#and then a second layer where people confidently walk away from intro courses with just the wrong takeaways

[randolhllee]

I know this is not unique and anyone who knows a lot about a given topic is going to feel like this but. Tumblr posts where someone says "Anyone who's taken an intro-level economics course knows *blatantly untrue statement*" are my villain origin story

[yourdeepestfathoms]

hi! i’ve just been getting into the LIWs and i kind of want to make my own content for them, but since there’s pretty much no canon and most of the fics about them are angst (that never fail to rip my soul from my body) can i please have a rundown on what you headcanon each of their personalities are like outside of angst? sorry if you’ve already been asked similar questions.

Hi there! Sure, I can give a quick rundown! I hope it helps, and I’d love to see what content you come up with!

Bessie

Okay, so Bessie is very reserved and reclusive. She’s tough, sarcastic, and blunt, and WILL point out something you’re doing wrong. She has this outer layer of sorts, which is made up of thorns and quills that she’ll stick people with if they get too close, so she tends to come off as rude and standoffish. Growling, snapping, and scratching are not above her when she’s intimidated.

However, she’s actually really soft and caring, you just need to give her time. She’s extremely protective of those she cares about and absolutely will fight someone messing with them. She’s also a complete and utter dork if you can get her out of her shell, but is embarrassed very easily and has a strong sense of shame.

Additionally, Bessie has a layer of guilt and deep sadness to her. There’s very obviously depression there and it makes her do very stupid things, but she’s secretive, so she doesn’t tell anyone about what she’s doing.

She’s guilty about what she did with Henry and how that affected Aragon, and has learned to believe that she was never the victim and wanted the treatment the entire time. The abuse she faced also causes her to have a strong repulsion towards sexual subjects, even stretching as far as her hating seeing herself naked and going on shower strikes for weeks at a time (she just washes her hair in the sink and then Febreezes herself down), and become very sensitive about the way she looks and any comments made about her body. This only fuels her self destructive tendencies to destroy herself.

Her personality and the way she acts around other people varies on who she’s interacting with. She considers Cleves her best friend and can tell her almost everyone (just not her little habits, although she does sometimes slip up and almost tell her). She and Jane are also pretty close- she enjoys shopping with her because it’s peaceful. Maria is also someone she’s close to, as Maria practically raised her up until she had to leave court. However, in this life she’s older than Maria and mothers her for a change. Then there’s Cathy, who she considers her “sisterly significant annoyance” because the queen seems fascinated in her. Kitty is a pretty difficult case. When Bessie looks at her, she seems a real victim, a helpless child who got punished for something she didn’t want- an opportunity to tell the real story. Something she didn’t get. So she tends to keep away from Kitty to avoid feeling guilty or jealous. And then there’s Aragon, who she’s probably the closest to. She has an on and off love-hate relationship with the queen (with her doing most of the hating). At first she would always refuse Aragon’s helps with anything, but slowly warms up to her and sees her as a mother figure once again, although she doesn’t ever tell her that out of embarrassment.

Also she hates her son, FitzRoy, because there’s bad memories attached to him.

Also also she hates the sound of babies crying. Because suchba hatred should be considered a personality trait.

Also also also- All You Wanna Do makes her EXTREMELY uncomfortable

Maria

To put it simply, she is the fun sister everyone wants. You know the one- the sister that gives toddlers a bottle of alcohol and laughs about it up until the toddler starts to drink it and she then screams, “NO STOP—” That kind of sister.

Maria is chaotic, but not in a gremlins sort of way. More like “plays the PornHub intro whenever someone walks through a door” sort of way. She’s very fun and sweet and loving, especially towards Maggie and Joan, who she considers as her young sister figures. She doesn’t have much of a sense of shame and will laugh about pretty much everything. She also will do something stupid to show off, like eating a bunch of pepers despite having an acid reflux (another hc i have). Additionally, she’s very nurturing and really good at comforting someone when there’s sad because she is really warm and soft. She particularly has a soft spot for Bessie.

But despite all of this, there is lingering guilt. She’s very guilty over what happened with Bessie and believed she could have stopped it or saved her from Henry’s treatment if she had just done something or tried a little bit harder. She never really forgave the king and queen for “taking Bessie away from her.”

Relationship wise, she’s closest to Aragon and Bessie. She tends to stay away from Anne, who she blames for Aragon’s divorce and death because of the divorce. Aside from that, she’s on good terms with everyone else and considers them friends.

Maggie

Maggie is a little tricky because I’ve been switching her personality around. But I’d describe her as “looks like a cinnamon roll but could kill you.”

For one, she’s very fidegety. Like, she always seems to be moving, and if she isn’t moving then she’s wringing her hands in her shirt or bouncing her leg or flexing her fingers. Second, she’s nice and sweet, but empathy is a little difficult for her, so she’s not the best at comforting people that aren’t Anne. She finds it hard to put herself in their shoes because she doesn’t want to imagine whatever they went through, so verbal comfort is not her strong point (unless, again, you’re Anne). She’s also somewhat of a kleptomaniac and will take something she likes without even realizing the other person wouldn’t like getting their things stolen.

And then there’s her trauma. Maggie has a lot of trauma regarding Anne’s death and witnessing it so close, to the point where she sometimes sees the decapitation when she closes her eyes. This causes her to be very clingy towards the queen and will hold onto her to make sure she’s real and safe. Anne will sometimes let her touch her neck just to prove it to her further.

Obviously Anne is Maggie’s best friend- these two are practically joined at the hip. However, she’s slightly jealous of Kitty when Kitty starts to get close to Anne because she believes her friend is gonna be taken away from her.

Also she doesn’t like Don’t Lose Ur Head because it brings back bad memories

Joan

Wooo boy this girl is a roller coaster from start to finish-

If I could only use three phrases to describe Joan they would be: Anxious, jealous, and people-pleaser

Let me explain

First of all, saying she’s anxious is an understatement. When something bad happens, Joan’s mind immediately goes to the worst case scenarios and she starts to prepare for her life to be ruined. Like, her messing up during a show? She expects the director to fire her after she gets offstage, which then leads to the other ladies in waiting kicking her out because she doesn’t have a job and can’t pay her share of the bills, and then she starves to death on the streets with her only form of income being her selling her blood for money to some guy in a box. It’s that bad.

She works religiously, to the point where she skips meals and sleep entirely just to make sure she’s up to date with everything. She makes her job ten times harder on herself, but she’s so in the loop with this process that she doesn’t know how to just make a normal schedule instead of tackling everything at once. This does not help that fact that she’s an insomniac and has a severe caffeine addiction.

Then there’s her being a people-pleaser. Despite her seeming to work all the time, she’s also very desperate for attention and affection from others. However, her attempt to make friends usually blow up in her face because she either comes off way too strong or is completely awkward and stutters the entire time. This, of course, worsens her RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria- another hc I have) and makes her believe she’ll never be enough and that nobody likes her. So she tries harder and does anything she can to make the others like her.

She’s very sensitive to rejection (hence the RSD) and does not take it very well. It can completely shut her down and make her give up on everything completely. She can’t fathom the fact that some people just won’t like her.

She also feels very insignificant compared to the others. Unlike them, she had nothing interesting happen in her life. She was just a maid and lady in waiting. Not a queen, not a secret mistress, not a best friend to the queen. Just a worker. So she starts to believe she doesn’t matter to them at all and they’re all just better than her.

There’s also some problems with her memories (which I hc due to the fact that there’s little to no information on her) and can’t remember much aside from her time as a lady.

And then there’s the jealousy.

Joan is EXTREMELY jealous of Kitty and how she’s a daughter figure to Jane. She doesn’t understand why Jane likes this girl she never knew in her past life more than she likes her. And it makes her very angry and upset, to the point where she sometimes snaps at people or says something she doesn’t really mean. She lets her envy get the best of her.

Relationship wise, hers are a bit shaky. Joan has a hard time making friends and tends to be rather lonely most of the time. However, she likes to think she’s close to Jane, even if Jane doesn’t pay much attention to her. She also looks up to Aragon and how confident she is. Sometimes she’ll follow Anne around, too, as she had been a maid in waiting to her.

