with modeling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors in dark hallways.  You cannot know any of this because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real, all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist. So I can never retire. I am your permanent host.

(Episode 148 - The Broadcaster)

CECIL: I can see myself in their reflective face. I... I do not like this. I do not like this at all. Please go. Please leave. I cannot. I... I am covering this window with a sheet. I do not like this mirror. I do not like it one bit. No. 

(Episode 149 - The General)

CECIL: ... [somber] and *that* is what I saw in the mirror that day, and why I do not like to go near mirrors ever. 

(Episode 160 - The Weather)

CECIL: Do you ever stare at yourself for so long in the mirror that you no longer understand what you look like? Is this the same effect as thinking about someone you miss so much that you forget the shape of their face? Why would you do that? Why would you refuse to maintain order? Are you refusing? Or are you a victim of your own mind? Do brain cells dictate souls? Is thought matter? Does thought matter? Who can say? Can the person looking back at you from the mirror tell you the answer? Just because you can see a person, does that mean that person exists?  Is it you you are looking at? Or is it someone else?

CECIL: Basically, why do I know I am me? How many times have I seen myself in the mirror? Is it bad that the answer is rarely? Shouldn’t we all be afraid of mirrors? Or is it just me? How many times, in a fit of dissociation, do we see someone else behind us? Are you, too, too afraid to turn around? Do you really want to challenge the veracity of your eyes? Do you think disbelief in death will make it disappear? Are awareness and manifestation one and the same? So, what did I see in the mirror today? Don’t we all see the same thing? Isn’t it a person who looks exactly like ourselves? And weren’t they making the same physical gestures? And behind that person, in the reflection, did you not also see, just over your shoulder, a pair of eyes? The curve of a head? And did you notice how that head was human in shape but maybe only a third the size?

CECIL: Who is behind you in the mirror? Or what is behind you? Should I speak in present or past tense? Is the face there? Or is the face gone now? Are you no longer at the mirror? Do you feel safer? Why do you assume that because you aren’t looking in the mirror right now that the tiny face and spiny digits are not still behind you?

CECIL: Are you thinking about it? Are you starting to forget exactly what it looks like? Do you want to go to the mirror again? Do you want to stare and stare at it until you can comprehend what it is?

CECIL: What if we went to the mirror together? If we don’t feel alone in our feelings, could we conquer our fears? Are we in agreement, you and I? What are you even looking at? Is your focus drifting to your shoulder? Can you not do that? Can you resist the urge? What will staring directly into your terror accomplish?

CECIL: When was the last time you saw your mother? It’s been since childhood, hasn’t it? Didn’t she warn you about mirrors? Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise? Or was that just a popular bedtime story?

CECIL: What did your mother tell you about swing sets? What did she say to you when you yelled to her for help? Did she lean over your sobbing face and ask you: “Why are you crying when you don’t even exist?” Did she tell you again about the mirror?

CECIL: Did you figure it out? Could you see past your own mental inventions? Who out there looked beyond the long, gape-jawed figure and its inexplicable whines? Did you see the table? There in the mirror image of your house, did you see the table? You hadn’t noticed the table before, had you?

CECIL: Why was the table only in the mirror? Why isn’t it real?

CECIL: What’s inside the drawer of the rickety table in the mirror? What other uncanny discoveries await you if you could just break through? Is it as simple as breaking through?

CECIL: Do you want to know what’s in the drawer below the table? Shouldn’t it be as easy to obtain as a lightweight, wool button up coat, all black? But nothing easy ever is, is it? How do you get to a table that’s right in front of you, but only visible in a mirror?

CECIL: Are you only concentrating on the table now? And you’re sure it only exists in the mirror? You double checked? Do you want to know what’s inside the drawer on the front of that table? Are you willing to break something? Are you willing to break the mirror, yes, but so much more? Are you willing to go to a place from which you cannot return? Are you willing to learn things you cannot unlearn? Do you have a hammer? Or if not, can you find something heavy that you can lift? Will you smash the mirror? Will you do it quickly? Why are you hesitating? Have you let your comfortability lapse into carelessness? Why did you take your eyes off the creature on your neck? Did you see the blood or feel the pain first? Is it tearing into your flesh? Is that why you’re screaming? Can you still break the mirror? Are you losing consciousness? Are you? Are you? Are you?

