About You: The Welcome to Night Vale Fandom

[meowm1x]

it basically goes like this:

fetishising abuse ends up normalising abuse

normalising abuse means becoming complacent to the real issue and ignore victims and survivors + an increased demand for abusive porn because the real issue has been diminished

increased demand for abusive porn + becoming complacent about abuse victims and survivors = causing a dangerous climate for the wellbeing of persons that need emotional support the most and a negative influence that may make others become complacent too

triviliasing the issue of the abuse aka “you’re being oversensitive”, “who cares it’s just fantasy”, “shut up and deal with it” can cause internalised hatred in victims which causes further slow down in recovery and makes the persons blame themself or stay silent about what happened to them

rape culture already exists to blame and silence victims and normalising abuse plays into that

people can combat this by being more socially conscious, less apathetic and realise abuse is a real life problem, and that fetishising it and avoiding being responsible for your actions and the way it affects others only continues to cause more harm and adds to rape culture

[cultofthepigeon]

so the mass response,from what i’m understanding as of now, seems to be that

one or two people write abusive stuff so the whole fandom has a problem

a few other people write and draw hella fucking kinky stuff but even if it’s tagged it’s not considered ok because kink and being kinky is disrespectful to people who’ve suffered abuse

and shit that’s super rough and kinky is just plain abuse

????

[meowm1x]

so basically you ignored everything i said about how these things dont exist in a vacuum, the difference between consensual partners and putting things in a public space, and the negative affects that degrading the actual real negative impact this shit has on communities

and still referring to abuse as “kink”

lol ok then

and yes, as someone who has engaged in kink, i know there’s a difference. doing rough, heavy things in a safe and very consensual context is kink. getting your kicks from seeing people getting abused, fictional or otherwise, is a huge red flag for abusiveness.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

The BDSM slogan is "Safe, Sane, and Consensual". This is put in place to ensure all participants are willing participants in the kink. NOTE THE "CONSENSUAL" IN THERE. When fic (and it's more than two or three people) and art portray people raping and abusing and stalking each other, that is not them participating in a kink. They are participating in sexual offenses. The people reading and writing them are NOT writing about people consensually participating in a kink, they are writing people acting out sexual offenses. The worst part about that is that these offenses are framed as sexy and beautiful in the fics and art. This contributes to rape culture, the normalization of nonconsensual and rapey attitudes that are why rape statistics are so saddening.

If these people would like to write about rough sex, they should write about rough sex, not rape or sexual assault. If they want to write about BDSM, they should research it and write about BDSM, not torture, unsafe practices, and abuse. It's not as simple as having the characters agree on a safe word and then going at it.

Writing about rape is an entirely different thing, something that should not be taken lightly, NOR should it be treated as "sex you didn't know you wanted" which is how sex is often treated in Cecilos fics.

[catsaremisandry-deactivated2014]

"I’m not racist, Cecil’s voice just soundswhite.”

1. You can’t (accurately) tell race based on voice. 2. What you’re actually hearing are speech patterns that you tend to associate with whiteness. 3. White!Cecil headcanons might not necessarily be racist, but saying Cecil’s voice sounds “white” is pretty suspect.

(IDGAF how you picture Cecil, but please stop throwing around excuses to avoid acknowledging that white is the default race in our culture.)

[internleland-deactivated2014040]

having the url cecilpalmer.co.vu and shitty internet means i accidentally click through to chrome’s suggestion of cecilpalmer.com often and every time i’m always like “wow white vale’s got news for this guy”

[mermaidbiologist-deactivated201]

cecil palmer is a white name

[thatstockgaycharacter-deactivat]

why does all popular fanart of cecil depict him as white

like

he’s “neither tall nor short, neither thin or fat.”

that is all that is canon.

why not black!cecil. asian!cecil. biracial!cecil. latino!cecil.

[wolfwum]

But there's no fanon Cecil! No one believes that!

(Fandom Fanatics: “Surreal, Striking, and Utterly Funny: Welcome to Night Vale”)

Well, all headcanons are valid and the fact that there are POC headcanons means people know and care!

"Some of the time Cecil is a skinny blond nerdy guy … Other people think he’s very inhuman … Often the two portrayals are combined.”

[note lack of “Others think he’s a Native American walking fashion disaster. And even others think he’s bald and genderqueer. It’s rare that a piece of media has a character so open to interpretation.”