And I think that wraps most of it up! I may have missed a few things, but that’s good for now. If you have anymore questions on these girls, feel free to ask!

[walkingshcdow-a]

Hey, sorry to bother! I wanted to ask if you had any advice on how to write angst. It's probably what I struggle most with, and I really enjoy your writing and how you write yours. Thank you!

Hi! Sorry for the delay - you’re not at all a bother! I don’t know if you saw my post when I received this, but I was waiting on a copy of one of my favorite writing advice books before answering your question because it has been my guidebook to writing angst and when I went to reference it, I realized I’d left my copy on campus or at my parents’ house. But before I get into all that, I want to thank you for reading and enjoying my angst writing! I know I haven’t messed with angst in a while (since January 2020, suspiciously…) so it will be good to refresh my memory as to what I believed does and does not make good angst. Like all my writing advice, you can take it or leave it. 

Let’s get started!

So the first thing to remember is that good angst (indeed, good writing) is rooted in character and character emotions. Secondly, all characters feel all feelings over the course of a lifetime to some degree* but that those emotions will manifest very differently in two different characters, or even in the same character under different circumstances. Some people will tell you to use an emotions wheel and be done with it. 

But that does you no good if you don’t understand the nuanced difference between “resentful” (which is under “angry” feelings) and “hurt” (which is under “sad” feelings) or don’t see how anger and sadness can overlap to create both these feelings in the character(s) you’re writing. It also doesn’t help that I can stand over here, screaming until I’m blue in the face, that my character is sad, but if my writing lacks authenticity and freshness, I’m telling the reader how my character feels, not showing them. There is, of course, a place for telling - sometimes you need a shorthand filler sentence, especially when outlining. So, what can you do?

If you go on Amazon right now, you can order a cheap, used Ann Hood’s “Creating Character Emotions”. (A new copy will run you about $24, but used copies are being sold for under $2!). I am neither Ann Hood nor a paid spokesperson for her, however, this book has been my writing bible. Full disclosure: I usually skip the first part of the book. The intro and first part are worth reading a small handful of times, but it’s when Hood gives you writing workshops on each emotion that you get your money’s worth. Each chapter in the second section of the book is divided into four parts: an introduction/reflection on the emotion being discussed, “Bad Examples” where she shows you what not to do and why, “Good Examples” from published literature that showcase the emotion and why they work, and lastly, writing exercises and objectives. I still use these exercises to this day as a crutch when I haven’t seen a character experiencing a particular type of emotion and I want to know what he or she would look like feeling a certain way. I used an exercise from the section on “Anger” to showcase my OC, Masha’s, fury at being relied on by her 4-6 siblings (have I ever specified how many she has? No…) as an extra parent and source of financial support as well as her jealousy that her youngest sister, who she regards as being selfish and immature, is having a baby before she does and that she’d kept secrets from her ten years ago and was now telling her that she hadn’t confided in Masha sooner because Masha would have been judgmental, which then fed into Masha’s anger being towards herself for having played a part in the dysfunction of their relationship. Is it my most angsty piece? No, but it was a great character dive and it allowed me to explore other feelings that nestle within “anger” (as well as “sadness”, “fear”, “badness”, and “disgust”). I’ve used these exercises this way to generate some really awesome angst in the past and I actually plan to use some of the exercises with my creative writing students in the fall.

What if you don’t want to order a book?

That’s fine! But here are some takeaways from it that have taught me to be a better writer of angst (and of many things) over the years:

Emotions are like nesting dolls - there are always more on the inside than you see on the surface. You could (though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it) have a character say, “I’m mad!” but if you opened her up, you’d see that she’s frustrated things didn’t go her way and jealous someone else was promoted instead and worried what it’ll mean for her family if she doesn’t make more money than she does now and she’s, at the heart of it, wondering if she’s even good enough. Characters, like people, aren’t always self-aware enough to pinpoint exactly what they’re feeling and why to say it out loud (or even in first-person narration) without being somewhat unreliable. You, however, are the author. You have to know as many of the layers as you can and you have to get it across to the reader without saying “Actually, she was feeling frustrated and jealous about the other person’s promotion and scared that she won’t make enough to support her family and worried that she isn’t good enough.” That’s a laundry list, not good writing. You want to instead show emotion through action and fresh language/imagery. What can your character do to show his feelings? Say you’re writing a funeral scene. A man’s wife has died and he is very sad. If you have him throw himself on the casket, weeping, you’ve shown some action, but is it the most appropriate one for that character? Or is it just another cliche? In my fic, “Kiss of Death”, Nadir Khan awakens to find Erik, who has been his best friend and almost-lover, has passed away in the night. It is only in Erik’s death that Nadir knows his kisses will not distress Erik and it is only now that they can never have the conversation of “So, what are we?” that Nadir finally knows the answer. He kisses Erik and buries him himself, saying “Au revoir, mon amour”, mimicking canon dialogue upon their last parting in Persia (“Au revoir, mon ami”) to show the change in the relationship. Nadir is a practical man, somewhat serious, but kind and loving and also religious. It wouldn’t make sense for such a man to throw himself onto Erik’s casket and weep. But it makes sense for him to conduct the funeral himself and to say bittersweet farewell - and one that indicates he believes he will see Erik again in the next life. What can your characters say or do that is unique to them? The less “emotion language” (re: “Nadir was sad. Nadir missed Erik. Nadir was angry. Nadir regretted not saying he loved Erik sooner.” Yikes. Who are you trying to convince: your reader or yourself?) the better. 

The second thing that comes to mind is often fresher and more interesting and more accurate than the first. A lot of times, we’ve been conditioned to think in cliches. And cliches make great placeholders, but when you edit, think about ways you could say it better, more specifically, and more emotionally. You want to use fresh language and imagery! Don’t be scared to let a paragraph or a story sit with you until you have the right words. Connotation is everything! You want to choose words that are appropriate to the character and their feelings, but also the feelings you want the reader to have about your writing. What emotion do you want a reader to walk away with?

Make your setting and “props” work for you. If your character has been grieving, show the state of their house. Unopened mail, empty wine bottles in the recycling, and stray tissues on the floor do more for you than “Sarah was grieving.” I did a modern AU with Nadir (always Nadir!) in which his son, as per canon, dies. The props I remember using were the stack of video games Reza had not put away before being taken to the hospital, the unanswered message machine (it was set in the early 00s), an origami swan that Erik had folded up in agitation and slipped into Nadir’s pocket to make him smile later. These all did more for me than “Nadir was sad his son died” than him thinking he wasn’t ready to put away the video games because it would be like admitting his son was gone, him not answering his siblings’ telephone calls, him not smiling at something that had never before failed to make him smile just a little. Pick props and settings specific to your character and make them count for something!

Angst writing should be done not because you are here solely to torture your readers with feels. That should be a bonus! What you should be focused on is character development and plot, like you would with any other story. The advice that Hood gives (and the advice I give, even though it’s just Hood Lite) can apply to any type of writing. The key thing is to remember who your characters are, what does the “angsty emotion” look like for them in particular, and what can you as the writer offer to the readers to make more of an impact. One thing you can always offer is upping the stakes. Sure, it’s angsty for your lovers never to get together, but it’s better if there is a good reason for it. Yes, it’s sad when a major character dies, but what did that character mean to those left alive? How does the angst move your story along (both the emotional story and the plot)? 

As with my other writing advice, I can only recommend reading and watching a lot of media and seeing how stories are handled when dealing with the emotions you want to write. What can you do to emulate your favorite writers and one-up those that ring false for you?

Happy - or angsty, I suppose! - writing! If you have any questions or want to talk about anything else, hmu!

Peace!

[wtnv-panels]

Good Morning Night Vale, episode 1: “Pilot”

Symphony Sanders: A friendly desert community where the sun is hot…

Meg Bashwiner: The moon is beautiful and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Hal Lublin: [Cecil voice] Good morning, Night Vale.

Symphony: I was like ooh, I got a little chill when you said that Hal, that was cute.

