#Tyto listens to WtNV

[kingdomoftyto]

Re-reading the transcript for "Matryoshka" on my lunch break.

"Angels are real. Our town is a deeply weird place. We know and acknowledge that it is a deeply weird place. There are dotted lines and arrows in the sky, and I love my family. And I love my brother Steve, he was right about everything, he always has been."

Valiantly not crying on my lunch break.

#Tyto listens to WtNV #I didn't realize the show was approaching its fifth anniversary until the episode started. #and then the intensity of the previous four or five episodes made a lot more sense lmao #god though..... between this one and the previous... everything just being so completely matter-of-fact has me gobsmacked #and the fact that these were originally aired in 2017 is not lost on me either. jesus the political subtext is so good

[kingdomoftyto]

I forgot to mention it when I was actually at that part of the podcast, but can I just gush for a minute about how great a detail it is that both Cecil and Carlos are CANONICALLY touch averse? With as much silly fanservice about the two of them that we get, and with how Cecil in particular is always, like, making baby talk at cute animals and stuff, I was SO surprised when Steve first said that Cecil doesn't like hugs. That single line felt like a huge lightbulb moment for me, like: OH. So he IS a more reserved person in his private life. There's more to this guy than just his public radio persona, and we're finally going to get to see hints of that. And the timing of this revelation being around the same time that everything else was being called out for being lies and denial was brilliant--it felt THEMATIC.

Carlos' touch aversion, on the other hand, is more explicit and is brought up several times in the second book, and to my eyes it reads as more blatantly neurodivergence-coded than Cecil's does. Combined, it just makes all the times they DO lean on each other or hold hands or whatever all the more heartwarming.

#guh I love them. can't believe I'm rambling at length about Cecilos in the year of our lord 2024 but here I am #Tyto listens to WtNV

[kingdomoftyto]

"Carlos, if you could just pause your experiment for a second--if you could only hear me out, hear my hypothesis! I think once you understand the science of the situation, you--" Carlos opened the door. He was crying. She had never seen him cry. He was overwhelmed and unsure of how to express his emotions, since he usually only did so in carefully worded sentences, not with water from his body. "The science of the situation?" he snarled. "That Otherworld. I was trapped there, Nilanjana. I couldn't see Cecil for ten lonely years. I was kept away from the people I love, in that desolate place where you never get hungry and you never have to drink water and so you never live. It is a place that devours. It is a place that is empty. That is the science of the situation, and I study it so I can fix it. Only I can do that. Only these experiments can do that. I'm sorry, Nilanjana; I'm not going to stop so you can tell me what science is."

🫠

#Tyto listens to WtNV #spoiler warning I guess for a book that came out a few years ago now #anyway yeah hi I finished the book #the resolutions to the plot and to Nils' character arc were pretty good. nothing to write home about but fun and serviceable #I personally get annoyed whenever a story pulls a ''you thought this romance would end with these two TOGETHER? lol NOPE'' #like we get it it's more realistic for whirlwind romances to end in a breakup and sometimes it's better for people to just stay friends #but firstly this isn't real life; it's fiction. with narrative devices and such. #and secondly WtNV of all media does NOT get to preach about realistic relationship trajectories when its lead fell in love at first sight #lmao I'm just saying. I'm not MAD about it or anything it just made me roll my eyes. #ANYWAY. that aside: it was good. and I do genuinely like the friendship Nilanjana builds up with Darrell at the end #but obviously the real star of the show was Carlos and the completely unprecedented character depth that they smothered him in. #not ONLY recontextualizing over a year's worth of the podcast but ALSO saddling him with LAYERS of guilt over the events in this book #he *KILLED* the *GODDAMN* *CENTIPEDE* #after his beautiful little speech about not killing things just because we don't understand them! #he was just SO traumatized by his time in the Otherworld and SO afraid for his family after Janice nearly got Got that he KILLED IT!!! #and THEN!!!! not only do they find out that the centipede wasn't responsible for the destruction!! #but it turns out it was HIS OWN MACHINE THE WHOLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #his attempts to keep everyone safe were what actually caused the danger!!!! AUGH HE WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP #HE'S JUST SCARED AND HE WANTS EVERYONE TO BE SAFE AND NOT EXPERIENCE THE SAME HORRORS HE DID AUGHDUSHGHDH #...anyway yeah back to my regularly scheduled episode listening tomorrow

[kingdomoftyto]

Hey everyone how are you doing today because I'm uh. I'm??? I'm.

