#wtnv theories

[beansprout-tea]

WTNV 234 THOUGHTS

(to preface @asydicsydney made a post on this previously so check that out!)

// SPOILERS FOR WTNV 234 \\

okay so i definitely think that the boy is kevin, not a de-aged version but kevin as a child.

this may be far fetched but i caught a couple things while listening and had to make note... here are my weird and wacky thoughts

"I remember a sky so full of stars that it looked like a blank sheet of paper." -connecting to one of the pateron episodes(listener questions 9), kevin (when asked about what he remembers before strex) he mentions a thousand stars... which could also allude to a full sky

"My first breath was minutes ago." -linking to another patreon bonus episode (listener questions 9), kevin said that he remembers every single second of his own birth- which realistically this could make sense if the boy was kevin... the boy seems to be able to form thoughts and have the ability to collect memories (in the present) after having being just born

"His teeth look meticulously cared for." -again just the teeth analogies scream kevin (that's all i got for this one folks)

"I remember a warmth that did not comfort. I remember joy that wrenched the soul." (connection to the smiling god?) -yeah this one really made me think of the smiling god because the light that the smiling god emanates has been describes as "warm" those that worship the smiling god pray to its "great warmth". we kinda know kevin's backstory with the smiling god but i feel like it is a possibility that kevin was afraid of the smiling god growing up hence the use of words like "did not comfort" and "wretched". and the fact that the sentence was "joy that wretched the soul" what correlates with joy? the smiling god- and kevin.

basically the whole speaking avoidance with the boys mom- idk i just thought it was weird and raised an alarm -i just thought it was odd that the boy just really did not want to talk about his mom and it got me thinking that we don't know much about either doubles childhood so this one is kinda a stretch but i feel like there is something to connect both cecil and kevin's mothers together, i just haven't found it

also another note- cecil isn't able to recognize the boy as kevin because a) its kevin as a little kid b) cecil doesn't even know what he really looks like c) this is kevin as a kid... cecil hasn't seen or met kevin face to face before strex- he would have no clue what he looks like or even be expecting it to be kevin

in conclusion... i really got a whole bunch of kevin vibes on the down low from this episode and am really excited to see where we go from here

[agnes-come-back-challenge]

okok so i think the whole thing with Dr Lubelle's science vs Carlos' science feels like a metaphor for people using science as a means to deny people's cultures and beliefs. 9Like, Carlos likes science because he likes to understand things and wants to help people; Janet likes science because she wants to prove that she's right and Night Vale is wrong

[luvnotpercival]

He is still holding a knife????

Before I listen I relistened to earl Harlan episode and his son Roger is the clone of earl - I mean coincidence??? I think not!

[carlyraejepsans]

*youth pastor voice* and do you know who is also goofy and a scientist and got isekaid to another dimension?

[tournamentpollsinc]

Round One

Actually Healthy Couples

[huntokar-the-destroyer]

I love that the entire town of Night Vale are flat earthers. Not because they believe the planet isn’t round, but because they don't believe in mountains.

[passerkirbius]

Where are all the Audio Fiction Fandoms?

To be clear, this isn't me complaining, and I know, there are plenty of fandoms for audio fiction podcasts and the like.

But I have always found it weird how few shows get the big, self-sustaining kinds of fandoms, the ones where there's always at least a little trickle of fanfic and fanart. So weird, in fact, that I've been thinking about it on and off for the last 5-6 years, and I have a few theories I'd like to share with y'all as to why, and to see if I can't get some feedback from the audio fiction fans on Tumblr.

Theory 1: Audience Size

The first theory is mostly about demographics - fundamentally, a fandom has to be large enough to sustain itself, and only a certain number of audience members are going to become the kind of fans who make fan works, so ultimately, an audio fiction show needs to get popular enough before fan works start appearing.

There's plenty of support for this theory, of course - Welcome to Night Vale, Wolf 359, The Adventure Zone and The Magnus Archives are titans in the fiction podcast space, and indeed they have big fandoms. But, with that said, there's plenty of other podcasts that are just as big that don't have fandoms, so this can't explain it all.

Theory 2: Audience Distance

This one is similar to the first, but subtly different. A few creators in the space I've talked to have noted that they'd never make fan works of their friend's shows - that feels weird, like deliberately treading on their friend's work. They don't have this feeling when playing in big fandoms, or fandoms where they don't know the creator. This implies to me that fans need a certain level of distance from creators in order to feel comfortable playing with that fictional space. While this is less the case now with the fall of Twitter, a lot of shows, for better or worse, used social media as the primary pillar of their marketing, as well as using Patreons with special access as part of their monetization strategies.