CECIL: If you look into the mirror you just smashed do you see that the creature is gone? Cool, right? But isn’t it strange that all about you on the floor are shards of the mirror you shattered, yet in front of you, the mirror remains, fully intact? Strange? Or scary? Wouldn’t you think that the mirror being simultaneously broken and unbroken is strange, while the fact that you have no reflection is scary? Is that true though? Do you have a reflection? Do you see yourself? On the floor of the mirror’s world? Is your body crumpled on the floor like a wet towel? Is your lower jaw hanging open because you died screaming, or because of gravity? Do you have a blanket of some sort? Why don’t you cover that mirror up? Why don’t you cover all the mirrors, in fact? While you are walking about your home, do you notice the antique table by the door, with its tarnished, yet ornate, brass bulb knob? Was that table always there? Did you enter the mirror world? Or were you always in the mirror world? What else is different around you?

CECIL: Now what? Will you cover the mirrors and sweep the floor and pretend it never happened? Will this prevent it from happening again? Are awareness and manifestation one and the same?

(Episode 171 - Go to the Mirror?)

CECIL: Whatever the Distant Prince keeps behind the Narrow Place has left me hollow and shambling. Less and less of me. This time quite literally. When I looked again, I did not have a nose. It is quite upsetting to see your own face but without a nose. Think about this now. Think about looking in the mirror and seeing your face, but the nose is gone. So you will understand why I vomited in the street. And this other me, he vomited too, for exactly the same amount of time, stopping precisely when I did.

(Episode 209 - The Black Coat)

FACELESS OLD WOMAN: I am less good at being seen, but I am working on that using a system of whistles and mirrors. CECIL: Huh. Mirrors.

("The Librarian")

EARL HARLAN: Oh yes! Yes, I will wake up that morning, and I will stare at myself in the mirror repeating, “You can do this, Earl. You can do this, Earl. You can do this, Earl.” Until my reflection says, “You’re right.” And then we’ll brush each others’ teeth, and trim each others’ mustaches, and comb each others’ hair… CECIL: Awwww! EARL HARLAN: …and then step through the mirror and once again switch places in each others’ mirrored world for the day.

("The Investigators")

JEFFREY: Yeah, yeah. Yeah turns out most people are afraid of what they are, so now I’m also terrified of mirrors and reflective surfaces, so…

("ALL HAIL")

[annabelle--cane]

I haven't been paying exacting attention but I think that's the first swear, congratulations night vale for finally inventing curse words

[bugtransport]

love how much the wtnv people like doomtree? they put dessa on the weather for ep 122 and i was like hold the fucking phone i know this voice didn't they already do doomtree but no... it was her solo work....... did they put any of the other members on there i'm not going to look it up and spoil myself but i AM CURIOUS

[wt-nv-quotes]

I posted 1,654 times in 2022

That's 302 more posts than 2021!

1,511 posts created (91%)

143 posts reblogged (9%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bulkhummus

@ci-ah

@burnpyygmalion

@tefmiles

@spooksier

I tagged 1,652 of my posts in 2022

#0 - 308 posts

#1 - 298 posts

#2 - 262 posts

#3 - 255 posts

#4 - 246 posts

#5 - 122 posts

#wtnv - 1,508 posts

#welcome to night vale - 1,508 posts

#fanart friday - 139 posts

#weather - 121 posts

Longest Tag: 121 characters

#okay so they didn't even put a quip about not having a weather in the description so you all get a credit crawl. congrats

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Here is an incomplete visual description of things that have no shape:

One: Death is bottomless pool of clear water.

Two: Wind is a question mark.

Three: Morality is a Thermos.

Four: Love is an overfull shopping bag with a broken handle.

Five: Fear is a cinder block tower with a single door and no windows.

255 notes - Posted March 14, 2022

#4

Girl, did you fall from heaven? 'Cause there's a giant crater where you landed and radiation levels are spiking.

275 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

#3

I need to explain something to you. You tip 20%. You can afford it. Stop using it as a measure of how much you approve of your restaurant service. A 20% tip is not a bonus, it is a fee. Restaurant owners don't pay their staffs. Instead they make the diners pay their employees through this idiotic notion of capitalistic meritocracy. I don't care how bad the service. Tip them.

