Every now and then I think about ep 250 and just. Get very upset.
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@radiohostkevin
Every now and then I think about ep 250 and just. Get very upset.

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But what happened to the turkey vultures?!?!
Lauren was a distraction! The turkey vultures have taken over the city and are enjoying the spoils of their victory!
putting aside my issues with continuity (because i know there's a debate about what "continuity" means in wtnv) and putting aside my personal preferences, i'd like to talk about what's made me unhappy the last two seasons:
i think the story telling is bad
that's not to say brinknor aren't creative people and good writers, they are. that's why i listen to and enjoy the show. i've also read their more stand-alone and self-contained works, i know they are talented. this is not a dig on them or their abilities. if i didn't like them or their work i wouldn't bother with it
the main issue, for me, is that i think the last two seasons have been trying to cram in more ideas than the season length has air for, so we're not seeing the complete story. i think too much is being left intentionally vague for fans to play with in a way that doesn't work
year 10 ends with carlos becoming a night vale citizen and him reflecting on whether or not he's okay with that, whether or not he feels like he actually belongs here, despite that having been his main struggle while he was trapped in the dow. we saw that although carlos has committed to and prioritized night vale, and that was ostensibly enough for him to be accepted, he did not actually accept night vale back. we assumed that carlos' commitment to cecil over his work was him finally finding his place, but all it was was him finding his priorities. maybe it wasn't that night vale had rejected him, maybe it was that night vale was attempt to protect its voice, and only allowed carlos back once he agreed to love cecil like the town does
and then janet shows up. at the end of year 11, janet said that her primary motive for coming to night vale was to get back at carlos. we saw blake bullying carlos for having abandoned the university and how he's viewed as a disgrace. we saw the university staff threaten cecil. janet ruins the town that got carlos' name on the map. all of these events are congruous with the above struggle: does carlos belong in night vale or does he belong in the real world? is carlos a citizen or an interloper?
but that isn't the main struggle that plays out. other than what was stated above, and janet making a few backhanded remarks about carlos' bad science, there is zero evidence that janet's primary motive was to hurt carlos until she says so at the very end. in fact, at the beginning of the season, she stated that he primary motive was to make night vale normal. that's in line with her actions far more than hurting carlos is. hurting carlos feels like a bonus to what janet actually wants: to be in control and in charge. the majority of the season is spent antagonizing dana (which was narratively unsatisfying because it was a bland rehash of the a matter of blood arc, but i digress). carlos is not a participant in this story, he hides and he lets the city protect itself, he lets cecil take the heat for him
and when we step back and look at y11 in the context of the primary theme of y10's finale we learn the answer: carlos is an interloper
as soon as science becomes threatening again the town turns on him. they reject him, they strip him of his power, they judge cecil for being with him. the town did not accept carlos, they had a truce with him formed out of his marriage to cecil
y11 left a lot of questions unanswered: how long has carlos actually been gone? what contact did he have with the university after y1? who is still looking for him? what role does dr. kayyali and her search party have in this? was the glow cloud (all hail) the only perma-death?why did janet's explanation of the glow cloud (all hail) not kill its child too? why did the university have such a large staff? why did the entire staff turn on janet so easily and so quickly?
and narratively it feels unsatisfying because janet's stated motives were not in congruence with her actions. which fine. people lie. maybe janet was lying about what she wanted to prevent carlos from meddling. maybe she did want to ruin night vale for him but got distracted by the whole doubles thing so picked that up as a side project. maybe we only heard so much about what janet was doing to dana because cecil cares about dana and carlos asked cecil not to talk about the plan he was forming to defeat janet. i can accept all of that, i just wish we'd gotten a whiff of it instead of having it entirely being left to interpretation
so we leave y11 with questions about what the point of it all was when a) there was only 1 permanent consequence that we're aware of and b) it didn't provide us any new information. we got the most about carlos' backstory we've ever gotten, but that was really the only thing you could say came out of y11. and even learning that about carlos felt violating, felt inappropriate, furthered our question of who is carlos and what role does he have in town
and it seems like carlos felt it too, because he decides to go back to the dow. when he was there he gained wisdom about himself and who he was and what he wanted from life. he figured himself out and found his place in the night vale. after a year of having his status as professor robles of the university of what it is questioned and derided by janet and her team, and having his status as carlos the scientist hero of night vale scorned and rejected by the town, he wanted to return and gain clarity on how he picks up the pieces of himself
but that's not what happens either!
