airport thought

[spatz]

At some point soon I'm going to write up my lovely week in Chicago - junebug_waltz, Improv Shakespeare, Vividcon, lovely fannish people, and lots of good food and heavy drinking - but I'm listening to Welcome to Night Vale at the airport and just realized that the passing reference to Earl Harlan the Scoutmaster having a past relationship with Cecil is such a fantastic stealthy dig at the Boyscouts of America's homophobic policies that I can't even.

Also, I came to the realization that I wouldn't love Welcome to Night Vale as much without the fandom. Since the radio show format is so disjointed and sometimes deeply surreal, having fandom to dig into the worldbuilding and give depth to the episodic characters is satisfying a lot of narrative needs that the show isn't. Stories like How I Survived My Summer Vacation, which is both the saga of Tamika Flynn and breathtaking ode to reading, Not Even A Week, which explains what happened to the other scientists, and The Rat and the Ruby Slippers, wherein Carlos gets kidnapped by Desert Bluffs (amnesia = always my favorite!). Then there's the ones that poke at the philosophical underpinnings of the show: jus sanguini, jus soli, about Carlos and why people come to Night Vale, or a love song for schrodinger, which might be my favorite portrayal of how science and faith can coexist that I've ever read.

(Hmmm. On reviewing my links, it seems that I --like Cecil-- really really like Carlos. Understandable, right?)

Anyway, my flight is about to board, but I'm all caught up on Welcome to Night Vale now, so people should come talk to me about it!

Comments

[ignipes]

I really like Night Vale, but I have absolutely no interest in any fandom for it. What I like about it--the unconventional structure, the sketched out characters, the juxtaposition of insanely vivid language with a quicksand-like narrative, the unanswerable questions--are the things the fandom in general seems to think need to be "fixed." It doesn't need to be fixed! I love it as a piece of weird/absurdist fiction that is perfectly satisfying on its own.

[spatz]

are the things the fandom in general seems to think need to be "fixed."

I hadn't gotten that impression, personally, though I do think fandom likes to impose traditional romance narratives and character development onto things in general, and that's definitely happening, if that's what you meant? I think one of the reasons I'm craving fic and art for myself is that I'm very visual, and something about the audio format by itself struggles to click into place in my head. Having the art and stories helps me when I'm listening to contextualize it more firmly, in some weird way.

Also, I'm fandom-anthropologically fascinated in how people are mixing up podcasts and script formats and art in the fanworks for the show, and how differently everyone seems to approach the canon. Fandom tends to do things and react in the same ways, often, so I find it refreshing. But that's a whole other thing!

As a random bonus, Lindsey gets totally creeped out when I start talking in Cecil-voice about things. \o/!

[ignipes]

That makes sense, I guess. I mean, I don't *really* get it, because I am such a non-visual person you might as well be describing how you translate Martian, but I understand it intellectually. :) I don't really care about fanart even in visual media, because it never adds anything for me, and this is no exception. I think the language is so vivid already, it's hard for me to imagine not being able to supply the images and the context on my own. Everybody else only gets it wrong anyway.

[spatz]

I am such a non-visual person you might as well be describing how you translate Martian

Okay, now I kinda want the story where the Martian diplomatic interpreter tries to explain her job to someone at a dinner party. :D