okay I NEED to write a post that’s not just me taking the piss out of my mind palace and I need to write it like RIGHT NOW because I WANT to admit that there are things I’ve said that I think could be better or more accurate. there ARE bits and pieces I’ve neglected . and there are things that I haven’t articulated yet that I want other people to KNOW ABOUT!!!!
like with things other than himself masato’s poker face kind of sucks. with his older brother he’s way more open about how he feels, but he’s still not saying some critical SOMETHING. masato and tashiro, sometimes, occasionally, (frequently) just talk very easily. their dynamic is like astonishingly….. nuanced? like some days it’s taaaaashiiiiiiiiroooooo-kuuuuunnn and other days it’s
and some days, in my mind, masato is sitting very quiet and still watching tashiro do nothing in particular, and he’s torn between wanting to run away and stay right where he is until he stops breathing, or at least until his heart stops beating so damn hard.
and I definitely haven’t highlighted enough how legitimately functional and . well. “normal” . masato is externally despite his nights being plagued by dreams. or how so much of his angst is because, despite everything, he’s still just as young at heart as his friends are. in the space of his family, he’s still just a kid. he’s not unflappable he gets flustered and caught off guard he’s silly and expressive but he’s hard as hell to read sometimes. he lurks around corners. he’ll oscillate wildly between reflective and flippant. he’s PETTY.
he’s someone younger brother, and he’d rather be at his death bed than admit whatever fundamental something it is that he’s avoiding so hard.
like it’s. meaningful, that’s something I haven’t really gotten to. it’s meaningful that masato is always a few steps away from death, or half a dozen steps past it. he can even wear a detectives hat—it might be the only way he would ever, EVER open up. like. I’m going to loosely quote sunnnfish’s textbook but You can do things to a dead body that you can’t do to a living one.
but I also think that if I went back and altered the. dirtbrain hanzashiro canon, I guess. I’d make it easier to remember that masato isn’t 100% steeped in miseries. because I definitely think that I make it sound like that. like I should say that I don’t revel in his misery. not because it’s true necessarily but because I put so much of myself in front of and also into him that it reflects badly on me if I don’t. but anyway he still has his fun his distractions work it’s just that he’s plagued by dreams. the river is the metaphor for his burdens. that’s the bottom line. so it’s not that he’s being plagued by feeling nervous AND the river. they’re the same. the river is a prominent image in his mind, as it is in mine, but when he thinks of it he’s not thinking of it as the physical manifestation of his burdens, he’s not tying them to the river. they’re distinct in his mind, because he refuses self reflection.
also I’d play into the crime scene thing more. I like masato I want him to have fun and I think he deserves to wear a detective’s hat and dance around dgs holmes style. even if he does still have that massive puncture wound in his chest. even if he is still bleeding all over. like masato’s a weirdo but he’s not in isolation, is what I mean. not practically. he isolates HIMSELF but that’s because he’s ashamed of his vulnerability, not because of any external rejection. he has fun, still, but when he grows quiet, when his eyes open, when his expression is, ironically, even harder than usual to read, he’s being burdened by himself. but otherwise it is out of sight out of mind and hanzawa masato does so enjoy being silly and weird.
the thing, though, is that tashiro, from his outside perspective, DOES think of the river as it’s own entity. how could he not. he hasn’t been filled in yet on the things masato’s been putting up with in that freaky head of his, so he thinks of a river washing hanzawa senpai up like any regular corpse and it’s.. scary! if he could, masato would dance around his own corpse, investigating the lividity and wound in his chest with detached enough vigor, but tashiro isn’t like that. tashiro CAN’T be like that. tashiro had been surrounded by red lighting, flickering, buzzing, and saw the body in the water, and decided that he was here to do something, and he went and pulled him out and bandaged him up. which is a scene I’ve been struggling to write. and obviously “decided” is a bit misleading, because there was nothing else to do. like what sort of demon would tashiro have to be to see someone floating down a river in a scary environment like this and just LEAVE them there?
it’s like as far as chronology goes tashiro’s interactions with the river are complicated. because in MY chronology like as in the order they were written by me. in my capacity as writer. tashiro’s in reality first, only seeing trace unrealisms following masato around (the lanterns in the hallway, the blue hour, etc.) but in THEIR chronology. tashiro, who’s unacquainted with dreams mostly, suddenly is viscerally aware that he’s in one, and there’s a river in it. and while I haven’t gotten to saying so explicitly yet, like with a lot of things, the closest tashiro gets to being in the river is a dangled foot over the side of the pavement, skimming it. not taking a proper step into that world, but getting a feel for it. and then he takes hold of masato’s wrist, then hand, and pulls him out of the murk. bandages him up. mapping intimacy, hands brushing against masato’s ribcage.
and it’s obvious for me to say, I live in my brain and all of these details click together in ways that are mostly going unnoticed, this is before any realizations are fulfilled on tashiro’s part. he’s doing this because he found hanzawa senpai basically Dead in a river and he could help. he’s doing this because he’s himself. he’s doing this because he has no idea why else he would be here.
it’s just like. dirtbrain’s hanzawa to tashiro is a struggle between my capacity as a writer and my understanding that I could tell the story I want to tell so much better in a visual medium that I don’t have access to. so basically while I work out my own shortcomings everyone join hands with me so we can send harusono sensei psychic pleas for news on hanzawa to tashiro. or at least the over 10000 words on hanzawa masato. etc.