367 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

#2

My love is not romantic, nor maternal. It’s not platonic either. I love you the way a deer loves a cornfield. It is safe. It is nourishing. It is in its DNA to want to be there.

408 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Be the annoying goose you want to see in the world.

516 notes - Posted April 10, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || December 30 || Read In December:

122. Yarrow: A New Tale of Enchantment & Wonder by Charles de Lint  ★★★ 123.  As She Preserved Them by Emily Dickinson ★★★★★ 124. The Trees of the Dancing Goats by  Patricia Polacco  ★★★ 125. The Ninth Night of Hanukkah by Erica S. Pearlz 126. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by W.S. Merwin ★★★★ 127. The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern ★★★★★ 128. WTNV: Who’s a Good Boy? by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor ★★★★

[mingus-archives]

I posted 10,979 times in 2022

That's 9,288 more posts than 2021!

11 posts created (0%)

10,968 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spooksier

@bulkhummus

@written-in-starlight

@coffee-and-manslaughter

@revanchxst

I tagged 7,107 of my posts in 2022

Only 35% of my posts had no tags

#adrian - 4,857 posts

#tma - 874 posts

#giglia - 399 posts

#wtnv - 198 posts

#puppet history - 172 posts

#the sandman - 122 posts

#reference - 115 posts

#nope movie - 105 posts

#jom - 87 posts

#nope - 85 posts

Longest Tag: 107 characters

#a schoolgirl writing an essay while slowly being beaten over the head with a hammer and theres a time limit

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Ahhh I hope all this renewed hype toward Goncharov inspires Shane and the Watcher team to feature it in an ep of puppet history! Can you imagine the Professor explaining the behind the scenes affair, the unsolved death of the assistant director? Picture cut-outs of Andrey and Goncharov making out like the oars? A song performed by Katya’s fur coat? I mean come on the ep writes itself.

46 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#4

Even More Nope (2022) Thoughts

The specificity of the vortex. In the desert, in the plains, the vortex is a singular tragedy. Floods, storms, fires, they hit everything. They touch everyone. But a tornado is specific. A tornado can take down a single house, a single horse, a single person. One building can be brought to its foundations and its neighbor left with just a broken window. And in the same way, a tornado can spare a single man.

Jean Jacket’s mouth is not a tractor beam. It’s a vortex. It’s a tornado. It’s choice of victim is specific. When JJ eats the TMZ reporter OJ makes it out unscathed, despite the fact that the two were mere feet apart. And that’s what makes it horrible.

But what makes it worse, you can see a tornado coming from miles away.

Gordy was a time bomb, an amalgamation of instincts placed into a setting made only to exacerbate them. In retrospect, it seems so obvious. Of course a chimpanzee, a species prone to violence, known to have man-killing strength, would cause a tragedy. But when Gordy does, all you can do is watch. All you can do is see the devastation approach and hope you’re not in its way. This is Jupe, caught in the wake of a tornado, in a singular act of havoc.

Em and potentially OJ’s survival can be attributed to their bond, their knowledge and expertise handling animals. But along with that is the tragedy, especially given that OJ may not have actually made it, that their survival was a stroke of luck. After all, when a tornado builds, there is no path or mercy, no story to tell, no motive. There is just those who survived and those who didn’t.

121 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

#3

More Nope (2022) Thoughts

Nope is about the uncontrolled. The idea that you can conquer it, the reality of circumstance.

A balloon pops. A chimpanzee is riled into violence. Jupe survives the chimpanzee’s attack. A shoe sits on its heel.  These are all by chance, a random collection of events, the creation of trauma. The media fanatacizes it, obsesses over it, feeds on it. Makes it so Jupe can’t escape it. Years later, Jupe cannot escape it, lives in that single trauma. But by profiting off of it, by telling the story, he thinks he controls what happened to him. What the world did to him and that moment. He thinks he’s conquered the chaos.

