#kept these pretty basic tbh. and non invasive.

[pre1ude]

@vilestblood , sent 👫 for four headcanons about our muses' relationship

1.

Their first meeting, logically, ought to be at an external performance before Daniel is even hired, yes I know that's how it should work, but consider instead: an audition or even a debut in front of Antonin's private audience, for the fact alone that Danny can actually pick his repertoire. Which - if he's just met ✨ Mister Cainhurst ✨, in all his odd glory - is guaranteed to be absolutely unhinged. He's immediatelly so very charmed by where he is and who he's with. Technically, it should be nothing new, but while he may have spent most of his measly time outside of home around the well-respected upper class, it's not every day you meet a 7 ft tall gnc blonde with the weirdest vibes imaginable. So Danny sets out to impress him the only way he knows how - by making sure the very first impression he makes is with his music. That is to say: he stiffly drones through a brief conversation, barely meets Nin's eye and then shreds Erlkönig in tempo accelerando, all the way to full speed on a violin. If he has actual operatic accompaniment he would make it a point to overshadow the poor poor tenor they decide to stick him with. Shows off with the triple stops, breaks a few horsehairs and then becomes the equivalent of 🥺👉👈 once the piece is finished.

2.

From then on it goes as smoothly as one would imagine. Granted, Dan susses some oddities out fairly quickly and 'a society of wildly individualistic eccentrics' isn't enough to explain some of them away. He ends up balancing a tightrope between turning a deaf ear out of habit so he can continue to enjoy his time, independence and flourishing reputation, and exploring his suspicions, cautious of the rug being pulled out from under him in a horribly karmic, thematic 'haha you thought' moment. He would like to lead a comfortable existence but he's hardly going to achieve that through willful ignorance. Speaking of, funnily enough, I think he'd initially refuse to suspect Antonin outright, the most vampire looking motherfucker there ever was, because he'd have more or less put him on a pedestal by then. Maybe even shares some suspicions and unanswered questions with him, partly to test him, mostly to assuage his fears. So their eventual "I know what you are." "Say it." "Vampire." "Sure, that works." Twilight moment will be hilarious when it happens and will certainly fall into the category of 'one of those hard life lessons'. A sobering moment. Great for building realistic rapport, though. Like, for example, the issuing of some immunity or protection (in writing), which Danny will ask for and genuinely require in order to stay. A failsafe, if you will.

3.

Antonin represents a whole new school of thought and expression for Daniel, a manner of not denying himself the vengeful need for violence by putting it into his art. By the time he comes into Antonin's employment, Daniel would have had one or two experiences with conducting and only half-feathered attempts at composition. Not because he thinks his efforts aren't good enough, but because the music he creates will always be an expression of emotion for him, most of which is a disturbing tell-all. This baby can hold so much repressed rage and sadness in him. Around Antonin, especially once he's treated to his fascinatingly complex moral codex, he leans in that direction wholeheartedly, without fear of judgement when it becomes more than clear he won't receive any. Still ever cautious, at first, as is his penchant, with references vague, symbolic and perfectly pedestrian so as to keep a low profile, and later far more personal, influenced by and written for his unique set of supernatural skills. Meaning, an until-now passive aggression comes up to the surface and he allows it to lace with his creations, soak into them thoroughly. His first fully transcendental performance is reserved for Antonin in private company. Written and conducted by him entirely; an ode, if you will, to a great big influence in his life. A muse, almost. He requests a hall without windows and advises against bringing in glass.

4.

He indulges Antonin a great deal, even after the Twilight Moment. Whatever admiration Danny harbored for him would simply evolve into a more understandable, mature artistic interest. The man is odd, it can't be denied, who wouldn't be curious about him. His very existence is source of inspiration aplenty; he's something eldritch, mythological, surreal in his own right, an otherworldly subject ideal for musical consecration - historic and mystical both, and at times self-indulgently iconoclastic. He's lived for millenia, he hails from a whole different culture, his voice feels like warm steel. Perhaps Danny's interest isn't quite fully devoid of that admiration he was supposed to lose (on moral grounds), even if on a less personal level. So yes, there are symphonies and operas referencing him a great deal in our musician's future, expressions of his deep-seated fascination, some more interpretative than others. Rarely complimentary, but never condemning.