:^)

Yeah I'm!! really Going Through It, holy fuck

#ignore me #Tyto listens to WtNV #I've passed the point I originally stopped back in the day so this is all new to me #me after episode 100 (an ignorant fool): WOW there sure has been a lot of plot-heavy stuff happening but that was a nice repreive. I bet we #'ll have a few chill episodic fillers before we get back into another huge plot thing :) #Fink and Cranor: lol. lmao even. #I mean FUCK we barely had time to blink before [REDACTED] died!!!! that would have been earth-shattering enough on its own!!!!!! T_T #and then before anyone's had time to recover from that suddenly REALITY IS CRACKING APART AT THE SEAMS in a way that is somehow #JUST AS IF NOT MORE UPSETTING than when the city had to fend off a LITERAL DEMON attempting to drag them all into nothingness!! #it's less direct terror and more overpowering dread in this case but oh my god the DESPERATION in Cecil's pleas at the end of ''Cal''!!! #he's so afraid of the others abandoning the city but he wants THIS reality!! #THIS is the version of his life that has Carlos and Janice and all his other precious memories in it...!!! GUH #I'm losing my everloving mind over the last few episodes if you couldn't tell #and the next one's title. god. GOD. and he opens the announcements by saying 'hey if you're new maybe dont start with this one' which is 8^)

[kingdomoftyto]

...also that conversation between Nilanjana and Carlos had me seriously raising my eyebrows because he described the appearance of some stereotypically sciencey gadget he was going to use to solve the mystery and when she asked him what it did, his response was, specifically, "I just explained it to you."

Up to this point I've accepted all his cartoonishly vague science experiments as just How Things Work in Night Vale, but suddenly I am convinced that he's actually been giving in-depth breakdowns of the physics and geology he's been studying every time, and that some supernatural force is making it so certain people (including the podcast listeners) only hear it as science-buzzword gibberish.

#Tyto listens to WtNV #or maybe I'm totally wrong and it was just a continuation of the same old gag ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #either way I am on HIGH ALERT for clues as to what Carlos' deal actually is. something continues to be fishy about him

[kingdomoftyto]

#Tyto listens to WtNV #.......... holy shit #............ #okay. okay so. I thought I had a couple things figured out beforehand and that turned out NOT to be the case. #but still. this is A Lot. #like. if you've been at this point in the series you know I'm underselling just How Much that episode was. but yeah. this changes EVERYTHING #god. and this is only like halfway through the episodes that currently exist?? and the show is STILL GOING TODAY??? #where the hell do we even GO from here I am REELING

[kingdomoftyto]

ohhHHHH MY GOD one of MY favorite hyper-specific angst tropes in the second Night Vale novel???? IT'S MORE LIKELY THAN YOU THINK

#IGNORE ME #Tyto listens to WtNV #SPOILERS FOR THE ''It Devours!'' NOVEL BUT #////////////////////// #///////////////////////////////////////////// #///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// #CARLOS WAS IN THE DESERT OTHERWORLD FOR *TEN* *YEARS*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #AND IT MESSED HIM UP SO BAD HE NEVER TOLD ANYONE NOT EVEN CECIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #GOD it makes me want to go back and relisten to all their phone conversations from back then #but I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT. I have WAY too much to go still before I'm caught up. I CANNOT be sidetracked that badly #guhdasfuwhg Cecil's been dropping some scarce hints in recent episodes that Carlos had a secret from back then #but I NEVER EXPECTED IT TO BE IN THE BOOK. JESUS