He treats Jean Jacket the same. This creature comes to his ranch, by chance, and this time Jupe tries to own the narrative immediately. He thinks if he gives the voyeur the horses, attention, care, he has bonded with it. He has gained its favor. He can make it his. But the same chaos that let him survive lets him die this time. And in that last moment he stares at the beast and he is bewildered. He doesn’t understand why that happened to him, why that chimpanzee went wild. And he doesn’t understand why Jean Jacket eats him now. He is in the eye of the storm, wondering why it would rain.

375 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

#2

One More Nope (2022) Thought

The almost fist bump between Ricky and Gordy as subversion of ET, as inverse of an act of healing. Gordy reaches under the table, eyes obscured from Ricky, hand sticky with blood from the person he’s brutally beaten. Ricky, confused and terrified, reaches out to meet Gordy as if to perform a fist bump, an act the two had likely done many times during production of the sitcom. It’s an act of connection, Ricky desperately reaching out in hopes to calm the well-behaved chimp with whom he’d thought he’d bonded.

The scene horrifyingly echoes the iconic moment of connection in ET where ET touches Elliot and heals him. In Nope, this moment of touch is the opposite, leading to Gordy freezing long enough to be shot and killed and leading to the lifelong trauma or Ricky being witness to this violence. More than that, it shows how naive Ricky’s hope for connection is, the idea that this bloodied chimpanzee can be mollified with a gesture. How naive Ricky is for even thinking he understands Gordy at all. This is made even clearer by the fact that Gordy was not Gordy; he was a nameless chimpanzee, one of many used to play the role. Ricky is bonded with the idea of Gordy, but in reality he is just mimicking at friendship with a whole slew of chimpanzees it’s unclear if he can even tell apart.

In ET, the touch between ET and Elliot is a moment of humanity. Nope shows us how foolish that idea is in practice, and how dangerous it can be to superimpose human behaviors onto creatures we can never fully understand. Is Gordy actually connecting with Ricky? Is he reaching under to try to grab and beat him? Is there any motive to Gordy’s movement? There is no answer, and there will never be. Just like Ricky, we can’t see into the chimpanzee who played Gordy’s mind.

See the full post

949 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Another Nope (2022) Thought

What does it mean to be consumed? I am thinking of the moment after Jupe and the tourists are swept into the maw of Jean Jacket. When they are screaming, confused, trapped. As Jean Jacket hovers over the Haywood house, someone shouts and begs to be let out. Of what? Do they know that they are in Jean Jacket, the beast? That they are being digested? When Jean Jacket silences them, do they understand finally? There is something so horrifying, so visceral, about being in the maws of something and not even knowing it. Having your fate known by everyone but you.

And then I am thinking of the Haywood ranch. Of OJ and the horses, him slowly selling them away to Jupe, and thinking he can just buy them back. But the horses are already gone; Jean Jacket eats every single one of them. Jupe knows this, but lets OJ make his plan. He doesn’t tell OJ that his ranch is half-eaten, bleeding out in front of him. That he and Jean Jacket have been chewing on the Haywoods the whole time.

I am thinking about that horror, of being someone else’s meal, profit, plan, and of not knowing.

1,532 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[eightfourone]

2023 Tumblr Top 10

1. 39,201 notes - Jun 7 2023

I found out that Diners were originally inspired by train Dining Cars. some of the oldest ones were actually just old dining...

2. 1,413 notes - Jan 29 2023

"remember your roots" is a vague enough setence I could see it being used in an episode of WTNV to some creepy effect

3. 347 notes - Mar 6 2023

I don't think posting about politics on the internet is praxis tbh. Barely even theory

4. 260 notes - May 29 2023

come with me, experience the epic highs and lows of ice hockey. don't worry, we can hold hands during the fights

5. 174 notes - Jan 22 2023

*sees taylor swift poll* *blocks them* :)

6. 133 notes - Jul 10 2023

7. 122 notes - Jan 19 2023

now we need to redo the sexyman bracket with only the most widely accepted sexymen and ON [tumblr] the original bracket is...

8. 100 notes - Nov 10 2023

Who has suffered more?

Connor McDavid (87.7%) Jesus (12.3)

9. 76 notes - Nov 20 2023

yes I'm a famous author, I've had my writing cited on a wikipedia page

10. 64 notes - Sep 29 2023

You thought we were staying in to watch Bluey? The cartoon dog show? I said Buoy. I got us tickets for Climate Pledge Arena....