Hal: Thank you. I exist to give people chills, that’s what I’m here for. I’m a chill monster.

Symphony: You’re very talented.

Hal: Some people say I have no chill, [laughter] but I think I just proved differently.

Symphony: I think you have lots of chill.

Hal: Thank you.

Meg: All right everyone. [laughs] I think you have the most chill.

Hal: Oo!

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome to Good Morning Night Vale. A new podcast where we recap every episode of Welcome to Night Vale!

Symphony: Woo!

Meg: Woo! Everyone’s afraid to talk. [laughter] I know.

Symphony: [laughs] I think I’ll get better later but right now I’m like, do I say yes?

Meg: Welcome to the clunky intro of our brand new show. My name is Meg Bashwiner and I am the woman who talks to you at the end of every Welcome to Night Vale episode. I also play the voice Deb, sentient pyatch o’ haze, and I am the MC of the live shows, if you’ve been to one of our live shows you’ve seen me, for the most part, unless you came to the show in Birmingham in 2015 you didn’t see me, I wasn’t at that one. Other than that, that’s me. Who else is on the call with me, who else is here? Silence.

Hal: Oh I was saying ladies first, but I’ll go.

Symphony: I was waiting for you, you go.

Hal: OK. My name is Hal Lublin and I am the voice of Steve Carlsberg and I have been since… 2013. Wow. I can’t believe it’s been since 2013, my mind is ready to explode, with happiness, and I’m really excited to be a part of this and to stroll back through Night Vale with the both of you.

Symphony: And I’m Symphony Sanders and I play teen militia leader Tamika Flynn, in Welcome to the Night Vale. And I have since… I also think 2013, I’m not sure, someone would have to tell me. And I’m super excited to go through all of these episodes with you guys.

Meg: I’m also excited to go through all these episodes, it’s been fun, it’s nice to take a look back on the, oh lots and lots of episodes. By the time this airs, I think there will be like a 129, 130 episodes of Welcome to Night Vale…

Hal: Wow.

Meg: ..which is really wonderful.

Symphony: That’s a lot of episodes, Meg.

Meg: Not to mention all the live shows and uh, and yeah all the things. Yes so we’re going back, we’re gonna be talking with some people who are involved in the Welcome to Night Vale world. On this episode, we’re going to hear from the voice of Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin. We’ll chat with him about his experiences and his reactions to the pilot episode of this show, and we’ll have that for you later, which is really exciting. Yeah so we’ll be hearing from different people involved in the Night Vale world over the course of the podcast, and in this episode specifically we’ll be hearing from Cecil, and we’ll be talking about the different episodes of the show, our personal reactions to them, as well as the global reactions to them.

Hal: Can I jump in for a second and say what I love about the show that we’re doing?

Meg: Please.

Hal: Even if it’s the first episode and the first, five minutes of it.

Symphony: [laughs] Yes.

Hal: This is what’s cool about it. For all you Night Vale fans out there who have not been able to come to a Comic Con where we’ve done a panel, who have never got to see us in person or gotten to sort of learn a little bit about what’s going on behind the curtain of the show. I think it’s really cool that you get three people who have been involved in the show for a very long time, sort of walking you through it, and not only talking about what happened but giving you some insight and we’ll be answering your questions on occasion as well. So this is really for all of you out there who are fans of the show, to give you another layer of Night Vale, maybe answer some questions you had, or raise some new ones if we’re doing our job.

Symphony: Agreed. [laughter]

Hal: Was I wrong?

Symphony: Correct.

Hal: Was I bad?

Symphony: No you were correct.

Meg: No that’s really beautiful.

Hal: OK, good.

Meg: Yeah, it’s really beautiful.

Symphony: It was just such a good, you really impacted us, it was such a good description. [laughs]

Meg: Yeah. I was speechless. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this podcast takes us. So let’s get down to business, we’re doing the pilot of Welcome to Night Vale, we’re discussing that today. The plot description of which is: “A new dog park opens in Night Vale. Carlos, a scientist, visits and discovers some interesting things, seismic things. Plus a helpful guide to surveillance helicoptering.” I’m a really good reader. [laughter] So yeah.

Symphony: That’s why you do this fictional podcast.

Meg: Yeah, that’s why I do this fictional podcast. So we, to reel us in, do you want to talk about what our reactions were?

Symphony: Yeah. I mean if you really look, not even that deeply into it, a lot of the things that come up in the first episode are some of our biggest fan things, like the dog park obviously what were, or so many people are known for talking about hooded figures and the Sheriff’s Secret Police, and kind of introducing the town of Night Vale and immediately putting you in this space of, uh, distrust. [chuckles] Right? And you can’t go in the dog park, even though a new one was built, dogs aren’t allowed in there, people aren’t allowed in there. Basically don’t acknowledge it.

Meg: Yeah I was struck by that too, by how so much of the Night Vale world that we know today existed in this first episode. So we’ve got the dog park, we’ve got hooded figures, we’ve got the Sheriff’s Secret Police, we’ve got Old Woman Josie and angels and Big Rico’s Pizza and the Desert Bluffs rivalry, like there’s so, and Carlos and Cecil, like he says in this episode “I fell in love with Carlos”, Cecil says it’s. it’s just like, there’s so much of what makes Night Vale Night Vale just in this first 20 minutes.

Hal: Yeah I think the hallmark of really good storytelling is, rather than beginning at the beginning is to start in the middle, and you are dropped into the middle of what feels like a fully realized world. And it’s a testament to how it was written that all those elements of the pilot have just been built on. And even that thing that, the great humor in Night Vale for me, the thing that I enjoy the most is that contrast in the ordinary with the fantastic that’s being treated as completely mundane and, like standard. So there’s no wink to the audience, there’s no we get this is weird, it’s just this is the world you’re in, and that allows you to sort of jump into it completely. And I love that Joseph and Jeffrey joke rhythm they have where they’re like, there are no dogs allowed in the dog park. Do not look at the dog park, do not taste the dog, like that building rhythm, where they just attack a type of announcement or an angle of something over and over again and keep building on it, I really loved seeing that from the beginning. I forgot, I hadn’t listened to this in years and years and years. And it was really interesting to see how formed their voice was for this from the jump.

Meg: Yeah I hadn’t listened to this episode until like it was probably, this episode premiered June 15 2012, which is Night Vale’s birthday. Almost six years ago to the airing of this episode. That was the last time I listened to it, when Joseph was like “hi do you wanna listen to this thing I made?” And I was like sure hun, you know, what do you got? And that was the last time I listened to it, and it really is great to be able to look back at it and hear so much of their voice and also Cecil’s voice, and the development of the character of Cecil as our reliable unreliable narrator.

Hal: What did you think the first time you heard it, way back then when it was like listen to this thing I made, what was your impression of it?

Meg: I think I was initially just, it was so different than anything else I’d seen Joseph make before and also so, I’m always impressed by Cecil the actor. Cecil the person, you know I love and is a dear friend and Cecil the actor blows me away every time. No matter how many, how long I’ve worked with him and how long I’ve known him, so I was really impressed by his voice acting and how much world he was able to build just behind the microphone. The world of audio fiction was in a newer place then, so it was interesting to kind of see what one man and one microphone could build and that was really cool, I remember being like, this is cool. And you know, that was before Night Vale was a thing, so I was like this is cool, what do you want for dinner? Like [laughter], Joseph you made a nice thing, it’s great.

Symphony: Yeah along that..

Meg: I remember him sa-

Symphony: Along that line, where did you think this was going? Did you think it was gonna go anywhere, did you think it was just a fun project that he is working on? What were your initial ideas?

Meg: I remember him saying to me: “I feel like this could be thing.” Which is interesting now, cause it definitely has been a thing, but at the time it was like he never, we’d have projects that we worked on, we’d had projects that we did. And I think the confidence that he had in this project was different than what we had seen before from him. And he had definitely had successful projects before, but definitely nothing with the audience and impact that Welcome to Night Vale has had. So… yeah.

Symphony: And so past this pilot when, cause this happened in 2012 but like, when did you guys, do you remember the day that you were like oh this is, more than just a thing you do?

