may angels lead you in (welcome to Night Vale)

[raven]

So, you guys, I want to talk about Cecil (possibly Baldwin - I remain unconvinced that he has entirely the same name as his voice actor) and what he looks like. In all my stories so far, I've deliberately not given him a physical description (except in "jus sanguinis, jus soli", in which he doesn't get a physical description just so's I can avoid spoiling the plot twist), because I'm kind of delighted at the idea of a character who really has no appearance specified.

(And, also, I have kind of a headcanon - which I think was given to me by such_heights - that while his voice is utterly distinctive, Cecil's looks don't really register in people's minds, so they go away and describe him as "Well, he's not tall. Or short. He might have been wearing a hat.")

But, okay, this next story I'm writing, he needs to look like something. Maybe he looks different to each person (and Steve Carlsberg imagines him as white, and he hates that - someone else's headcanon that I love), and I also love this Welcome To Night Vale fan trailer, which suggests he looks like a super-cute Richard Ayoade; but mostly I'm just really happy - so, so happy - that I can just unilaterally decide that he looks like me. If you do not know what I look like, kinda like this, only not that pretty.

And maybe there aren't that many South Asians in the American Southwest. Maybe Cecil is Native, or Hispanic, or both. Maybe his mother was from Nigeria and his dad was English. Maybe he embodies Night Vale itself, brown like the sand. I love this show so much.

(I'm aware that this is where I ought, by some sort of unstated obligation, offer comment on a certain tendency for certain people to imagine Cecil as white, and what this (intelligent and interesting) graph has to say, and, ah. Stuff. I have very little to add to that debate. If I may be lazy and link to something I've said elsewhere, this is why. I don't believe in opening my presence up to debate. I am here. I am the "you" in A Story About You. I am Runner Five. And I am Cecil, too.)

In other news, today I bought a new handbag and organised the things I carry around with me, and got a new external hard drive and organised the other things I carry around with me, and now I only have to press one button for my computer to trash 125 GB. I'm saving it for when I'm in particular need of catharsis.

Comments

[nostalgia]

I have no idea about Night Vale, but is it that thing happening where people assume unseen people must look like themselves and/or the people they see most often?

[raven]

I wouldn't know, it's a white people thing. As above, I don't really want to engage with it.

[nostalgia]

Fair enough :)

[celli]

My personal favorite headcanon for Cecil is Navaho/related to code-talkers, but a you!Cecil would be AWESOME.

[raven]

:P That Navajo one is LOVELY. I want to read 800 stories about that, really.

[avendya]

Oh, that is a really lovely piece of headcanon.

[adopts immediately]

[bibliotropic.livejournal.com]

kinda like this, only not that pretty
idk with professional stylists &c. as there are on movie sets, it would be very close.

I really need to check out Welcome to the Night Vale, because it, and all of this, sounds awesome.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Awwww! to tell me i look like Archie Panjabi is a very nice thing to say. And yes - yes, yes. Night Vale is marvellous in a way I have difficulty expressing.