Created by TumblrTop10

[trainchomp]

picking up wtnv where I left off (middle of ep 122, A Story of Love and Horror pt. 2) and hoping I figure out what's going on

[thenightvaleradiostation]

I posted 135 times in 2022

That's 135 more posts than 2021!

122 posts created (90%)

13 posts reblogged (10%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@starlitink

@the-crypid-magpie

@carlyraejepsans

@ariadsishereagain

@snakesrattlebecausetheyrescared

I tagged 133 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#ask night vale - 108 posts

#welcome to night vale - 102 posts

#wtnv - 96 posts

#wtnv cecil - 59 posts

#cecil gershwin palmer - 57 posts

#cecil welcome to night vale - 57 posts

#ask cecil wtnv - 50 posts

#wtnv carlos - 46 posts

#carlos welcome to night vale - 46 posts

#carlos the scientist - 44 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#i should probably specify when i'm using my 'intern' persona vs when i'm speaking as the admin

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay so is Carlos, like supernaturally attractive to everyone or is Cecil just a simp?

He's just a simp. I mean, yeah, he's good-looking, but I didn't immediately want to fuck him the minute I saw him. (Looking at you, Cecil.) Then again, I'm mostly into girls, so take my word with a grain of salt.

XOX Aster (he/they)

****

I am not a simp. Intern Aster is just rude.

- Cecil G. Palmer

Today's weather: Never Been In Love by Will Jay

56 notes - Posted April 19, 2022

#4

I found Hiram McDaniels at the local game shop!

62 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

#3

Alright everyone, who would win in a fight, Cecil or Kevin?

Okay, this is actually a really interesting question. So for the purposes of this hypothetical scenario, let's say that both Cecil and Kevin have the same powers - shapeshifting, and they are able to see multiple locations at the same time. (Please note that they are not able to see the future.) They are both at full strength, and they are completely unarmed, without any weapons other than their powers. Now, Kevin is more likely to fight dirty, possibly using weapons other than his powers, while Cecil is less likely to cheat. However, if this fight was for a specific reason - let's say, if Cecil had to fight Kevin in order to protect or save me and Esteban from something, then Cecil would have the advantage, because he has an end goal in mind. He wouldn't be fighting purely for the fun of it like Kevin would, he would be fighting to protect his family.

- Carlos

****

That was a lot of words for "Cecil would totally kick Kevin's sorry ass".

XOX Aster (he/they)

Today's weather: Would You Be So Kind by dodie

73 notes - Posted April 21, 2022

#2

What's everyone's favorite thing Cecil's said on the radio?

"Believe in yourself. You are an ancient, absent god, discussed only rarely by literary scholars. So if you don't believe, no one will."

XOX Aster (he/they)

****

"Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?"

- Carlos

****

"A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A basilisk."

- Kevin :)

****

Esteban would like to inform everyone that his favorite thing his dad has said on the radio is the intro to the weather, because he likes to dance to the weather.

- Carlos

104 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Check it out! We got approved by the city council!

XOX Aster (he/they)

221 notes - Posted September 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[calily]

Frances did her best to pretend that she had imagined what she had seen that night in the house of Nazr al-Mujaheed. When Barks Ennui, the cartoon spokesdog for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, had come out of the television and told her that she does not belong, and that they were both doomed. This obviously wasn’t an easy thing to forget, but people forget difficult things every day. We are all of us carrying around difficult things like cannon balls rolling, unstable in our heads, occasionally throwing us off balance when they shift too much to one side. But mostly, just slowing us down while we pretend nothing is wrong.

Welcome to Night Vale, episode 122 - A Story of Love and Horror, part 2: “Spire”

[spirallingshape]

The year 2052: The scion of the Dark Order will descend, realize he mistimed the prophecy, and re-ascend. The Seventh Siege of the Great Night Vale Temple will rage on. The plague of buzzing boils will kill thousands, and annoy thousands more, with its buzzing. The City Council will reveal its true form and eat half of Night Vale’s population. Approval ratings for the mayor will hover in the low 40s…which will be surprising, as there will have been no mayor for over thirty years.