In short, it's never been easier to get close to the creators of your favourite shows, and for smaller shows, the most exuberant fans - the kinds who might make fan works - are also the kinds of fans who will take those opportunities to get closer to the creators. In short, there just might not enough social distance for fans to be comfortable creating works, not at least until the audience grows sufficiently that a creator simply cannot be that close with their entire audience.

This theory I'm not so sure about these days - this one is probably a lot more dependent on the generation of fandom you belong to. Older generations of fandom are more likely to have this queasiness around creator closeness, because they were creating in a time where fandom was a shadow realm, desperately hidden from The Powers That Be, and "No Copyright Infringement Intended" was carved into fan works as an eldritch attempt at legal protection.

Theory 3: Audience Age

To be clear - there are fans of all ages out there. But it is clear to me that fandom trends young, and part of that is just the time needed to participate in fan culture - creating and consuming takes a lot of time, time that tends gets scarcer and scarcer as you get older (there are obvious exceptions of course - stay-at-home mothers have consistently been a major force in fandoms!). It's possible that audio fiction fans just tend to trend older, and thus don't have the time available to create and consume fan works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how relevant this one is - Audio fiction is becoming more popular with younger audiences and slowly shedding the "old fuddy-duddyness" that surrounded it when I was first getting into the space. And, ya know, there are audio fiction fandoms out there, so obviously either the youth aspect of fandom isn't a thing, or it is, but audio fiction audiences are still trending young anyway.

Theory 4: We're getting what we need!

A lot of academic discourse often focuses on the idea that fandoms create for a reason - and that reason is often to focus on parts of a fiction that the original text, for whatever reason, doesn't. The most obvious form of this is the many, many, many examples of ships and erotic fanfiction. You, as a fan, watch a show, see something between two characters, and get frustrated that the show isn't giving you more of that, won't make what is clearly obvious to you, explicit. So, you consume and/or create fan works that help relieve that tension instead.

Or, in shows where the focus is primarily on plot advancement or action, you feel a desire to get to know the characters better - you see the stirrings of these characters, you want to know them better, but the show just isn't the type of show to give you that slow, character-heavy scene/episode that you know would give you exactly what you need, so, again, you go consume and/or create fan works to fix that.

It's very possible that a lot of audio fiction is already built to give these sorts of fan audiences what they want. There's already romantic relationships, characters are openly queer, the nature of the audio medium means that character-heavy scenes are something that the medium directs creators towards, so there's already a lot of character engagement. So, for many fandoms, there just isn't much need to create fan works - there's no tension between what the show is and what it could be.

Theory 5: We can make our own at home!

One interesting theory is that one reason that people make fandom is because, fundamentally, the creators understand that they're not going to be making a film, or a TV show, or a book. They have creative urges, and they're not in a situation in life where they're likely to overcome the enormous barriers to entry in mainstream media, so, in combination with the stuff in theory 4, they play in other people's worlds instead. They know that there's already an audience who will consume their work (they're part of that fan community, after all!), so they can get that validation of creation without needing to create their own TV show or film or book, etc.

Podcasts, however, are different. Now, it's not true to say that podcasts have low barriers to entry - to create a podcast, there's a lot of skills you either need to learn yourself, or find collaborators with those skills. But, those barriers to entry are much lower than visual media. At the very least, audio production is significantly cheaper and less complicated for an equivalent runtime.

Better, podcasts have absurdly low barriers to publication - There are no gatekeepers to satisfy, no distributors you have to convince. Once your thing is made, pretty much no one can stop you from distributing that work. You don't even really need to pay for a podcast host - there's a few free podcast hosts now. So, once you've done the work, pretty much nothing stops you from publishing said work.

So... If you're a creative fan, who loved a show but thinks you can do better? Well, you can! You don't need to play in other people's spaces, you can be inspired by the podcasts you listen to to create your own original work, in the same medium and genre.

What do y'all think? Which of these feel right, which of these feel obviously wrong? Are you part of a audio fiction fandom? What does your fandom feel like to you on the inside? As a audio fiction creator, it's kinda hard for me to get into the inside of fandom culture, so insider perspectives would be super neat for me, so please reblog this to anyone you feel might have an interesting perspective on the whole thing!