Meg: Yes. I don’t remember the specific day, but it was about a year later.

Symphony: Nice.

Meg: The first year of Night Vale was great, people listened to it, Joseph and Jeffrey were like, hey some of our friends have listened to this show, how great is that? I remember there was like one fan that we saw, Joseph would search Twitter to see if anyone was listening to it and we would often get people being like up all night, [vale]. [Vale] is the verb in Spanish does it mean I think it, what does [vale] mean? So we would get those tweets, we’d search for Welcome Night Vale tweets, we’d get people in Spanish saying [vale]. And then eventually we saw people talking about and there was this one fan who’s named Dana, and Dana would tweet about listening to the show with friends, and there was one tweet that was from Dana that was like “Mom, stop ftrying to bring us enchiladas, we’re listening to Welcome to Night Vale.”

Symphony: Aww!

Meg: And so we thought that was really super sweet, and so they named the character Dana after Dana the person who was tweeting at us. [chuckles]

Hal: That’s cool.

Symphony: That’s so funny. Also I love enchiladas.

Meg: Yeah. But if you’re trying to listen to Welcome to Night Vale, and your Mom was trying to bring you enchiladas, I would personally be like thanks Mom, but…

Symphony: Right, it’s like a listening snack.

Meg: No shade to Dana but [laughter]. So yeah, about a year into it it started to get some tractions. We did our first birthday party at a space in New York that had about 100 people come to it, which was awesome. So cool that we had 100 people that knew about us. And then things changed pretty rapidly. In July of 2013, we used to sell Welcome to Night Vale T-shirts on Amazon, and I think we printed like 50 of them. And once a week or so, we’d get an order for a T-shirt. Joseph would package it up and take it to the post office and send it out. And then over the course of a weekend, we got an order for 1000 T-shirts. Before Amazon shut it off, because it kind of went out of control super quick.

Symphony: It’s like too much.

Meg: It was too much, it was like there was, we didn’t have the stock for that, so we went and had more T-shirts printed…

Symphony: You broke the system.

Meg: One weekend just sitting in our studio apartment in Brooklyn, packaging T-shirts, a thousand of them. Which is a number that doesn’t really make sense until you actually sit down and do it, and it was so hot..

Symphony: That’s a lot.

Meg: I sat in the apartment and I just did it, and I think I watched like the first season of A Chef’s Life on Netflix while I did it. And I was using packaging type, touching it over and over again so I had no skin left on my finger tips at the end of it.

Symphony: It was just slowly pulling off layers of skin.

Meg: Yeah. And then I made Joseph take me out for ramen and.. [laughter] That was my payment for packaging 1000 T-shirts was my husband or my boyfriend at the time took me out for ramen.

Symphony: That’s like, in Seinfe- I probably can’t mention that. In that one show where that lady died, she was sending out her wedding invitations and she kept licking the stamps, licking the stamps and the glue was poisonous, good thing you’re still alive though.

Hal: Wait…

Meg: Yeah, I still have use of my fingers.

Hal: Why can’t we mention that show? Are we restricted from (--)?

Symphony: I mean can you?

Hal: Sure.

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: I don’t know the rules of audio recording.

Hal: I’ll tell you what.

Meg: Seinfeld! McDonald’s!

Symphony: [laughs hysterically]

Hal: I’ve been around the block and let me say something, Jerry Seinfeld. You’re welcome to come on this podcast anytime you wanna show your face.

Symphony: Yes, yes!

Hal: We’ll all get into an old car with you, you can take us out for coffee.

Symphony: Ooh, for coffee!

Hal: We can complain about comedy, it’ll be great. Making that offer right now.

Symphony: I’m very funny.

Hal: He who will not be named.

Meg: I will make sure I say nothing funny. [laughter]

Symphony: I won’t even smile the whole time.

Hal: I do love that show, but he complains all the time.

Meg: Yeah, it’s gotta be hard being him.

Hal: Yes, really difficult.

Meg: Anyway, that’s not to throw shade on Jerry.

Hal: No.

Meg: Yeah so that’s, we kind of got off on our lovely little tangent talking about the very beginning and where we are now.

Symphony: Yeah. But we can go back, look…

Meg: Let’s go back.

Symphony: That’s the great thing about a nice conversation. Let’s go back, let’s talk about the beginnings of Celios, the beginnings of Carlos and Cecil.

Meg: Yeah, the [C’s/seeds?) [0:14:11].

Symphony: Before it was Cecil, just nameless announcer, just announcer. Or narrator, right? But people I guess didn’t even, did they reference him, what did they do before he had a name?

Meg: I dunno. I dunno if anyone listened to the show, like (if we had) fanbase before the.. [laughter]

Hal: Yeah, we’re in the early early days. It struck me, was it weird for either of you now, listening to it through the lens of six years of content almost? Five and a half, wherever we’re up to as of this recording, that everything sort of takes on extra meaning? For me in particular, playing somebody who’s like not the conspiracy theorist, but the guy who seems to know the truth about what’s going on? That through that lens I was like, he’s lying, he’s a puppet. I can hear it right now, because all of that was just being established. Did either of you get that sense or am I just going in too deep?

Symphony: No I think that is like, I’m not as conspiracy theorist but I am also dazzled by magic. And there are things in the early episodes of Welcome to Night Vale that I’m like, how did they know?

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: Like how did they know? And I just love it, I like going back and listening to and I’m like oh my gosh, talking about like, seismic activity and there’s something happening in Night Vale like how he was talking about the different, how it was very interesting scientifically. Just finding out those things, you’re just like oh now I’m like, did they know from the beginning? But then now I know because they’re my friends I’m like, they didn’t know. Or maybe they did, who knows? Maybe they’re possessed.

Meg: They’re probably possessed. We’ll find out later…

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: .. in season 18 of Welcome to Night Vale, it’ll be revealed.

Hal: [chuckles] I remember talking to Joseph, and this had to be some time in I think 2013 early 2014. And I know at that point, things were still being sort of plotted out. Like hey we had some thoughts about what, and that conversation was about Steve and Cecil’s relationship and maybe Cecil’s not the most reliable narrator. So now that’s something, that sort of rung in my head and it developed over the course of a couple years, but now going back, when you go back with that knowledge of what’s to come, it colors everything that you hear. Which I think is a hallmark of how good the writing is that they were able to take it, even if that’s not something they had planned out for 2014-2015, that they got there in a way that the internal logic stays intact. As a whole.

Symphony: Yeah. That you can go back and relisten to stuff and you’re like, oh yeah there’s no gaps where you’re like oh, that was totally forgotten about. It’s not like Lost.

Hal: Yeah, you’re watching like they don’t even know, he doesn’t even know what’s gonna happen, I can’t believe I’m listening like I have more knowledge than the character does.

Symphony: Right.

Hal: And it’s you’re getting to watch them, you get to rediscover it by listening along, which I think is really really cool.

Meg: That is really cool. I hadn’t thought about that, but it is a pretty cool experience to be like uh, I’m the reliable narrator know cause I know.

Symphony: Cause you’re from the future.

Meg: I’m from the future.

Hal: Oh my goodness, we’re all time travelers! This is very exciting.

Symphony: Ah, you guys!

Meg: (You’re all) Is this the best time to time travel?

Symphony: [laughs] I feel like I’m in Quantum Leap! I’m just gonna start mentioning major television shows. [laughter]

Meg: Yes, hey I think it’s fun, they can all come for us, they can all come directly for us.

Hal: Yeah what are they gonna do, send us to Cheers? [laughter]

Symphony: The Borg gonna get us from Star Trek?

Meg: Yeah I mean we're just like Raymond, everybody loves us. [laughter]

Hal: Sesame Street. You were saying, Meg?

Meg: Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was just thinking. Alright, so yeah I think it was interesting what we were talking about for a moment, with the sparks of love between Cecil and Carlos. I think it’s interesting to, this show was not one that describes people’s physical characteristic very much, but Carlos is described right away. His teeth and hair are described, which when I wrote that down I was like, teeth and hair! [laughter]

Symphony: What wonderful notes.