the boy shows up and the story becomes about him. we don't learn where the boy came from, how he appeared in night vale, why he's in night vale instead of desert bluffs, how the timeline supports there being two kevins when back in e106 and e209 the timeline made sure to kill the duplicate cecil. how did no one see that the boy looked like cecil? it could have been a fun reveal if everyone thought it was another little cecil (also playing into all the palmer childhood lore this season) only to bait and switch it being a young kevin. we don't learn why tamika specifically took over raising him or how carlos instinctively knew to keep the boy away from his family. we don't learn how the boy was rapidly aging while in night vale or what age he wound up stopping at when kevin took him away. we don't learn why mother lauren absorbed him instead of killing him outright, since she seemed more than happy to try to get rid of kevin. what happened to the boy's desire to be his own person and create his own timeline away from kevin's fate? isn't the finale a tragedy and not a happy ending? what did this season matter if everything he learned about himself and the world was erased? the boy does not get a full story because too much air was given to lauren and kevin
with lauren we don't learn how she re-made a name for herself in desert bluffs too, how she got in the smiling god's good graces, how she manifested the power she presented with in night vale, how her rise to power impacted kevin's control over dbt, what the state of dbt is after lauren left for night vale, what was her motivation for even coming to night vale, what did the night vale chapter of the joyous congregation think about this, did carlos' killing the centipede matter at all and does anyone care? lauren does not get a full story because too much air was given to kevin and the boy
with kevin we don't learn what becomes of his theocracy, what becomes of his control of the church, what did his speech on changing even mean and how does it impact things when he's choosing to create a time loop? when kevin said he was going to bring someone back with him, who was he talking about? where are charles and donovan and what do they think? why do kevin and carlos not interact even a single time? does the night vale chapter of the joyous congregation care that their prophet has returned and what does kevin's defending of night vale mean for their beliefs? kevin does not get a full story because too much air was given to the boy and lauren
some of these questions are nitpicks, some are good things to leave vague and up to the audience. the main issue here is that: 1) the boy does not get a beginning to his story, the middle of his story ultimately didn't matter because mother lauren erased it, and he has no true ending because we already know what that looks like and in its being a time loop it will never end; 2) lauren does not get a beginning or a middle to her story; and 3) kevin's motives are totally all over the place. does he want to change or is he still so afraid of losing control that being able to control his own terrible future brings him some kind of closure? why is the best he can offer the boy the same horrific life he's spent the last century trying to recover from?
and carlos does not get a story at all. none of this mattered. carlos wanted to go back to the dow but he never did, he never got the chance, we never saw what he did with the time that he had. is carlos doomed to living in this space of not knowing who he is or what his role is because he quite literally had to pull the plug on the one place that offered him a safe haven to explore himself?
in trying to tell the stories of 4 people, no one got a story at all
and that's what's really frustrating, it's just felt like the last two season's haven't mattered, moved along the primary story, or evolved any of the characters in satisfying ways
y1 carlos decided to stay in night vale; y2 strexcorp was defeated; y3 cecil freed himself from lot 37 and carlos confirmed his decision to stay in night vale; y4 night vale freed itself from the beagle puppy and hiram mcdaniels was brought to justice; y5 night vale fell apart and had to find a way to anchor itself in reality; y6 focused on resting after y5 and had the 2 and 3 parters, diving deeper into specific characters; y7 was about fixing time and the consequences of doing so; y8 was about the delta flight; y9 was about frank chen; y10 was another character-focused rest season concluding in carlos becoming a citizen; y11 was the university of what it is; and y12 was about the boy
other than y11 and y12, all the previous seasons had lasting consequences on the story at large. they had domino effects into how future seasons would be focused. the outcomes of those seasons had permanent changes on the town and its people. everything janet did was erased by carlos. everything the boy went through was erased by mother lauren. janet's season should have led carlos down a path of continued self-discovery and reinvention. the boy's season should have led kevin to further growth and change, and could have paralleled the palmer family story by showing how kevin was trying to overcome his own trauma and build a family with charles. maybe it's just too soon. frank chen was murdered in y1 and it wasn't until y9 that his story was resolved. maybe i'm just hyper critical and impatient
but i feel like a lot of people are noticing this trend and are speaking up about it. i was active in the fandom from 2012-2015, and then picked it up again in 2021. it wasn't until y11 that i felt that a season wasn't finished. other seasons had left me with questions, had left some loose ends, but i always felt satisfied with where we were at once the summer hiatus hit. i don't feel that way with y11 and y12, i've walked away from both now going "okay now what? so what? huh?"
i don't know. i'm kind of running out of steam for this post. the point i wanted to make is this: y11 and y12 have not had character motives that have strongly correlated to their subsequent actions; i don't feel like characters are being given complete stories with beginnings, middles, and ends; and they've both left me feeling like none of it ultimately mattered
anyway. that's my two cents.
I'm just saying that Kevin is such an important and powerful and meaningful character to I think MANY queer listeners who have survived religious (and other) abuse, and it would actually genuinely hurt my heart if his arc turned out to be:
"Once upon a time, there was a genuinely kind and selfless person who loved the people in his life enough to sacrifice himself to save them. But he wasn't strong enough, and found himself violently transformed into a tool of incredible violence, against his will.
"And the version of himself that still remembered what love and kindness were, that longed for human connection, survived within him. It persisted long after everything and everyone he had ever known had long since passed away. That version of him ached to live again, to be more than a twitch of the wrist in a body that no longer felt like his, to even remember his own name.