And have this thought: If he were to want, Antonin could very well work with Danny to restore/replicate old, long-lost musical pieces from Cainhurst times. Daniel can hardly say no to digging up cultural treasures, art is a legacy he's rather protective and passionate about.

+ 1

It's tradition for me to do a bonus on each hc post, but literally all I can think of is Dan's dog, Bentley, having the most ardent desire to chase down Crowtonin. Hauls absolute ass whenever he sees Birb TM. Barks him up trees, shakes his whole ass in excitement about it. Something about that animal in particular just makes him wanna say hi in the most doglike way possible. To such a degree that Daniel finds himself constantly resorting to Baby Swaddle Jail just to keep Ben in line. Save the poor defenseless bird's life. 😔

[swampsail]

SO

I just found out a bit of WTNV canon that I thought was pretty neat for reasons I will explain below. But like, the person I would normally run to with this information... is the person I’m not talking to anymore. Which makes this difficult because I’m both tickled pink (and a little smug) about what I just read, but also seriously bummed out because I can’t run up to said person and share this info and we both scream excitedly about it

:|

that’s one of the hardest parts about being involved in a fandom with someone for so long, and you both have all those little inside jokes and such. It’s worse when you’ve been RPing that fandom thing together and there’s whole worlds and shit that only you two know about. If for whatever reason you stop talking to that person, all those inside jokes and character traits and non-canon story arcs are just gone and jshdsjkhdgsdfa it fucking sucks because like you WANT to talk to that person again but you really do not want to talk to that person again, but there’s no one else who is that person to talk about those very particular things UGH

ANYWAY I’ll talk about it all under that cut I really need to get this out of my system. tl:dr will be at the bottom tho

so yeah this is all really unnecessary context but; exfriend and I used to write WTNV together, and we had been doing that for upwards of 6 years. When we very first started out the podcast only had like 15-20 episodes, and we didn’t have a whole lot of details on important stuff like Cecil’s last name, or what anyone looked like, or how the town was laid out. ANYTHING, really, since Fink and Cranor have always kept things intentionally vague so that people can interpret things as they like.

so yeah when he and I started writing the RP we have to take what the show gave us and embellish on it heavily. Which was fine. it was REALLY FUN. And what actually happened was that we started adding in elements to our story that would frequently turn out to be canon later on. We had a running joke that we were secretly writing the show and Fink was just spying on us and stealing everything we came up with.

I know, that’s not actually what was going on. But seriously, we were right about a lot of stuff with like ALMOST EVERYTHING. 

not really important but like I said I have a lot to wordspew; eventually our story wound up diverging heavily from the canon podcast stuff. We followed the basic skeletal structure of it; Key plot points like the Strex invasion and Josie going missing , things like that, all still happened. But there was a lot we wrote that had nothing to do with the show, and our RP wound up VASTLY different from the podcast. Basically a big fat elaborate AU. And tbh I kind of liked our version better sometimes. *SHRUG* But even then, we still threw elements in that would surprisingly wind up on the show

SO THAT BEING SAID, at one point we did the arc where Carlos was trapped in a desert otherworld. In our RP Carlos comes home eventually, not in the same way he did in the show, and after his return he and Cecil have a talk about the whole year he was gone, and Carlos confesses that he was only gone a year in Night Vale’s time, but that he was in the desert otherworld for much longer. He explains that even though he and Cecil talked almost every night, for Carlos, their phone calls were weeks, or even months apart. Which is part of why he had asked Cecil not to keep saying he had been “trapped” in the desert. Because he WAS trapped, for YEARS, and it was fucking him up to think he’d never be able to get back. So he was like “hahah, no I’m uh, here of my own volition lol please stop calling it ‘trapped’ ”

so anyway we wrote all of that at least 3 years ago, back when that arc was happening in the show

SO TODAY

TODAY

I just now found out that IN CANON

Carlos confesses to another character in It Devours that while he was gone a year in Night Vale time, in the desert otherworld he was gone for TEN years

And like, on the one hand, I think that’s awesome! Yet again another prediction has come true (and this was one I decided on, that exfriend was not so keen about, which is why I mentioned earlier that I’m feeling kind of smug. So HA.)

and on the other hand

well.