[mag-madness]

The Magnus Protocol has brought about another cycle of being unable to use the internet until I have listened to the latest episode of a show, or else I risk having it spoiled for me within half a seconds of scrolling

[easily-distracted-by-fandom]

Cecil begging us not to listen to him. His fear at his voice being taken, it’s terrifying yes. But isn’t that also what happened to Kevin? Not in a literal sense, but Levin, who wanted nothing more than to protect his hometown, had his voice taken and twisted into a weapon for the very people he fought against and isn’t that what’s happening to Cecil right now?

Idk I just thought the parallels there were interesting

[takavasen]

Cecil is gushing about Carlos on air again, our lives are saved

[beansprout-tea]

WTNV 235 EPISODE NOTES 🫵🏻

so we did get an update about the boy and im almost positive he is Kevin from the past (SEE MY WTNV 234 EPISODE NOTES POST)

let’s get into it though

firstly, we had a direct mention of the sandstorm incident/episode and direct mention of doubles to which Cecil says

- “Let’s hope not. I can’t deal with facing my double again.”

so this was in a way a direct mention of Kevin

the whole convo about the rusty switchblades seemed very out of place but it also reminded me of all smiles eve but also it’s the fact that this is the first time Tamika sees the boy smile, mentioning that it was cute. BUT ALSO SCARY.

I’m also mentioning here the way that Tamika and Cecil talked about Les Misérables was very much an illusion towards something else 👀 (SEE MY MORE IN DEPTH POST)

and finally the last thing worth mentioning is the change of pace, the boy wanting to read something more upbeat and then Tamika bring up The Joy Luck Club

-I haven’t read The Joy Luck Club but I did find these and I think that this boy (Kevin) is trying to tell Cecil something at the right time or is trying to rewrite his own narrative. also two of the five evils being a snake and a centipede screams Cecil and Kevin

so that’s it @asydicsydney and I talked theories this morning and this is my blurb about the new episode

[agnes-come-back-challenge]

If Cecil does remember his childhood, how will that link up to the Uni of What It Is plot?

Dr. Lubelle wants to explain everything in Night Vale, bring all its impossibilities into a single point with one truth that doesnt contradict itself. Most of Cecil's childhood is fractured -- part of why he doesnt remember it is because his early life is spread out across every reality at once. If he remembers his childhood -- his "true" childhood -- will that be reminiscent of Night Vale being fully rationalized?

[luvnotpercival]

Headcannon time!(sorry it's so long I just have so many ideas)

I'm relistening to "who's a good boy" and my thoughts are that when Cecil was walking around he was talking into a tape recorder or something. Also when he encountered the evil beagle puppy he was recording it afterwards inside city hall right before the traffic. I'm getting really into this now for some reason lol.

I do think that he has some power but the interns (r.i.p their many lost souls) get him the majority of news and some of it is through his WINDOW that I keep forgetting he has and also some creativity in his part.

Also with the city council - I think them and station management are connected in some way so that their formats are still quite similar. Also theres a lot of contradictory forms of station management. In "who's a good boy" for example (cuz I'm listening rn) they're described as having black cloaks and I'm assuming seperate bodies but in the more recent episodes they're described as being a multiheaded single boddied entity and we have no explanation. I think that the city council are a hive mind, basically they're the same person (a little like Hiram) but they change form whenever they feel like it and when that happens everyone's memory gets wiped so they believe that nothing has changed to do with the city council.

Sorry this was so long

[arkhaichno]

Every time i get asked what one of my other interests are, they get a 1000 page explain and either regret it or respect my dedication/obsession. Either way, I am too powerful, it seems.

[arthurtaylorlester]

i think with the events of the recent episode, it’s important to recognise that was dr.Lubelle is doing is not explaining things.

that’s not why sarah sultan died, because when joseph and kareem went to her to try and figure out a way back to the ‘’real’’ world, she shrugged their experiences off as delusions. she didn’t actually explain WHY there are doubles for everyone (probably reality-converging timeline shenanigans), she made them think they had gotten an answer, when we know for a FACT that joseph fink is not from night vale, we heard him get trapped.

And then she went off to try and find dana to dig up the grave of her (not?)double, so she could make up some half-baked explanation about it and gaslight literally everyone, including us the listeners, about the events that we literally heard go down.

She isn’t explaining shit because she doesn’t understand wHY night vale is like this, she just wants everything to fit her version of reality. so basically I’m saying dr lubelle killed sarah sultan in some other fucked up way