Episode 7, “History Week”

[cecilspeaks]

122 - A Story of Love and Horror, part 2: “Spire”

Do you hear that sweet melody? That sweet melody on the breeze? No one else hears that sweet melody, That sweet melody on the breeze.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Frances did her best to pretend that she had imagined what she had seen that night in the house of Nazr al-Mujaheed. When Barks Ennui, the cartoon spokesdog for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, had come out of the television and told her that she does not belong, and that they were both doomed. This obviously wasn’t an easy thing to forget, but people forget difficult things every day. We are all of us carrying around difficult things like cannon balls rolling, unstable in our heads, occasionally throwing us off balance when they shift too much to one side. But mostly, just slowing us down while we pretend nothing is wrong.

She and Nazr continued to see each other. He let people know at school, and the faculty and administration were happy for him. Everyone felt that he was always too consumed by high school football. Especially Principal Fryman, who grumbled to himself that the team didn’t even have a good record to show for all of that obsession.

Nazr took Frances to a faculty after school drinks meet-up, the first one he had ever gone to, because he always spent his evenings prepping for that week’s practice, studying game film, drawing up defensive schemes, and slithering around his living room on his belly while hissing like a snake.

Frances, in turn, took him to her monthly book club meet-up. This month’s book had been Irvine Welsh’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, the controversial follow-up to his classic novel “Trainspotting”. Everyone agreed that it wasn’t nearly as good as the original, since it only shared a couple of the main characters. They also agreed that Frances’ relationship was having a real effect on her. “You hardly seem like the same person,” said Jeremy, who had liked Frances before and was jealous that she might change and grow as a person, outside of his influence. Jeremy was, all in all, being a real shit.

Everyone else agreed that she seemed to be happier and more open to the world than before she had started dating. Frances quietly wondered if changing so quickly, just because you were eating meals with and sometimes sleeping with someone, was a good or bad or neutral thing. She thought that change was hardly ever neutral.

Through all of this, she pretended that Barks Ennui, the cartoon dog, did not appear to her most evenings in her home. But he did. He would crawl out of her television, even if she was watching a channel his commercials didn’t play on, or even if the television was off. The proportions of his body, lovably clumsy interview wo dimensions, seemed a horrifying mistake of nature in three dimensions. And his features were warped and blurred, as though seen through static.

“You don’t belong together,” Barks Ennui said in a goofy cartoon voice that occasionally veered dizzyingly into other pitches. Sometimes a child’s giggle, or a bassy growl for a few seconds before sliding back to the middle. She would hide under her covers, and she would hear from within the hot dark of her blanket, his familiar cartoon voice say: “There is a price that must be payed!” And she would scream and scream and then realize she was alone. And then she would choose to pretend that none of this had happened.

Nazr did not see Barks Ennui. But he was not without his own troubles. He would find, some evenings, that when he looked in the mirror, there were two of him. One of him sitting behind the other. He would stand and the second reflection would stand too. It would follow all of his movements from behind is primary reflection. This went on for days. Then one night, he looked in the mirror and there was only one of him. He sighed, feeling some relief to the tension that had been with him so long as to become his new normal. And that is when, in the mirror, his second reflection into the room, followed by Frances Donaldson.

Nazr whirled. The room he was in was empty. He looked back in the mirror. There was his own face, terrified, and behind that on the bed, there was himself again with Frances. The two of them were kissing passionately. He watched himself kiss, and then his reflection and the Frances in the mirror stopped watching and looked up at him with startled faces. They stayed frozen that way, and he stayed frozen too. After several moments, the mirror couple smiled. Their smiles got wider and wider, and then they were both dead, blood covered and sprawling at irregular angles. And then – they were alive again and smiling at him.

He shouted and stumbled back form the mirror. From them on, he too to covering his mirrors, and that worked for a few days. But then one day, he came home to find himself in his bedroom, already sitting in front of the covered bedroom mirror. The him that was in his bedroom looked up at him who had just entered, with wide eyes and a yawning mouth and Nazr, who believed himself to be the real Nazr, turned and walked out of his house. He checked into a motel and decided to stay there for a while.