Meg: What wonderful notes, yeah, and Cecil’s description “I fell in love instantly”. And so they describe his perfect hair and his teeth like a military cemetery,a nd that he is beautiful.

Symphony: Hey, you like what you like, I guess.

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: The lens of Cecil’s developed.

Hal: Yes.

Symphony: Is that how you felt about Joseph the first time you saw him?

Meg: I felt, being honest about the first time I met Joseph, I did not think that he was uh.. I thought he was gorgeous, I mean like he’s a good-looking dude.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: But we did not get along on a personal level, I think cause I didn’t quite understand who he was, and then once I got to know him I fell in love, over time slash instantly. But yeah we met in the box office of the Kraine Theater, which is, the Kraine Theater is the place I met Joseph, I met Jeffrey Cranor, and I met Cecil Baldwin. So it’s a sacred, sacred space, yeah when I met Joseph and..

Symphony: Most of the important men in your life.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: Yeah. When I, all of them except for, you know like my Dad and Hal Lublin.

Hal: Correct.

Meg: I met my Dad in the hospital when I was born. [laughter] It was a good day. Like I met my Mom and my Dad and maybe my sister all in the same day, which was pretty great.

Symphony: That’s a big day!

Hal: That’s pretty important.

Meg: Did I know at the time like how important these people would be to me? No, I was an infant, I was a newborn but, I felt it I think, maybe. [laughter] Alright. So when I first, but this isn’t a love podcast. When I first met Joseph I was like, who is this kid? What does he want? And then yeah we became friends and I, only wanted things from him from that point out.

Symphony: Then you made him yours.

Meg: Yeah so then I realized how wonderful and smart and, I always knew he was attractive, he is a good looking kid.

Symphony: Yeah.

Meg: He really is. Anyway, alright. Other things in this episode, there’s the NRA bumper stickers.

Symphony: OK, here’s the thing.

Meg: The intr-

Symphony: Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell.

Meg: I wasn’t gonna say anything, I was making..

Symphony: I’m sorry. I got really excited, because I was thinking about this in the first two episodes, they make their stance very very clear about where they stand with like governments, and the NRA and guns and all sorts of business like that. So to all of you (friendlings) out there, who love your second amendment, we love you too, however listen to the episodes.

Hal: Yeah, it is really striking, I agree. I had the same, I wrote that down too that idea of like, you know where they stand right away and sadly, it’s really sad that six years later, that is really relevant to the point that listening to it I was like hold on, this could have been written any time in the last year.

Symphony: Three weeks ago.

Hal: It could have been an hour ago, and it would feel just as relevant. Which is, that’s a piece of commentary about a lot of different things, but in particular it’s..

Meg: Yeah.

Hal: It’s nice to see like, it’s very much them, and what’s inside of them and then writing their, what’s in their heart. Probably with the idea that hey it doesn’t matter who listens to us, we’re gonna make something that we care about. And that comes through big time, in moments like that in particular.

Meg: Yeah if Night Vale is an American city, which it’s a city in the American southwest, it’s set in the America so the people who, we can’t hide from that, we can’t run from that whether it is this totally bizarre world where up is down and down is up, it is still footed in America. And so there’s these things that are unescapable about it. And yeah, Joseph and Jeffrey are not ones to ever really hide their opinions when it comes to things like gun violence…

Hal: True.

Symphony: True. So and as we have also evidenced by, when we travel throughout this beautiful country of ours, I remember there has been airports that we’ve come through, where there’s been a sign that says: “Did you forget to take the gun out of your luggage?” And I’m like oh, I never put one in there, dang it!

Hal: [laughs]

Symphony: I guess I forgot to bring that.

Meg: I can’t bring dry shampoo.

Symphony: Right?

Meg: But.. [laughter] Like literally, you’re like we can’t bring that dry shampoo.

Symphony: What about my yoghurt?

Meg: What, hang on, sidenote. Tangent, why are old people always trying to bring yoghurt on the airplane? Like it’s a liquid, friends, like…

Symphony: [laughs] Constant struggle.

Hal: Oh my god. One time I was at the metal detector at LAX and I was behind a group of older German tourists, and it was like they huddled up beforehand, they were like alright, which rule do you wanna break cause we shouldn’t all do the same one.

Symphony: What?

Hal: I’ll have a pocket full of coins, meanwhile you’ll have a gallon of water in a camel bag that you’ve strapped on that you don’t understand you can’t have for a variety of reasons. [laughter] And then could you be juggling grenades as you try to walk through? That would be great, alright, break. And it took forever, it felt like I mean, again probably wasn’t that long but it felt like nine days, of waiting for them to get it together and realize that they can’t drive a car through the metal detector. It was bizarre.

Symphony: You grew a beard in that time.

Hal: I grew a long wispy bread. I scratched several lines, both horizontal and vertical, into the wall to mark how long I’d been there.

Meg: Alright. Welcome to this very important podcast where we talk about, how things can be frustrating at lines at airport security.

Hal: Yeah. We’re so sorry (it’s all)..

Symphony: It’s all part of the Night Vale experience.

Hal: Yeah. I was gonna say we were talking about Joseph before, I wanted to bring it to the weather. Meg: Yeah, the weather. Let’s tease it like they do on the show so we’ll be like, next up we’re gonna talk to Welcome to Night Vale’s voice, Cecil Baldwin, but first – we’re gonna talk about the weather. [sings] Da-daa..

Symphony: That was a good, that was a good teaser.

Meg: We teased it. Really teased that.

Symphony: We teased the shit out of it. [laughter]

Meg: Yeah, so the weather. These and More than These…

Symphony: It was Joseph!

Meg: By Joseph Fink.

Symphony: That’s your husband.

Hal: I didn’t know who, I was listening to it, I was like this guy sounds super familiar, but I don’t, I can’t place him musically to any other songs that I would have heard from him.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: And then I’d get to the end of the episode where like, (-) the weather was These and More than These by Joseph Fink, I’m like get the fuck out of town!

Symphony: Right?

Hal: That was Joseph? And…

Symphony: He’s such a good singer!

Hal: He has a beautiful singing voice, how do I not know this after all this time? And it’s an enjoyable song.

Symphony: It’s a good song.

Meg: It is, the lyrics are great, they’re super weird and fun.

Symphony: OK so first of all, let’s talk about the weather being a song.

Meg: Yeah, this is the first time that happened.

Symphony: The first time I ever, I remember back in the day when I first listened to the episode, I remember I was like, OK and now the weather. Cause it had other installments like Community Calendar and whatever and you’re like OK, that’s cool that makes sense it’s like weird and kind of funny. But then the weather is music. What a brilliant idea. And now that I know Joseph as well, it makes so much sense. Joseph and Jeffrey, it makes so much sense because they are so focused in music, they both love music so much, and Joseph especially loves independent music. And I admire that. And listening to this show, I have found more musicians and more music that I would have never ever heard of in my entire life.

Hal: Sure.

Symphony: And it’s like getting a recommendation from a friend, right? You’re like, they’re like you would like this song, and they play the song and it’s like wow. But this song in particular being the first song, I keep thinking I’m like, was he just like oh, I’m gonna put this song on there, or had he thought oh I’m gonna try to see if I can find other people, or whatever. I guess I don’t know that bit.

Meg: I mean knowing Joseph and knowing his process behind this, he was definitely like well OK what do I have the rights to? OK, something that I own.

Symphony: [laughs]

Meg: And then yeah, I don’t know his process behind selecting. Joseph has a lot of songs, he’s had some be on the weather, he’s had some that weren’t on the weather that just exist. I used to go see him play at open mics and (-) places in New York City, and he would play his original songs, and he would also play a Leonard Cohen cover or two, because that’s how adorable he is. So I think, I don’t know why he selected this one “These and More than These”, but I like it, I think it’s really fitting in the first episode, I think you’re gonna get an interesting.. Joseph’s voice as a songwriter as well as Joseph’s voice as a writer.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: So yeah I think he was first starting to place the weather, he was like who do I know that will say yes to this, and he was the one who could do that for the first episode. [chuckles]

Symphony: It me, you know.