I can’t go tell him about it :\ I can’t go be like “duuuuuuuuude GUESS WHAT, man you’ll never believe this”

tl:dr   3 years ago I guessed right about something that recently happened in WTNV canon and there’s no one to be excited about it with because it’s only relevant when pertaining to an RP I’m no longer writing with a friend I’m no longer talking to

[constupidity]

Submit Anon: Guy Who Doesn’t Buy Con Ticket Waits in Line to Hit on Girls All Day

So after reading all the posts through this page, I decided to submit a recent con story that I didn’t really think about until browsing this site.  Thankfully, my (and most importantly, my friend’s) experience wasn’t half as bad as most of the earlier posts…

I volunteered at our local convention this year so I had arrived a little earlier than the crowd this year in order to have enough time to get my volunteer hours in and have some time to wander around and go to panels and stuff.  While in line to get my badge (beating the crowd and getting my badge in 20 minutes), my friend called me.  We got rides separately since we live in the vicinity of the con but not close enough to carpool together.  So she told me she was in line and all the inane chatter people do when they’re trying to figure out a location to meet or whether or not you should go wait with your friend in line as they get their badge.

However, she soon delved into a non-English language (I would prefer to keep this ambiguous) and told me that she would like me to go wait with her since there was a strange man in line near her.  Honestly, I’ve never personally encountered con creeps or heard of any con creeps at this convention I’ve been going to for years now so I didn’t think anything about it and agreed to meet her where she was in line.  Mind you, that while only 20 minutes had passed since I got my badge, the line grew to snake outside the building and around the block.  And this venue is pretty big…  So I went outside and meandered my way to where my friend was.  My friend was in her Erica cosplay from Gangsta (which really isn’t a suggestive cosplay at all) and me being the forgetful and relatively lethargic person I am, left part of my pair cosplay with her in a place where I couldn’t get it for the next three months and decided not to cosplay this year (since I had to get up early to volunteer and couldn’t be bothered to get up even earlier to put on cosplay).

So you have me, in my plain street clothes and her in her cosplay are chatting in line and I’m kind of on guard for a creepy guy but no one really fit the bill except for this overly friendly guy behind us.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and thought passingly about it until my friend started linking hands with me and leaning her head on my shoulder.  That’s kind of when a red flag went up.  She doesn’t normally initiate contact like that (at all since our friendship tbh) and started whispering in the non-English language we both spoke that he was asking her invasive questions like how old she was and if she was single and the like.  Then as we waited in line, her becoming increasingly touchy, he kept on asking her these questions as if I wasn’t there.  First of all, it kind of pisses me off when people ignore others in the group just to talk to one person.  Second of all, I wasn’t having these questions.  My friend was getting increasingly uncomfortable so I basically crowded her in front of me, using my body as a shield between her and him (which in hindsight, is kind of ironic considering I was the shortest out of us three and I’m relatively tall too…) and just engaging her in conversation and not letting the creep get any word around me.

Now, I’m not too confrontational, but I’m incredibly passive aggressive so I was hoping he would get the hint from our body language and leave us the fuck alone.  Nope.  This creep actually walks around me so he can tap my friend’s shoulder and ask her more of these invasive questions even after she had politely told him off multiple times.  She wasn’t having anymore of it, thank god, and told him firmly not to touch her (cheers to that).  He seemed to back off a little after that but I made sure I was still a physical blockade between him and her (also I didn’t know if he was going to lash out at her or rob her since she was wearing a backpack).  At this point we enter the building (which means we were near the front of the line) and see him, out of the corner of my eye, leave the line.  What the fuck man.  This line took us an hour to navigate.  Granted it isn’t as bad as other con lines I’ve been in (4 hours fuck that), but who the fuck waits in line for an hour behind a girl and hits on them?  Him, that’s who.  I’m sure he’s done this throughout the day too (who the hell has the time to wait in a hour-long line multiple times and hit on multiple girls… there are so much better uses of time) because I saw him try to get onto the con floor without a badge and turn around with an annoyed look on his face after he saw the security guards posted at the main entrance.