Finally the strain broke on Nazr and Frances. At Applebee’s over lunch, she started crying, and he was so surprised that he started crying. And they were crying at each other and didn’t know why the other was crying. And she said, “This is going to sound crazy”, and he said, “You’re not going to believe me.” And then they told each other, and it didn’t sound crazy, and she believed him.

“What does it mean?” she said. “Why are we being punished just because we’re finally seeing someone?” “That’s a good question,” said Barks Ennui. He was sitting in the booth next to them. They both yelled in surprise, and the other people in the restaurant looked over with a mix of confusion and annoyance. None of them could see Barks, and so they assumed the couple must have accidentally ordered the electrolysis nachos appetizer.

“Who are you?” asked Nazr. “Me?” said Barks, his animation dog face stretching and compressing in mesmerizingly horrifying ways. “I’m a construct!” he said, “in order to allow communication”. “Communication with who?” said Frances. “I represent the Brown Stone Spire,” said Barks. The Brown Stone Spire was a strange monument at the edge of town. It offered great gifts in exchange for even greater sacrifices. It was extremely dangerous, and neither of them had ever heard of it trying to communicate with anyone. Barks continued: “Everything’s gone strange since you started dating. You know what I’m talking about?” “Maybe,” Nazr said, thinking of the mirrors in his home. “Maybe?” repeated Barks mildly. “Maybe it will get even stranger. Maybe your conditions will continue to deteriorate.” “What do you mean deteriorate?” she said. “We’re two people dating, what’s wrong with that?” “This town is a point where many universes meet,” said Barks. He was on the other side of the table, next to Frances now. “Recently those universes collapse into each other. When the mess was finally sorted out, not everyone ended up in the right universe.” “It’s me,” said Nazr, “That explains it. The other me in my house, plus my tongue is like two feet long and that doesn’t seem right. I don’t belong in this universe.” “No,” said Barks. “It’s Frances. She doesn’t belong here. Frances, you switched places during the collapse with the Frances of this world, and you are coming into contact with a person from a different universe, which has an exceptionally detrimental effect on reality. I believe,” he said to Nazr, “you were saying something about reflections in your house?”

And now, a look at traffic.

The cosmology of the universe is thus. First, there is the sphere. The indications of the sphere are warmth and bristle. The colors of the sphere are blue and yellow. Then, there is the cube. The indications of the cube are touch and lift. The colors of the cube are red and white. Then, there is the expansive plane. The indications of the expansive plane are speed and shadow. The colors of the expansive plane are myriad. And finally, there is the outward fade. The indications of the outward fade are a ringing bell and a rush of water. The colors of the outward fade are none. This has been traffic.

And now a word from our sponsors. Mute children perched atop strange formations on desert plateaus. Our eyes gaze toward a horizon that will never change. There is no movement here, no sun, but there is light. No darkness, but there is night. We do not need to eat, but we are hungry. We have no way to drink, but we are thirsty. We have nothing to sell you. Remember us. This has been a word from our sponsors.

Frances couldn’t believe it. or she could, but she resolutely chose not to. Nazr thought again and again of the other him and the other her, lying dead on his bed and then smiling. And then dead again. It was true that something was horribly wrong. Perhaps they didn’t belong together. Perhaps they didn’t belong together so much that the universe itself was collapsing around the relationship.

It wasn’t fair. Didn’t both of them deserve happiness?

Cecil here. I’ll go ahead and answer that. They did! But what a person receives and what they deserve is only ever tangentially and coincidentally related.

They decided they should go to the Brown Stone Spire. It had offered to help them. They should at least hear out what it was asking for in return.

Nazr drove them. Cars stop working within a few hundred feet of the spire, as the spire prefers humans to approach on foot. Actually, it prefers humans to approach on their bellies, but it takes humble walking as a compromise. The closest parking lot is the Radio Shack, but of course that one is always full of customers, and so they parked at the Wendy’s and walked.

Her foot started bothering her, but she didn’t know if it was actually bothering her or if she was just afraid of what the Brown Stone Spire would say.

The Brown Stone Spire hummed. They fell to their knees before it. “Help us!” said Nazr. “We just want to be together,” Frances said. “I don’t know if we belong together, but we make each other happy. Isn’t that something worthwhile? Don’t we get at least that?” The Brown Stone Spire heard. It hummed. It already knew the problem and it already knew the solution. And it already knew the price. It told these humans all three by implanting the thoughts directly in their brains.