Meg: It me, and now it’s branched out like so many people, people like the Mountain Goats have premiered songs on the show and..

Symphony: That’s phenomenal.

Meg: ..Dessa has premiered songs on the show and people have, like The Felice Brothers have premiered stuff so it’s like, there’s all these bands that we love and have loved forever, and musicians that are putting their work on our show and it’s so cool to start from here and get to a bigger place.

Hal: Yeah.

Meg: As well as the submissions. There was a while we were taking submissions for the weather, and we got so much great music from people. And that’s the point where it’s like, we still use those submissions, we opened submissions I think for like a couple weeks, and we still use some of those submissions. As there were just hundreds of great great songs.

Hal: Amazing.

Symphony: But that’s also how we get introduced to so many great artist that we’ve heard from and once that we’ve worked with. Mary Epworth and Eliza Rickman and Dessa and Doomtree and all sorts of people, people from all over the world which is really phenomenal and actually I’m going to see Dessa this weekend, for her new Chime tour so I’m pretty excited about that.

Meg: It’s a great album.

Symphony: It’s so good.

Meg: She hasn’t made anything I don’t like. She hasn’t sent a text message I didn’t like. Like every piece of her writing is that good. [laughs]

Symphony: She’s a poet.

Meg: She’s a poet, yeah seriously. She Facebook comments in a beautiful way like she just.. [laughter] Which is a, super (sick) (--). Yeah it’s like, we get to meet such great people and luckily we get to work with them when they came on tour with us like we’ve had, and we’ve really bonded with all of them. I think tour will bond you to people.

Symphony: Yes.

Meg: It’s cool to bond to people who are like, they start as outsiders and then they become insiders.

Symphony: They’re from the inner circle. Actually we should, just a sidenote, we should have a maybe special episode talking about tour, I feel like we’ll talk about it anyways but, be like oh tour shows, Investigators… what else did we do, Ghost Stories?

Meg: Yeah we did Ghost Stories, Old Oak Doors we didn’t tour but we did it live.

Hal: The Debate.

Meg: Condos we sort of toured, The Debate.

Symphony: That’ll be really interesting when we come across those. And we’ll have to go over the controversy of, what we call the controversy of the original Tamika Flynn. [laughter]

Meg: I think we will, stay tuned audience, we’ll go over that controversy.

Symphony: It’s me, it’s always been me!

Meg: There’s also the controversy of the original Carlos.

Hal: Oh yeah, for sure!

Symphony: Yes, we’ll talk about that with Jefe.

Meg: Yeah, with our Jefe and maybe even with Dylan Maroon, short of Dylan Marron.

Symphony: Ooh!

Meg: We have more fun guests coming, but speaking of more fun guests coming, we go now to our conversation with Cecil Baldwin.

Hal: Stay right there. Good Morning Night Vale will return after a brief break.

Meg: We go now to our conversation with Cecil Baldwin. Alright, so who do we have with us on the line, who could it be?

Cecil Baldwin: Wait, is that me?

Meg: It’s you.

Hal: Do you know who you are? You get three guesses.

Cecil: It’s me!

Hal: Alright, that’s fun.

Cecil: [chuckling] That’s one. Also me! And my telephone.

Meg: Cecilia Joyce Baldwin.

Cecil: That’s right. It’s me Cecil Baldwin!

Meg: So Cecil Baldwin, what is it that you do for Welcome to Night Vale? [laughter]

Cecil: What don’t I do for Welcome to Night Vale?

Meg: True.

Cecil: I’m a voice actor on Welcome to Night Vale. I play the character of Cecil Palmer, although we’re talking about the pilot episode..

Symphony: Yes.

Meg: Sure are.

Cecil: So there was no Cecil and there was no Palmer. It was just “guy”. It was like, dude on mic.

Symphony: Unbodied voice.

Cecil: Just the voice of.

Meg: Yeah. You were the voice of for a very long time before you got proper-named.

Cecil: Yeah.

Meg: So yeah we have Cecil Baldwin with us, Cecil is of course of the voice of Night Vale, the velvet host of Night Vale Radio, the velvet-voiced vost, the velvet… voiced host.

Symphony: Yeah. That’s a lot of words.

Meg: So as you mentioned, we’re discussing the pilot episode. So the pilot episode aired June 15, 2012. What was your life like in June 15 in 2012? [chuckles]

Cecil: Oh my god. If I was better at multitasking, I would totally look up my Facebook page from 2012, just to see what was up but I literally can’t talk and uh, handle technology at the same time so…

Symphony: You need a time hop.

Cecil I know I know, I was thinking about that. See, had I done any preparation for this show, I would have already done that. But the prep I did was listen to the pilot twice, while I made dinner tonight. So you know, I was like that’s enough. What was my life like? I was probably waiting tables six days a week at a restaurant in Chelsea, New York. Probably doing Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Trying desperately to get onto Law and Order [laughter] or, oh man, what was…

Symphony: Like every New York actor.

Cecil: Like every New York actor. What was the one on HBO? That was like…

Meg: Carnivale?

Cecil: No, no no it was like..

Meg: Oh no, the one.

Cecil: Like (five points) New York, old rough New York.

Meg: Yeah yeah, with Steve Buscemi.

Cecil: With Steve Buscemi, yeah.

Hal: Boardwalk Empire.

Cecil: Boardwalk Empire. I was like…

Meg: Boardwalk Empire, yes.

Cecil: That was like, as long as that show was on, somebody kept calling me back and I was like maybe this time, and I never got it. So that was probably what I was doing, [chuckles] at that point in my life and living in like, the tiniest apartment in West Harlem with the tallest man that could possibly fit into that apartment with me. And that was where I recorded this pilot episode.

Hal: You were living in a sitcom. [laughter]

Symphony: He is (-).

Cecil: Yeah, it was like a sad kind of foul-smelling sitcom.

Hal: I have a question for you, Cecil.

Cecil: Yeah.

Hal: This is Hal Lublin, I play your uh, brother outside the law, Steve Carlsberg. Just to introduce myself, it’s me.

Cecil: Who are you?

Hal: We’ve roomed together, we’re road roomies.

Cecil: Who am I?

Symphony: Me too!

Meg: Me too.

Cecil: I think we’ve, have we all roomed?

Meg: I’ve, yeah.

Symphony: Everybody except for like, I haven’t stayed with Hal before.

Meg: I haven’t stayed with Hal either, so yes Cecil you’re the unique one in this conversation, you’ve roomed with Hal.

Cecil: Nice.

Meg: We’ve all roomed with you.

Cecil: I’m the spoke of the wheel. Everybody’s like..

Symphony: Cecil’s gotten around.

Cecil: Next tour Cecil has his own room, it’s fine. [laughter]

Hal: So my question is, which room mate was the best? No I, my actual question…

Cecil: Which room mate was... [laughter]

Symphony: Wow.

Hal: In (listening to -)..

Cecil: And the (--) breakfast (-).

Meg: Symphony Sanders is a pretty good room mate. I’ll say it. I mean I can’t speak (--) but Symphony Sanders is an excellent room mate. She always brings you water…

Symphony: I’m a pretty good room mate.

Meg: She always brings me water so…

Cecil: Coconut water and, yeah no (-).

Symphony: I like to create an experience, you guys.

Hal: I wish I hadn’t asked that question.

Cecil: And you leave to go exercise, wakes me up, so I can then go back to sleep. And then say hello to you after you’ve worked out, and be like oh maybe I should get out of bed now. [laughter]

Symphony: I come in glistening and I’m like hey wake up, are you ready? Ready to face the day?

Cecil: The sun’s been up for six hours. [laughter]

Symphony: I’ve had a full day.  

Cecil: Did you have a question, Hal? I can’t remember.

Hal: Yes. I did have an actual question listening to it, one thing that struck me even in like the first three minutes of the episode listening to it, was like oh I’m listening to Cecil find his character.

Cecil: Oh yeah.

Hal: As you were doing it it was evolving, even in the first couple moments which was really impressive to watch you kind of zero in on it. Cause I know, we’ve heard the story before in panels, but I’d love to hear a little bit about your initial approach for this episode, looking at it, how much direction you had an like how you were directing yourself, how many takes it took, that kind of stuff.