Please stick with your friends y'all even if you are all capable adults; even in broad daylight, creeps be acting out.

[sleepymarmot]

Twilight Mirage liveblog 3/5 (episodes 28-54)

28-35 

I'm very excited for a series of solo episodes!

Don't know how I feel about the new Grand Magnificent tbh… This concept feels more conventional than the original one, and I'm worried the aspects of his character I found interesting won't be in focus anymore.

I had my problems with the previous system and how it flattened down emotions into inaccurate categories, but so far I'm not excited about the switch… Blades in the Dark's mechanics were kinda hard for me to follow by ear, and being unable to keep track of the gameplay by myself is unpleasant; and the new classes sound really dull compared to the ones in The Veil. 

Iota's speech is strange… It sounds more like a simple copy-paste of real-life colonialism than the invasion described previously in the story. “They will ask you to give them a name like ours, they will ask to touch your bone” etc sounds nothing like Independence and its followers' modus operandi was, and, judging by the future tense, hasn't actually happened with the present time settlers yet – so where did that come from, in-universe? In fact, shouldn't her people have a relatively positive outlook on non-hostile outsiders, since they brought on the planet's golden age? Hopefully the following episodes will elaborate on this, because I've made peace with needing lore or plot points explained to me several times, but I need more clarity on big ideological question like this. 

Gig is such a Chaotic Good!!

Buying sex is legal, normal & common in the utopia and Signet is a regular customer?! Fucking seriously?! I couldn't even focus on the episode for the next half hour and eventually turned it off because my thoughts kept returning to this and I kept seething with anger. Way to ruin the episode after I was so moved and intrigued by the intro…

They've been pretty careful with past spoilers this season, here's I think the first example: talking at length about the Hitchcocks, plural. Sure, it was only an episode three spoiler, but it was such a good reveal! 

So, who actually printed out the ancient Quire people? Was it a political move from one of the sides? 

No Austin you definitely have not mentioned Earth building a giant Dyson spehere around themselves!!! What the fuck :D

Everyone got a nice inconsequential vignette and Fourteen's scene had actual high stakes…

I really, really don't get what Seneschal looks like

After half a season of two separate parties and seven solo episodes it's so nice to hear everyone together!

Signet's look is absolutely not the kind of thing I imagined her wearing…

Please tell me someone has made an animatic about Even's hair tendril high-fiving Gig's eye

36-45 

It's always cute when the first words after the intro are in that specific tone of voice that makes it obvious that at least 5-10 minutes before were spent in a lively conversation about some nonsense that finally was put to an end no more than two seconds ago (and then they talk about nonsense for ten more minutes lol) 

I love this show's dedication to describing everyone's outfits in extreme detail at every opportunity 

50k+ years later it's Art and Jack's turn to be the half of the party who walks right through the door and charm their way in lol. I hope they don't get shot or buy a bunch of torch units or something

I really like “finding a way to help a teenage community fit in the world” and “reconnecting a family and acquiring infrastructure for travel between planets” as the first projects; it really does convince you that these people have set out to make the world a better place (even if a lot of the time is actually spent pulling heists or fighting mechanical tigers).

Okay, the scavenger faction leader is literally a vulture, I get it.

What I don't get is why we are supposed to dislike that faction. There was some general “eh, they suck” said OOC during setup but we haven't actually seen them do anything bad! Show, don't tell! They need to, like, raid Big Garage and try to steal Gumption's arm if you want me to see them as an enemy.

Remember that nonsense I wrote about T. Rex in my C/w notes post? I can't believe they're doing basically the same joke on the actual show!

But how about… not capture or kill… but befriend the Axiom and/or release it into the wild… I know, I know, they can't travel far enough to move it to a safe distance from humans. But it just offends me on principle that after all that talk of diversity etc, when the characters actually meet a truly alien, unique species, they only consider the options of killing or capturing and exploiting them, and nobody even tries to ask “hey, shouldn't these creatures have rights, even if we are forced to disregard them in self-defence for the moment?” You know who I need to appear on screen ASAP? Bounty. Ask it everything! Does it remember being an Axiom? What did it feel like? What does it think about its transformation and new role? 