"That desire was so powerful that it manifested in the form of a young boy, one who hated everything he knew he would become and desperately tried to dismantle him.
"And finally, looking at his younger self, seeing it play out in this way, the older one finally regained enough pieces of his will. He consciously encountered a chance to change, to allow at least the young version of himself to be free again, to live happily in the real ways that a person can be happy, in ways that did not wrench the soul. He realized he had the choice to define his god with his beliefs, rather than the other way around. He took his younger self away from a god who wished to control him, and promised to raise him as his own.
"But in the end, the cycle could not be broken, because the violence within him was his, and he would not part with it. In the end, he chose to do harm. In the end, one day, he still chose to put the pot on the stove, and pour the boiling caramel into his own cupped palms."
Wtnv ep 250 spoilers:
The episode felt...shallow. They didn't explore the emotional ties between any of the characters, even when it was plot relevant. Tamika raised the Boy for a year and didn't even say goodbye or try to save him from Lauren. Carlos knew Kevin for a full decade and they didn't so much as speak to each other.
Then Carlos severed the portal between the Desert Otherworld and Night Vale just like that? Where is the emotional weight behind that decision? Even from a scientific standpoint, there's so much about the Desert Otherworld that we don't know, and that connection was just kinda casually cut. (Even though, as an aside, Desert Bluffs Too hasn't been a threat to Night Vale for years - decades, from their perspective - and so it feels hasty to cut off access to an entire town as a precaution.) It feels like that storyline might be done, and it's such wasted potential if so.
Speaking of wasted potential - Lauren's departure, and her lackluster interactions with Kevin. A few vaguely mean words, and she decides to leave? Why? We're not given any insight. Kevin and Lauren's vaguely antagonistic relationships was fantastic, and even that received little fanfare in the end.
This arc could have ended in so many different ways, and it was ultimately so unsatisfying.

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Wtnv 250 spoilers:
The whole episode being from Cecil's perspective really weakened the season finale, in my opinion. Guest voices would have helped tremendously, especially since the arc was focused on Tamika, Lauren, and Kevin. Instead, Lauren left Just Because, Tamika's change of heart happened off screen, and Kevin and the Boy resolved things... Sort of? It felt lackluster.
For an arc that's all about the possibility and inevitability of change the conclusion sure did stick to the status quo. It was so focused on returning things to normal that the stakes, and the emotional impact of the plot felt non-existent.
Do you think Lauren made the Boy, actually? Since he didn't know anything when he sprouted into existence but he remembered the Smiling God and Mother Lauren even if he didn't know what they were.
i already said it but its so interesting that adult Kevin, our Kevin, the Kevin who went through [gestures to everything before this arc] is the one who's saying he doesnt want to fight he doesn't want whats happening to be happening then the boy Kevin, this other Kevin, untouched by all that, is the one who is not only wanting to kill that Kevin, but is being mentored by Mother Lauren and fighting other people in Night Vale
bawling my eyes out what the fuck
that's right i will incorporate that into my worldview

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Come to think of it, even while it seemed completely unrelated, the themes are shaping up to be the same as they were in the past episode with Tamika. People change. And you have to accept those changes because that's just how it is.
Sometimes you're the rebel hero of a teenage militia and in the blink of an eye you're a 23 years old woman who is learning about diplomacy, who no longer wants to fight, though her desire to help others still burns bright.
Sometimes you're a little boy, curious about the world and everything around you, the light that shines bright over every new discovery. And then you're a grown man, and the light has burned you and you're a husk of who you used to be, no longer your own person, but you have made something with the remains of yourself regardless.
holding his face with my hands carlos baby you're insane. you're a father and a husband you just witnessed a murder you were just appointed the dean of a university when you haven't sneezed remotely in the vicinity of academia for at least two decades you just had your most terrible secret revealed to your loving husband who is Not reacting to the news at all is now REALLY the time to go check in on your side piece.
WAIT HOLD ON YOU MEAN WE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO HEAR MORE FROM THE DESERT OTHER-WORLD?????? LIKE WHERE THE DESERT BLUFFS *TOO RESIDE??!??!?!??! LIKE WHERE KEVIN LIVES???? AFTER ALMOST LIKE 5 YEARS???!??!? HOLY SHIT I'VE NEVER FELT SO FUCKING HAPPY IN MY LIFE IM SO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT EPISODES!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS BABYGIRL U WILL ALWAYS BE OUR SEXYMAN
👁️ kofi link in bio if you’re feeling generous 👁️
Congrats to Cecil for his win as Tumblr sexyman!

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I've always had such a hard time coming up with a design for Cecil that I like, so tonight I just gave up and drew myself, but Cecilfied.
When in doubt just draw a Cecilsona.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a wtnv/ tma crossover because the parallels are just so fascinating. There’s a lot you can do with both story concepts.