Welcome To Night Vale / Night Vale Presents catch-all

I was really really pleased by episodes 70.

Spoiler:

I love that Night Vale is really so open to anything that I really believed they could have broken them up if the story was right, but I also love that they didn't.

This was the strongest episodes in a while, IMHO.

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Additionally,

Spoiler:

I was a teeny bit worried for Cecil when he got handcuffed to the chair, but then I remembered that he seems to be remarkably resilient and long-lived.

Katy wrote:

Oh Kevin... you have impeccable decorating skills.

Ew.

Spoiler:

Wow, that was a lot of plot advancement!

I feel sorry for poor Violet now.

Po-tah-to.

I too got through ep 70 just now. Loved it.

Spoiler:

I was surprised by the identity of the owner of Lot 37 and the handcuffer, that was a good twist, but I knew they weren't going Gift of The Magi route because the left-behind letter made Kevin sad. Also he said it was to be hand-delivered so leaving it behind was the delivery, and then I remembered he said 'trip' not 'visit'.

In addition, I strangely agree with Kevin. In addition to the comfort of anticipation of joy based on the sadness experienced now, I always ate my vegetables first; get that yucky stuff out of the way so you can enjoy the good parts. Of course I also had some episodes of dysthymia, so that's probably where I learned to bear with current troubles in knowledge of better things to come.

Haven't listened to 71 but it was mentioned in an earlier episode. Who wouldn't have given a month's allowance at a peek at the Registry of Middle School Crushes back in the day? That would have been..awesome yet ultimately heart-breaking.

RolandofGilead wrote:

Haven't listened to 71 but it was mentioned in an earlier episode. Who wouldn't have given a month's allowance at a peek at the Registry of Middle School Crushes back in the day? That would have been..awesome yet ultimately heart-breaking.

I had no allowance in middle school, so it would have been a great deal!

sometimesdee wrote:
RolandofGilead wrote:

Haven't listened to 71 but it was mentioned in an earlier episode. Who wouldn't have given a month's allowance at a peek at the Registry of Middle School Crushes back in the day? That would have been..awesome yet ultimately heart-breaking.

I had no allowance in middle school, so it would have been a great deal!

Yeah, mine was $1/week, so I'd have happily sacrificed $4 for that.

I'm all caught up.
How the hell did that happen?
Time to start from the beginning so I can notice the foreshadowing and references!

The Ask Me Another quiz show had some of the Night Vale folks (Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink, Cecil Baldwin) on their current episode, "All Hail the Mighty Quiz Show".

Also, beware of books.

Katy wrote:

The Ask Me Another quiz show had some of the Night Vale folks (Jeffrey Cranor, Joseph Fink, Cecil Baldwin) on their current episode, "All Hail the Mighty Quiz Show".

Also, beware of books.

I got the audio book because a) books are dangerous, b) books are illegal, and c) librarians are scary.

Caught the book tour in Chicago last night. It was fun!

This made Demyx's brain-a-splode

(h/t TMS)

Blood-Space War... Interesting concept.

Looks like Cranor and Fink are making some additional audio drama alongside Night Vale.

Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, the show’s creators, are starting their own podcast platform, Night Vale Presents — along with a new fiction series, “Alice Isn’t Dead.” The podcast, which follows a truck driver who travels the United States in search of her wife, begins March 8 with a season of 10 episodes.
[...]
Mr. Cranor is at work on his own new fiction series, which is likely to come out this summer.

(source)

That's potentially interesting. I kind of lost interest in Night Vale lately because it just started to feel meandering, and the same batch of weird for the sake of being weird things strung together. The new thing sounds like it might actually have some narrative direction.

A bit more information about for "Alice Isn't Dead". First episode in two weeks. (Well, I think it's two weeks. Everything says both "Monday" and "March 8". Perhaps they forgot it was a leap year.)