Also from the Fandom Fanatics article]

Yeesh, it’s just one article! It’s not like it’s even the New York Times reporting or something—

NPR: “Can Welcome to Night Vale” Resurrect Radio Drama?” (2 Oct 2013, only white Cecils featured)

Wired: “Welcome to Night Vale, the #1 Podcast on iTunes You Didn’t Know Existed” (8 Aug 2013)

"While there’s no official description of Cecil — the closest we’ve come is “not tall or short, not thin or fat” — fandom has reached an astonishingly specific consensus as to his appearance: a neatly-dressed blonde in his 20s or 30s, sleeves rolled up to reveal intricately tattooed forearms."

[note use of the word “consensus” here; it is not a fandom consensus, and if you use the defense “every headcanon is valid” you’re pretty much agreeing there shouldn’t be fandom consensus]

The Backlot: “Interview: Cecil Baldwin and Jeffrey Cranor of “Welcome to Night Vale”” (31 Oct 2013, only white Cecils featured)

The Artifice: “10 Reasons to Listen to Welcome to Night Vale” (28 Jul 2013, only white Cecils featured)

"Despite having no visual aids from the podcast itself, there is a surprising alignment in visions of what Cecil [Palmer] and his love interest, Carlos the scientist, look like. Cecil is frequently white (although there are some excellent depictions of him as a person of colour) …"

[although the article mentions POC headcanons, there was still only one piece of fanart featuring Cecil, and he was white (not to mention the questionable wording of “surprising alignment); there was no other Cecil fanart to attempt to balance it out]

LiterallyDarling: “Welcome to Night Vale—Wait, Where’s That?” (27 Aug 2013, only white Cecils featured)

The Daily Dot: “Everything You Need to Know About ‘Welcome to Night Vale’” (27 Sept 2013, only white Cecils featured; especially interesting given the attention paid to the argument at hand)

PBS Idea Channel: “How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown?” (25 Sept 2013)

"How did we get this Cecil—the Tim Gunn-ish-looking character, who is definitely tall and definitely skinny, with the tie and the tattoos?” [appx. 5:26]

[while not exclusively white art is featured, 19 out of 25 depictions of Cecil are white (76%); given the explanation for how no one and everyone are correct, you’d think it’d be more even]

BuzzFeed: “11 Reasons You Should be Listening to ‘Welcome to Night Vale’” (16 Aug 2013, 6 out of 8 (75%) Cecils are white)

But his voice actor—

Kevin’s VA is black

Dana’s VA is biracial

But he sounds—

Here’s a post with nine people of color who work in radio and samples of their voices. (Which is a sad thing to link to, since that means they have to prove their existence rather than people just accepting that voice is voice)

Jasika Nicole, Dana’s VA has also responded to this horse hockey

Stop shaming headcanons!

I’m shaming social conditioning, not you or your headcanon. Have fun, but, unlike in Night Vale, don’t forget to look up every so often and ask questions.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

I linked to this in my last post, but I feel I must add that switching to a Carlos voice actor who is not white has not significantly impacted whitewashed portrayals of the character. The most lasting influence coming from the switch seems to be how people draw his hair.

[heliosapphic]

Hey so this The Guardian article that’s been linked on here a lot, it’s cute and all but can we also be critical of this telling excerpt:

“The global Night Vale fan community seems to have come to the spontaneous shared conclusion that Cecil has a third eye, likes to wear purple and has elaborate sleeve tattoos, judging by the reams of fan art on Tumblr.”

All the linked fanart is of course white Cecil, and almost every news outlet and influential fandom website pulls this same nonsense in their articles, acting like it’s a great thing indicative of the unifying power of a harmonious fandom or something. It seriously warps the perception of newcomers and anyone who hadn’t heard of the podcast before seeing these articles. 

So again, tangible evidence of White Vale’s harmful impact. Don’t act like it’s not a problem. 

[escuincla-babosa]

“it’s a great thing indicative of the unifying power of a harmonious fandom”

“tangible evidence of White Vale’s harmful impact”

Unity and harmony are harmful, everyone. Would you please stop that.

Don’t you understand that we have to be divided and in conflict all the time? It’s pocecil VS. white vale. Don’t forget that. YOU MUST PICK A SIDE.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

It seems you have grossly misquoted whimsicalcircles in order to come to your conclusion. The first quote you use as evidence is actually:

almost every news outlet and influential fandom website pulls this same nonsense in their articles, acting like it's a great thing indicative of the unifying power of a harmonious fandom or something.

The quotation clearly, clearly refers to how this sort of singular exposure of only white Cecil is harmful and does not, in fact, unify the fandom, as Cecil can be any race and the overwhelming amount of white Cecil fanart only perpetuates the opposite thinking. That Cecil does in fact have a canon design when that is absolutely untrue.