23 notes
·
View notes
in light of people's confusion over cecil's longevity in @sexymanotd i wanted to document a bit of his history for those unfamiliar or nostalgic
welcome to night vale is a podcast written by joseph fink and jeffrey cranor. cecil gerschwin palmer is the main character and voiced by cecil baldwin.
it debuted on june 15, 2012 it reached its peak in popularity in 2013-2014
despite this, wtnv has been one of tumblr's top fandoms since staff started tracking fandom-related data in 2014
for the longest time the only thing we knew about cecil's appearance was: "He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short. Not thin or fat." and that wasn't until episode 19 which aired march 15, 2013. for almost a full year we had no idea what cecil looked like. so tumblr's collective unconscious kicked into high gear and we did what we do best
we created a tumblr sexyman
from know your meme: "Defining traits of the archetype include skinny body type, trickster or villain role and dapper clothing."
know your meme identifies wheatley (portal 2, 2011) and the onceler (the lorax, 2012) as being likely tumblr's first sexymen. and the onceler fandom was at its peak in 2012-2013, the same time as wtnv. in addition to this, the hannibal fandom has been cited as one of the contributing factors to wtnv's success on tumblr.
so tumblr had created an archetype that worked and the wtnv fandom was made up of mostly hannibal fans - the foundation for putting cecil in a suit was there. and honestly? cecil's at work in the show, why wouldn't he be well dressed?
however, while this explains his attire it doesn't explain some of cecil's more unique sexyman features, namely the tentacles. for this we have to return to the 2014 fandom review analysis where you can see the most popular fandom at the time: homestuck
haven't you ever wondered why almost a quarter (189/923 at time of writing) of E rated wtnv fics on ao3 are tagged tentacles or tentacle sex? why cecil having tentacles for a dick is such a seemingly popular headcanon? well look no further then homestuck cultural hold over.
throughout all of this, the development of the sexyman archetype on tumblr and the rise of homestuck, one creator really stands out: kinomatika
kino was one of the most popular homestuck artists on tumblr at the time, popular for their eridan fanart. if you google image search "welcome to night vale" kino's art is still one of the first results you'll get
their design was so popular in fact it was featured in wtnv related articles from the time
and yes there were absolutely other artists giving cecil tentacles and moving tattoos at the time, but it can't be understated the reach kino had and the influence their homestuck roots had on their design choices
i recommend going through the archive of @nightvaleartclub to see how cecil used to be portrayed back in the early days. unfortunately the earliest fanart i've been able to find is july 2013 and i find it hard to believe it took tumblr a year to draw him. although, i started listening at episode 5 and didn't start drawing him until then myself so who knows...
cecil has had tumblr's heart in a vice grip since episode 1, with "20,000 posts, 183,000 blogs and 680,000 notes using the #Night Vale tag" during its first week. tumblr's love for wtnv has always been fairly genuine, from the impact the writing has had on tumblr humor and future story telling, to how wtnv paved the way for lgbt+ representation in indi media, to how it popularized podcasts as a medium for story telling, to the little comforts some of cecil's quotes still bring people today
cecil is not only a founding father of tumblr culture, but also a blorbo of the people. cecil the character in canon has a tumblr account where he posts his art and slash fanfiction.
although cecil's character has developed over time and we've come to see what a ditzy, eccentric, brat he really is, changing his status from sexyman to babygirl, cecil is absolutely a character you should embrace. and you know what... despite what i've said in the past
#cecilsweep
[ID: Images one and two are Google analytic graphs for the search terms "welcome to night vale" and "wtnv" between June 15, 2015 and January 27, 2023. They both depict very sharp spikes around 2013-2014 until the lines decrease greatly over time.
Image three is a drawing of Cecil from Welcome To Nightvale. He is white, with white hair, glasses, a third eye on his forehead, and he is wearing a suit. In the background is the silhouette of a neighborhood from the WTNV official art, a galaxy, and a moon. It is tinted purple. Image four is the always has been meme. Instead of the earth is the tumblr logo, and the text is: “a wtnv fansite?” “Always has been”. End ID] id thanks to @princess-of-purple-prose
12K notes
·
View notes