Cecil: Well, first it sounds like Cecil on Xanax, like it sounds real, I was like wow I sound very sedate in this.

Symphony: Yeah.

Cecil: And I think, that more than anything set the tone for people who then later would be like, oh my god I fall asleep listening to your voice, so soothing. Because listening to those first couple of episodes it really is super neutral, like it’s so neutral and like just really quiet, just reading. And there was, like the character of, which would later evolve, wasn’t there as much. Because I don’t know. I guess I knew this idea it would be like an episodic thing, and it would go on from there but I had no idea, how many we were doing and where this was all going and stuff like that, so I was like well let’s just, you know, keep it really basic and simple and just start by words on the page, and then finding ways to you know, have that sort of very neutral narrator voice, and slowly finding the moments in Joseph and Jeffrey’s writing when Cecil does comment on stuff. And there’s little ones in this first episode. It’s just like, so and so brought the corn muffins and they needed salt. Oh like that was a moment when I, that was like a Cecil moment rather than a neutral narrator NPR, late night radio DJ, generic.

Symphony: Right. So when you were initially finding the character, a lot of that was just like feeling it out..

Cecil: Yeah.

Symphony: And you weren’t sure where it was gonna come from.

Cecil: Mm hm, yeah.

Symphony: Right or where it was gonna go so you just were like, I am gonna read this thing as well as I can.

Cecil: Yeah exactly like, put words on sound, into a mic.

Symphony: Exactly. And as an actor of course obviously you’re trying to do the writers’ words justice, right?

Cecil: Mm hm, yeah.

Symphony: So I think that’s part of it but now listening to it when you go back and have heard it again, what would you think you might have done differently?

Cecil: What I’d done differently?

Symphony: If anything, or was it a perfect read?

Cecil: [laughs] No it was not perfect. I dunno, I do wish that I’d had a chance to take a crack at it again. I think I would have, in a way getting to do kind of the last paragraph as the foreword to the book, the first book, was kind of a chance to do a do-over. And it was so much fun to be at the studio, in a fancy, you know like midtown studio with an engineer and a director and all that stuff getting to redo what was essentially the very first episode of the podcast. And having 70 plus episodes of Night Vale under my belt at that point, that was really cool, that was super cool.

Symphony: So did you feel more connected to it?

Cecil: Yeah, I felt more connected and also giving every part of the language weight. Cause when you’re reading something, for the first time especially if it’s absurd like no-linear. You just have to kind of be like, OK these are the things that I’m gonna try and hit, and highlight and let the chips fall where they may. But if I had a chance to go back and redo the pilot, I think I would have made some of the one-off jokes, like the two-sentence jokes punchier, punch it up kid, you know?

Symphony: [laughs] Well I feel like that we get to do now in the live shows where we get to repeat and do the shows over and over again, but..

Cecil: Yeah.

Symphony: When you record it one time, you’re like oh man, now that I listen to it I can do something differently.

Cecil: Yeah.

Symphony: Speaking of taking a time travel, let’s go back to the time hop thing for one second. So in your world, back then you said you were just recording this, you didn’t know where it was going and you were waiting tables, right?

Cecil: Yeah.

Symphony: So when you recorded this, how did you record it? Did you go to a place, can you tell that sort of story?

Cecil: I had to borrow Joseph Fink’s Snowball microphone. Which is this giant plastic, you know like ball on a tripod. You know it’s like…

Meg: I still have it.

Cecil: Oh really?

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: Get out of here!

Cecil: Like you can just throw them around and, but they’re kinda bulky. And so he had wrapped it up in a sweatshirt. [laughter] And we met at a coffee shop near Union Square, and he was just like OK, here take this, plug it up to your computer and just record it, just do it. You can use Audacity or Garage Band, whatever. And I had heard of Audacity through the Neo-Futurists for free sound editing software, so I was like OK I’ll check, OK. So I took this like contraband, little straw baby back to my apartment. [laughter] And I plugged it in. And I think I recorded maybe the pilot and the second episode at the same time? Or I think one, two and three happened within the same week.

Symphony: OK.

Cecil: So that way, cause I had the microphone borrowed, and then eventually I had returned it and got my own. And then we did the reverse of this, like pass off this weird little small child sized microphone, wrapped in the sweatshirt in front of the coffee shop on the street. It was podcast drugs, it was like illegal podcast contraband. [dramatic voice] In a world where podcasting is illegal and the penalty is death! [laughter] It’s somewhere..

Meg: And the rest is history.

Hal: It’s like a Logan’s Run scenario where there’s only podcasts inside the dome.

Cecil: That’s right, it’s… [laughs]

Hal: If you live outside the dome, you’re gonna find your way in that city.

Cecil: It’s like A Handmaiden’s Tale, except for podcasting.

Hal: Did you record them in order?

Cecil: Yes. For the most part absolutely. It wasn’t until like literally years later that I started getting, it was like three episode arcs or stuff like that where stuff would be out of order but mostly was like, literally one two three four five six in succession, for years.

Symphony: And did they give you any indication, were they like, oh we’re just gonna keep doing this until we can’t do it anymore, or?

Cecil: Yeah. I think around like episode seven or eight, I emailed Joseph I was like, heeeeyyyy. So where’s this going? You know like, is there a, do y’all have like a giant dry erase board that you’re, have like characters written out and shit like that? And they were like, absolutely not. [laughter] I think Joseph’s reply was like, we just figure we’re gonna keep making it until we don’t wanna make it anymore. Until it stops being fun, I think literally he was, we’re gonna make it until it’s not fun to make anymore. And I was like, OK, well here we go.

Meg: And here we are.

Cecil: And here we are.

Meg: 125 episodes in.

Cecil: I know, right? And I know that’s been like, there’s been a lot of fun stuff along the way involving like, continuity and stuff like that because, literally that was how we made it was just like, OK here’s an episode, and here’s another episode that kind of mentions this other character, however many episodes back. And like you kind of half-remember stuff. For me it was a lot of, for my end it was more about like, trying to find episodes that that character was mentioned, to be like wait, does Telly the Barber have a voice? Did we ever give him a voi-, does he ever say anything?

Symphony: Right.

Cecil: Cause there’s like, when you’re reporting stuff second hand on, which this show is, you kind of have the choice every time you see words in quotes, to like is it impersonation of that character? Or is it Cecil, are you trying to sound like the character themself or are you trying to sound like, what that narrator’s personification of that character is. And usually the easiest way is just to be like, “and then they said a whole bunch of stuff”. Much like a newscaster.

Symphony: You’re not doing an impersonation, you’re just..

Cecil: Exactly.

Symphony: ..reporting on what they said.

Cecil: Exactly. And I would just kind of feel it out in this very like one foot in front of the other, episode by episode kind of way. And then later on, I was like oh man, have we heard from Big Rico? Does Big Rico have a voice or a sound and I’m sure there have been like, characters that sounded one way and then, maybe 20 episodes later they say like one sentence and you’re like, that’s totally not right, there must be like a million of those. Or at least there is in my mind.

Meg: So when you were doing your relisten tonight, was there anything that jumped out at you that struck you as weird or interesting or like, any feels about listening to the show?

Cecil: OK so the first thing that I noticed from the very beginning is, sort of the entity of Night Vale Presents. And I was like oh man, it was like Jeffrey came on and they were talking about the Tingle podcast and, Conversations with me you know Dylan and, I was like oh man. Because of course it makes absolute sense but in my mind I was like, some of those early intros especially with Joseph where he’s like, I was like are we going to get to (Dash) convention?

Symphony: Yes.. [laughter]

Cecil: You know it’s not that early on, but I was like oh man, those are as much of a time capsule, almost more than the show itself of like how far..

Symphony: The announcements, yeah.

Cecil: ..how long ago this was. When we were just like..

Meg: Those are gone now.

Cecil: They’re like all of them are gone?

Meg: They’re a gone.

Cecil: Hey, I mean..

Symphony: Yeah it’s just like thanks..

Meg: (--).