I thought Grand's special gun was just Even's gun?

Did Janine just call Belgard Signet's “robot wife”? Hell yeah

Me for an hour straight, not having read the description: Blease Do Not Kill My Alien Child I guess that's at least postponed now though… The situation did immediately get mildly creepy again, which makes me concerned. Is this just a different reason to kill a different Axiom – to Free Innocents from a Lotus Eater Machine? I'm getting serious September flashbacks. Honestly, between this, the other team's arc which felt like a crossover about the Chime in Marielda, and everyone getting a personal mech, this half of the season is starting to feel like Counter/weight 2, which is sad because at the beginning the atmosphere was much more original. Also I miss Primary and Satellite's correspondence, it was such a good framing device and a touching relationship at the same time!

Polyphony's powers and way of thinking are more similar to Quire than anything else

I feel very relieved and vindicated by the direction this story took!

Hell yeah finally more about the Waking Cadent!! I've been waiting for that for how many episodes now? Now that we've seen her in person I hate her actually Amend that, I hate both Cadents. A plague on both their houses!

46-54

Good on you Even, what's even the point of a military background if you don't pull rank on some jerks

Am I glad to hear from the Rapid Evening again! Bold of Austin to assume we could forget who Primary and Satellite were Okay, I first had this question a ton of episodes ago, but now it is relevant again: does Grey know the contents of the previous Satellite's final message? She knows about its existence because the numbers match up (yeah I went back and checked), but does she know that Crystal Palace either made a colossal miscalculation about Independence's route or lied on purpose for some reason?

Wait, characters still have beliefs? I don't remember this coming up since the game change

I completely forgot about Tender's cyborg legs and also misheard “I have a fake leg” as “thick leg” and was like “Uh good for you but how's that gonna help?!”

Once again, Team Exploration goes ahead and leaves Team Heist without resources lol. What do you mean they're using our ship for an orbital drop? What do you mean they've taken all axiom scanners? :D Seriously though, it's a shame that the sessions were played in this order because in-universe I see no reason why they wouldn't say “Hey before you go after Acre Seven, let's fly over Terncage and do a scan real quick” (the range on the scanners is far enough for that, right?)

I don't get how Ache works. For Quire, it made what it wishes it could be, but for everyone else it just made evil clones vaguely themed after their regrets?

TENDER IS A GAY DISASTER I haven't heard such a spectacular meltdown since Calhoun probably, holy shit

TENDER IS A DISASTER SQUARED she starts talking to a woman and just doesn't stop! This is a great episode

I like how Gig immediately says no to the devil's bargain

Oh Signet disregarding the digital Blooming, you clearly haven't seen/read (the future version of) Solaris :D

Oh no, it's the Smiling God! Came to visit another podcast that used to have a personification of capitalism as a big boss evil god

A crit at the last possible moment, after a long string of 1s… Ali's dice see through the fourth wall!

I… didn't fully understand the reveal of how it was all connected

Okay, so the Dark Day could have been prevented by keeping the gun dealer priest alive and allowing him to arm the NEH so that it could take over Twilight Mirage and wouldn't need to activate plan B i.e. come here and block signal from the Crystal Palace? Correct? It makes sense now, but Our Profit seems to be from such a far future that I just can't imagine how this plan was created and put in place

O….k… I actually expected Grand to leave the team and go off on his own (or become an NPC) as a consequence of the holiday special if he was the sacrificed character instead of the Chthonic. But now that's kind of strange to hear after all that talk of redemption and second chances?

You get a status! And you get a status! Everyone gets a status!

Wow having a near death experience out of the blue is so relaxing for Fourteen! :D NEVER MIND HOLY CRAP I'm glad that at least Fourteen kept their signature move from The Veil. I was wondering what it would be like, and honestly expected it to be just thrown out

Excuse me, “Omega in Mass Effect 2” and “cool place run by trustworthy people” are literally opposite concepts, have we even played the same game

Grand: Who likes Fourteen Fifteen? Tender, not even letting him finish: ME!!! 

Welp, my first guess about the Waking Cadent's identity was correct

Holy crap! I never realized Independence was in that one flashback episode of Counter/weight