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb2ILO1UcAATpat.jpg)

From the creator of Welcome to Night Vale, Alice Isn’t Dead is a biweekly fictional serial which follows a truck driver traveling across America in search of her wife, Alice. For years, she had thought Alice was dead. But Alice isn’t dead. Alice isn’t dead at all. New episodes every other Monday. Performed by Jasika Nicole. Written by Joseph Fink. Produced by Disparition. Part of the Night Vale Presents network.

Podcast feed here. (I think).

From Disparition:

[...]
- this show features, on average, more truck sounds than any episode of Night Vale except for perhaps upcoming episode 95 “The One With All The Truck Sounds”
- it is much more plot-driven than Night Vale
- it is darker
- As far as I know, the story is not connected or related to Night Vale
[...]

I thought Alice was an intern who died when a portal or something opened between Night Vale and Desert Bluffs and their doppelgangers were stepping through and murdering each other (some time around Episode 23, I think?). Well... I say "died," but really she was told to go into the portal to see what was up and I don't think she ever came back. IIRC, Her doppelganger did and I think the host killed her?

ETA: I just double-checked, it was a sandstorm that kind of merged Night Vale and Desert Bluffs, episode 19. I'm only 22 episodes in and it's been a few weeks since I listened last. I'm re-listening now because I was always bummed that Cecil lost his first intern and I'd be really happy if she really was Alice like I thought

DOUBLE EDIT: I was wrong-- it was Dana

WipEout wrote:

I'm re-listening now because I was always bummed that Cecil lost his first intern and I'd be really happy if she really was Alice like I thought

DOUBLE EDIT: I was wrong-- it was Dana :(

I think you should listen to the next five dozen episodes before starting over at the beginning.

Katy wrote:
WipEout wrote:

I'm re-listening now because I was always bummed that Cecil lost his first intern and I'd be really happy if she really was Alice like I thought

DOUBLE EDIT: I was wrong-- it was Dana :(

I think you should listen to the next five dozen episodes before starting over at the beginning.

Haha! I know I've been meaning to, but I tend not to listen to podcasts at work and my wife doesn't really enjoy Night Vale, so I keep putting it off.

I went to a comic con over the weekend and saw several Cecil's- I had hoped for some accurate representations now that Cecil has actually described himself a few times, but everyone was still doing the purple suit and cliched third eye thing. C'mon, people, get out your beekeeper hats and furry pants.

Alice Isn't Dead started today by the way!

It's GREAT! Super creepy and the music is frickin' awesome.

cool. Another new sci-fi podcast is being added to the Nightvale presents series along with Alice isn't Dead (which continues to be great). "Within The Wires"

IMAGE(http://static1.squarespace.com/static/56660bf257eb8dd25948eabe/t/5755d3d001dbaebef5c2fcfa/1465242605653/?format=300w)

Um. That was particularly surreal, especially the visualization exercise on the B side.

Katy wrote:

Um. That was particularly surreal, especially the visualization exercise on the B side.

It's up to three episodes now and it's super weird and quite wonderful. The overall story is starting to take shape...

Spoiler:

... as the 'visualisation exercises' start to make much more sense, and you start to get an idea of what's actually going on here and who's speaking on the tapes

It's really clever and I'm super interested in seeing where it's going...

Oh also - Alice isn't dead has finished it's first season of episodes and it's AMAZING. Can't wait for season 2.

Yeah, I dare say I like Alice Isn't Dead more than Night Vale, and episode 3 of WTW has totally grabbed me.

Going to see the Night Vale live show in Seattle on Friday!

Alice and Within the Wires are both excellent podcasts, but different enough from WTNV that I personally can't compare them. Why pick favorites when all can be enjoyed!

Half the time when I'm listening, I wish WTW was a game instead of a podcast.

Another one!

I don't like Orbiting Human Circus quite as much as the other productions. I can't quite put my finger on why, but it does seem less grounded in a single through-line story, which may be part of it.

There are definitely some clever bits -- I liked the retellings of the cricket's story in different voices in the latest episode, but the central character (whether that's the circus, or the janitor) isn't really grabbing me.