Symphony: ..it’s like thanks for loving us, donate if you can, like whatever you get special content, right?

Cecil: I hope somebody has a copy of them somewhere.

Meg: I think they do exist somewhere.

Cecil: See, that’s all I wanna know.

Meg: Because of the advent of dynamic insertion, which sounds really dirty but really…

Symphony: That sounds nasty!

Meg: ..it just allows you to move stuff around. So a while back, I re-recorded all the credits and proverbs and made...

Symphony: Get out of here, no you didn’t!

Meg: Yeah.

Cecil: What?

Meg: Yeah and…

Symphony: Meg?!!

Meg: And then they chop up what I say at the end of this show and like, there’s different versions of it, so I do like a different version and that gets like edited around, to be like when I talk about the mailing or I talk about merchandise or I talk about live shows, that stuff kinda moves around.

Cecil: Wow.

Symphony: Get out! OK and then that goes into every episode just in case somebody’s listening now for the first time, to the first episode like they get the current stuff?

Meg: Yeah they get the current stuff so they get, what we’re talking about now and if you listen to the pilot now and download the pilot now you’ll get, I don’t remember if it was Joseph or Jeffrey they do, they talk about live shows or something.

Hal: It’s Jeffrey.

Symphony: Yeah I heard Joseph talking about donating to get, and you can get special content and all that stuff. Oh, that’s so interesting!

Cecil: All that special content.

Symphony: Technology!

Meg: Yeah, so they can move all that stuff around, they can change it. It’s good cause you don’t wanna, like if someone’s listening to episode 70 and they wanna come see a live show, they don’t wanna hear about a live show that happened a year and a half ago, they wanna (--) the stuff going on…

Cecil: Come see The Investigators!

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: [laughs]

Hal: I do slightly feel betrayed, in a heavy way. Just like, I wanna hear those old, cause that’s what I remember when I first listened to it.

Symphony: Hal wants the classics! [laughter]

Hal: It was always Joseph coming in, saying there is no Joseph Fink and like here’s..

Cecil: Yeah, we’re all Joseph Fink..

Hal: Here’s how you can support the show, we are all Joseph Fink.

Symphony: That was always really fun to record.

Meg: Let me make some phone calls, let me see if I can get those recordings for us to work off of. Let me see, so we don’t have to work off the new ones.

Cecil: And if Good Morning Night Vale, if Good Morning Night Vale is truly a retrospective show, I feel like you should go through an episode later like pull out some choice ones, and play them for the listeners of like (--).

Meg: Good idea, thanks for the content idea, that’s a good one.

Hal: Yeah! And then we can submit it to the Smithsonian along with that Snowball mic, as part of the Night Vale exhibit.

Meg: Which is…

Cecil: When there’s a Night Vale exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, and they have all the artifacts and all the deer paintings, and the laminate for Big Rico’s Pizza that I stole from San Diego Comic Con, stuff like that. [laughter]

Cecil: There’ll be little listening booths for all the children.

Hal: I actually volunteered to live for three months.

Cecil: Oh really? [laughs]

Hal: Yeah just like in a tank, like it’s a David Blaine thing but I will have a bed, so that’s the difference. [laughter]

Cecil: Oh my god.

Hal: And a (potty) with a (--) so I can (--).

Cecil: The artist is present. And it is Steve Carlsberg.

Hal: I mean you press a button to deliver a low level electric shock, it’s fine, I can deal with it. [laughter]

Cecil: You get like food pellets.

Symphony: I know, that’s what I was thinking, I was like food pellets.

Cecil: And Carlsberg beer.

Symphony: Yeah, it’s Carlsberg.

Hal: If I can solve the puzzle.

Symphony: Isn’t that like not even full alcohol beer?

Cecil: Oh, is that a low alcohol beer?

Symphony: Is it? Or is it just terrible tasting? [laughter] Who knows?

Meg: I dunno if I’ve ever had one.

Symphony: A Carlsberg? We should do that this tour. If you buy us a Carlsberg beer, oh wait, no one will hear this but…

Hal: Symphony will drink it. [laughter]

Symphony: [laughs hysterically]

Meg: This episode premieres June 7.

Hal: If you see one of us..

Symphony: Nevermind, cut it! Cut it, (-) cut it!

Cecil: I think according to Wikipedia I think Carlsberg is a normal beer.

Symphony: OK. Did you look it up?

Cecil: Yeah I did.

Meg: Are you multi-tasking with technology?

Cecil: I’m trying to multi-task but it’s really hard.

Symphony: Look at you and your science.

Hal: Look at you.

Symphony: Speaking of science…

Meg: Is it…

Cecil: Dark magic.

Meg: Is it a Dutch beer?

Hal: Probably.

Cecil: Denmark.

Meg: Is Carlsberg Dutch, oh Denmark.

Cecil: Denmark.

Meg: It’s a Danish beer.

Symphony: Who knows with those people?

Meg: Those people who are our fans, who listen to us, who love to go see… [laughter] Hey, we love you Copenhagen!

Cecil: Oh my god, right?

Symphony: Literally no one is hating on Denmark, like ever, so they can take it.

Cecil: Oh my god, there’s a special place in my heart for Copenhagen.

Symphony: I wanna go there so bad.

Cecil: I had such a splendidly shitty time both times I went. But it was like, fireworks of shit. The best crazy, travel stories that in the moment you’re like this is the longest day of my life. However..

Symphony: Is that when they lost your luggage?

Meg: It really was.

Cecil: But I know future me is gonna eat up every moment of it. And it’s all because of Copenhagen. Copen-hahgen.

Meg: Yeah.

Symphony: Do you say hay-gen or hah-gen?

Meg: I say Copen-haygen. I guess you can say both, I’ve heard both.

Symphony: Are both correct or is it just like willy-nilly?

Cecil: My guess is it’s Copen-hahgen for people who live there, Copen-haygen with an American accent? I dunno.

Symphony: Maybe.

Cecil: That’s my guess.

Symphony: Sammy Hey-gar. No. Sammy Hah-gar.

Cecil: Sammy Hah-gar. [laughter]

Meg: Hey-gen-Dasz. Hah-gen-Dasz.

[They’re basically just saying Häagen-Dazs in various ways and something about Chicago, I dunno how to transcribe it]

Symphony: It’s funny because I live here.

Hal: This is topical.

Meg: Well, this conversation has been…

Symphony: Next!

Meg: …a joy. Cecil, thank you so much for joining us on the first ever Good Morning Night Vale, it’s so great to hear from you.

Cecil: Thank you for having me. Yeah, it’s super weird to be talking to you all in a professional capacity with like, listeners listening in. Just FYI.

Meg: It’s like they’re backstage with us.

Cecil: I know.

Meg: Except we’re wearing clothes. Well, I’m wearing clothes, I don’t know about, I can’t speak for anyone else on this call.

Cecil: I’m wearing clothes, for once.

Symphony: Kinda.

Cecil: Kind of. [laughs] State of undress.

Symphony: A crop top is clothes. I’m wearing a crop top and leggings, is that, that’s clothes?

Hal: And I’m covered in body paint, so I’m good.

Symphony: [laughs]

Cecil: Oo! I’ll say, I’m wearing a full suit from the waist up and nothing from the waist down.

Meg: Perfect.

Hal: Business on top, party on the bottom.

Symphony: [laughs] Yes!

Meg: Alright, cool. Well thanks, Ceec!

Cecil: Party on.

Meg: Thanks. Bye!

Cecil: Bye!

Hal: Bye!

Meg: Thank you so much for joining us on our first ever episode of Good Morning Night Vale. Next week, we’re gonna talk about the episode 2, “Glow Cloud”, and we’ll be joined by special guest Joseph Fink, the creator and writer of Welcome to Night Vale and my personal husband.

Symphony: Amongst other things. [laughs]

Hal: You’ll hear us next time.

Meg: You’ll hear us next time. Thank you so much. Good morning, Night Vale, good morning.

Symphony: Good morning. Byeee!

Today’s adverb: Zestfully. I zestfully zested an orange, because I am flamboyant and I care deeply about really hammering in those notes of citrus in my flavor profile.