Frances threw up. Nazr wept. There was a solution, but the price was unthinkable. It was impossible, it was inhuman. Of course, the Spire isn’t human nor possible nor even thinkable.

They walked back to the car in silence. And now, The weather.

[“Fire Drills” by Dessa]

That evening, they sat in Frances Donaldson’s living room and thought about what to do. “Impossible,” she said. “Unthinkable,” he said. “Then we agree?” she said. “Of course we agree,” he said. “What else is there?” he said. “We’re not monsters,” he said. “Right,” she said. “I want to show you something,” said Barks Ennui. He was on the TV screen so close that whatever backdrop was invisible, just his exaggerated snout and his wild eyes. “Come here!” Both of them knew for certain they would refuse, and both stepped forward obediently. “In here!” said Barks. “Into the TV!” Frances put her hand on the screen and felt nothing. It was a hollow frame. She put her hand through the frame. Her hand felt like her hand, no different than it had a moment before. She leaned down and put her torso in, and she felt a pull, like gravity. And she fell downwards through the TV screen.

She was in her living room again. It looked very much like her living room, although a few details were different. The framed poster from the International Musée (du Chats) [0:19:33] in Paris was now from the Museo Internacional (de los Gatos) in Mexico City. The taxidermy deer foot penholder on the mantle was now a taxidermy boar’s foot penholder.

Nazr tumbled in next to her. “Oh, cool penholder,” he said. Frances took his hand and helped him up. They looked around, and then out the front window. Frances was outside working in a garden. A different Frances, in the garden being watched by the first Frances in the living room. “The Frances from your universe, Nazr,” said Barks. His three-dimensional form was enormous this time, taking up the living room from floor to ceiling, although he displaced nothing in it, and Frances and Nazr had plenty of room to stand. “She ended up in this universe and the Frances from this universe, that’s you Frances, ended up in hers, a silly mix-up. But these things do need to be set right, or else both of you will slip further and further into the gap between universes, until neither of you exist anymore!”

Frances couldn’t take her eyes off herself in the garden. “Try to stay together,” said Barks, “and you both will cease to exist!” The Frances in the garden waved to Jackie Fierro, who was biking past. A car drove by. In it was Dana Cardinal and her brother. They waved, too. “Enough!” said Barks, grabbing them and pulling them upward. They were all back in the couch in Frances’ living room, or the living room she had thought was hers. There was only one Frances here. “You know the price,” said Barks. He crawled backwards into the TV, staring intently with his droopy animated eyes. “There are only two ways forward. The first is that this Frances returns to her correct universe, and you two never see each other again. The other would allow the two of you to live as long and as happy as anyone can together. It would be simple, but in order for that to happen, the Spire will destroy the other universe and every person who lives within it. That Frances and every other person in that world will cease to exist, but then you would be able to flourish in this universe.”

He was fully back onto the screen, a two-dimensional cartoon dog in a none yellow cartoon backdrop. But his eyes were still huge, like they were inches away. “You don’t have long to decide!” He gave a silly laugh, the kind he did at the end of his appearance on children’s shows. The laugh that made children laugh back at how silly it was. But this silly laugh did not end. For several minutes, Nazr and Frances stared at him, and he looked back, laughing.

Stay tuned next for decision to be made.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: I’m going to give you a piece of my mind. It’s in this clay jar. Please keep it in a cool, dark place and away from cats.

[desert-bluffs-and-me]

With smiles like that, was Nazr seeing a version of his Desert Bluffs self? Or are there more universes where smiles are horrifying? I sincerely hope they’ll do the right thing and just split up...it’s sad but one relationship is not worth thousands of lives and they seem to know that and yet they hesitate...

[wt-nv-quotes]

We are all of us carrying around difficult things like cannon balls rolling, unstable, in our heads, occasionally throwing us off balance when they shift too much to one side, but mostly just slowing us down while we pretend nothing is wrong.

[what-strange--options]

Somehow, i constantly underestimate Welcome to Night Vale’s ability to give me goosebumbs.

And here we are again. Shivery cold goosebumps.

Well played, old friend. Well played.