With that in mind, it doesn't actually contrast with your second chosen quotation, which you have paired with the former in order to ignore the conversation most desperately needed in this fandom.

Especially since this really actually isn't the first article to use only white Cecil fanart.

[consensualnightvale]

Consensual Night Vale IS BACK!

*Linda Belcher voice* ALL RIIIIIIGHT.

I know everyone who liked this blog is going “wtf?” right now so I’ll try and explain some things:

A couple of days ago CNV was deleted, apparently without warning? Let’s get this out of the way: I AM NOT THE PERSON WHO RAN IT BEFORE, I HAVE NO IDEA WHY THEY DELETED. Someone took the url and convinced me to remake the blog. I agreed, because I and a lot of others considered CNV a safe space in a sea of grossness. 

If whoever ran CNV before is still around, and decides they want it back, I’m more than happy to do that.

I’ve written some sort of About for the blog for everyone to look through, if you think it’s missing something please let me know!

This whole running-a-blog thing is new to me, I’m still setting some things up, comments and constructive criticism is welcome! I will make up some sort of tag list soon.

I’m also hoping to set up a links page with a directory of artists/writers/bloggers, send me a message if you’d like to be included!

All right, I think that covers everything? For now I’m setting up the queue, and in the meantime if you wanna submit or link me to anything please please PLEASE do so! (Especially fanfic tbh, because I’m finding actual non-abusive fic a total pain to find right now).

P.S thank you to cartograffiti for sending me a bunch of stuff previously featured here, and to the lovely kurzz for the icon!!

[ludo-vician]

Please report Defend Acevale to tumblr at [email protected]

Their blog title is “Kill Internleland” which refers to an actual tumblr user of the same blog title. It should be obvious how this constitutes as harassment under Tumblr guidelines. 

I’ve also reason to believe that the blog is being managed by TheRestofSuni, as they’ve been reacting poorly to statements made by several members of the Welcome to Night Vale community in the past few days. Report and block as you see fit.

[edwardspoonhands]

I met Olga in 2010 at VidCon. She was a very smart, very clever, very cool young woman. I thought it was weird (but kinda cool) that Tom had found a cool fan who could hold her own with a bunch of the top-tier VidCon folks and let her behind the curtain a little bit.

It…

[happierman]

Joseph and I have received many emails about Tom Milsom. Thanks for bringing this terrible story to our attention. We’re upset & disappointed to learn about what has been going on.

John and Hank Green articulate so many of my feelings here, so I have little else to add other than I am sad. Sad that trust is fragile. Sad for the unnecessary pain of others. Sad to have been involved with someone who could cause such harm. Sad we have to have stories like this over and over again.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

Tom

Good.

[sigmalibrae]

If anyone is wondering specifically the song by Milsom that was included in Night Vale, it was “Irony About Me” featured in Street Cleaning Day (Episode 15). A song that I will not be purchasing or supporting because this artist does not deserve the support. I’m glad at the response from Joseph and Jeffrey, and from the other industry artists who are responding quickly and appropriately to this mess.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

They also featured a song of his (promoted heavily beforehand because it was the world premiere of that song) in "A Beautiful Dream".

[therisingtithes]

Don’t forget, this Friday another How Many Cecils chart goes up.  If you want the project to grow, or just because you’ve seen an interesting Cecil you think I’d like, please submit it!

[edwardspoonhands]

I met Olga in 2010 at VidCon. She was a very smart, very clever, very cool young woman. I thought it was weird (but kinda cool) that Tom had found a cool fan who could hold her own with a bunch of the top-tier VidCon folks and let her behind the curtain a little bit.

It…

[happierman]

Joseph and I have received many emails about Tom Milsom. Thanks for bringing this terrible story to our attention. We’re upset & disappointed to learn about what has been going on.

John and Hank Green articulate so many of my feelings here, so I have little else to add other than I am sad. Sad that trust is fragile. Sad for the unnecessary pain of others. Sad to have been involved with someone who could cause such harm. Sad we have to have stories like this over and over again.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

Good.

[wealf]

i’m not going to apologize for the format this post has taken:

tom milsom is a scumbag. he is unapologetically racist, he is a rape apologist, and at the age of 22 he was in a relationship with a 15 year old girl who he sexually and mentally abused.

he used his popularity to manipulate and abuse a minor and for that HE DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR ATTENTION OR SUPPORT.

[astoryaboutu-blog]

Tom Milsom has been featured on the Night Vale Weather twice. This is relevant to you, fandom.

