on Night Valing

[xparrot]

The weirdest thing about this video of Cecil Baldwin (the VA) talking about how he first envisioned Carlos is that Cecil Baldwin apparently does sound almost exactly like Cecil the Voice of Night Vale - at least Cecil in his more chipper off-the-cuff swooning-about-Carlos moments. I've been wondering whether NV-Cecil was his real voice or not...apparently yeah?

I've devoured a bunch of NV fic of late - it's a fascinating fandom to read in; it's got some of the most widely-accepted fanon, and paradoxically the most contradictory fanon, of any fandom I've ever been in. Not the least of which because a lot of authors seems to have multiple competing headcanons and happily write any of them. I admit to being jarred whenever any story attempts to assign distinct physical attributes to Cecil (hair/eye/skin color, or the tattoos - where did the tattoos come from?) OTOH, with my happy-ending tendencies I prefer fic that is lighter in tone than the canon itself feels to me, so I can hardly cast stones...

And Night Vale has bumped me out of my writing rut (thank gods and little fishes, this was too long a dry spell; it feels so good to have characters talking in my head again. Even these freakishly weird characters...) And now I'm writing crack that is turning out much longer than it should be. Completely unsuitable crossover crack, since gnine & I have also lately been rewatching an old favorite and decided it would make perfect sense if Carlos was formerly a scientist on Atlantis...lalala I don't care if our sense actually makes none at all, I'm enjoying myself...!

Comments

[kimberlyfdr.livejournal.com]

I was surprised when I saw Cecil a few weeks ago, too, how he's not really playing a character, but more a version of himself. As he mentioned, it's easier to remember the truth, so he just plays himself :D So much love for him and the entire Night Vale team.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Waaaaaah it's so awesome that you saw it live! I'd have loved to go to one of those shows...will have to keep an eye out, next time they're touring. It would be so neat to see them in person (even if a little weird, since Cecil Baldwin's face is not the face of the Voice of Night Vale!)

[sholio]

I'm so glad you're out of your fic rut - yay for writing! \o/

I feel kind of bad that this is yet another thing my flist is into that just doesn't seem to be hooking me in a fannish way. I agree about the awesomeness of canon, though! :D (Although I have enough exposure to the fandom to be aware that, wow, the fanon is bizarrely well-established considering its complete lack of basis in canon ...!)

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yes - I've written 9K in the last 48 hours and it feels so good! \o/ I was hitting that point that you don't remember how to write, that you start doubting you have any words left that deserve to be recorded...so yeah, this is great :D

I'd honestly have been really surprised if you got into WtNV as a fandom - it's only really got one major char relationship and that's romantic; not your kind of thing at all. But you've enjoyed the podcast itself, it sounds like? :D It really is a ton of fun. I wasn't expecting it to hit me fannishly at all, tbh - we first listened to it a couple months ago and I enjoyed it, but I didn't really want to write or read fic about it. And then Carlos started talking to me, and in a writing rut as I was I wasn't going to say no, so...

(I've mostly been off Tumblr since before the NV craze hit, so when I was listening I had no fanon exposure at all; it's weird to be getting into it now, because so much of it is incongruous with my own take. Though very entertaining, and there are a few concepts/interpretations that I didn't think of that I find really cool...)

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

After me stalking the Twitter account for Night Vale, I take a 48 hour break and of course that's when I miss the tickets for a show in NY. Of course.

Anyway, I'm pleased that the fandom for NV has seeped over into my flist. I'm even more pleased that you are writing fic for it as your first foray was brilliant.

I don't have that strong of an image of Cecil, other than that he doesn't really look like Cecil Baldwin. Ironically I feel like I have stronger mental images of characters we never hear from directly, like Old Woman Josie.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, sorry about the live show! OTOH they're definitely doing more next year, it sounds like, and NY is the best place to be for it, most likely...(I was just listening today to the podcast interview with Cecil Baldwin that you linked a bit back, and he mentions how much he loves doing the live shows. It sounds like he'd happily perform for every Night Vale fan out there, if he can swing it. ...Also geeeze he is so sweet in that interview! ...and also such a totally normal guy, which is very disconcerting to hear in NV-Cecil's voice...!)

I am not a very visual person anyway - it's fairly unusual for anything not visual (e.g. writing or radio) to inspire vivid images in my head. (while I can imagine voices clearly - I often mentally cast voice actors for comics/manga.) So I don't have really clear images of anyone in NV. But of all of them, yeah, Cecil is the most uncertain; I have sort of "glimpses" of Carlos or Josie, but Cecil's a cypher (though contradictorily, since I watched Fringe, Dana looks exactly like a younger version of her VA in my head...)