TW: DISCUSSION OF RAPE, SEXUAL ASSAULT, RAPE APOLOGISM, AND RACISM IN THOSE LINKS

[astoryaboutu-blog]

Oh my god is that "troll" blog still going?

Report them for spam at this point because that's what's going on. They're spamming the tag (big surprise, a racist is in the #POCecil tag and the fandom at large has decided not to care) so report them for spam. Yes, honey, we can report you for this because spam means "posting stuff in the tag that is not relevant to it".

[astoryaboutu-blog]

If anyone was wondering why I kept silent during this whole discussion on the topic of whatwouldcecilwear today, it's only because I've just gotten back from a day out with friends. I wish I had been here when this was all going down, seeing as how I happily endorsed them only yesterday.

Now I see I've been a bit too quick in judgement, and since, according to the mods, I am one of their top favorite blogs, I will comment on this ordeal:

Continuing to block internland only shows a reflection of your character. And it's reflecting horribly. Your attitudes in the posts and conversations show that you are not truly sorry for what has happened, or if you are, you're still trying to make excuses as to why your initial reaction was justified.

Apologies do not come with defensive retorts, nor do they waffle about trying to save face with the fandom despite needing to show humility and proper respect. This is not the sort of incident that will "blow over" if you keep making token apologies. It will not blow over regardless, but making a full and true apology in the first place would have seen this incident differently.

I am so sorry I recommended this blog to you, followers. For as fun and artistically useful as this blog was, these actions and attitudes are not ones I want to be associated with. I'm now finding it truly ironic that I was placed on that list of favorite blogs, because I would hope followers and fans of my blog would know by now that this sort of self-centered behavior is not praised around here.

I am so terribly disappointed in whatwouldcecilwear, and I must retract my recommendation for this blog, as well as my statement about it being one of my favorite blogs.

[cecilbaldwin-fan]

The Real, the Semi-Real, and the Verifiably Unreal

37 yo Community Radio Host. He/His pronouns. Queer POC. Follow for SJ, fashion, adorable animals…

This is amazing. It’s not an RP blog or ask blog, but like ,”what would Cecil Palmer do on Tumblr”. And it’s a SOCIAL JUSTICE blog in addition to cat and cute.

I love this fan. This is a cool fan.

[kiaxet]

Podcasts Vs. Patent Trolls: How You Can Help

You know how you don’t pay attention to some threats until they directly target you? Yeah, we got one like that. Listen up, because if you’re a podcast fan, this involves you. And before you go the tl;dr route, just think about a world without your favorite podcasts.

Are you a Welcome to Night Vale fan? How about Thrilling Adventure Hour? Nerdist? AfterBuzz TV? Hell, do you listen to podcasts at all?

Then this is your fight.

According to the article, here’s what’s going down:

The short version is that someone is asserting a patent that claims to control the mechanism by which you subscribe to podcasts. And by “asserting,” I mean that they’ve fired a warning shot at the entire podcasting community by suing Adam Carolla. The way that patent suits work is that a) they tend to file in the plaintiff-friendly Eastern District of Texas, where these companies set up “offices”; b) they sue one major player in an industry and try to extract a large settlement from them, because defending these things is very, very expensive; and c) they then use that precedent to go sue others in the business and get similar paydays. It’s a means by which one can make a lot of money without having to actually produce anything (in fact, many of the trolls just buy idle patents for the express purpose of suing big companies). And if they succeed, it can run into millions of dollars, millions that the defendants don’t have.

But it’s one thing — not necessarily a better thing, just one thing — when the suits target big companies. Podcasting is not a big-bucks business, and the pockets are not deep at all. That’s why it’s kind of perplexing that Adam got sued, and that the podcasting industry, such as it is, is being targeted. Nobody’s getting rich on podcasting at this stage; it’s still early, and many if not most podcasts are more hobby than revenue generator. And if these suits succeed, they could choke off the industry before it is an industry. The good thing is that these patents aren’t likely to win in court if the case goes to trial. The bad thing is, to defend against these claims is going to cost a bundle. Like, a million and a half, easy. Which is why they sue, and why many of the cases never get to the trial stage.

If you want to keep your favorite podcasts around, now’s your chance. Click the link. Donate to the cause. If you can’t donate, reblog the post, retweet the link, do whatever you can to spread the word. If we’re going to shoot this down, we need to do it here and now.

We may not all be citizens of Night Vale, or Adventurekateers, or AfterBuzzers, but we’re all podcast fans, and we need to stop this before it picks up momentum.

EDIT: For those whose browsers don’t like Nerdist.com, here’s the direct link to the fundraiser page.