my favorite thing about welcome to night vale is how it perfectly balances the polar opposite sensations of unsettling dread of the unknowable, newness and uncertainty and comforting warmth of familiarity to create a narrative that feels both like going on a journey with no specific location in mind and returning home after a long time away. there’s a cat in the station bathroom that floats and whose meows sound like the tortured shrieks of some eldritch beast, but who has kittens and is cooed at and fussed over by its guardians like any regular pet. there are angels, over seven feet tall and strangely proportioned, who wear the sweaters and hand-me-downs given to them by a kindly old lady out of a genuine appreciation for her kindness, and who look after her faithfully until her dying day for no other reason than that she accepted them when no one else would. there’s a forest full of trees that were once people on the highway that may assimilate you into its ranks if you venture too close, but which calls out helpful and encouraging compliments to brighten your day as you pass by. the radio host is as strange and eccentric as the town he inhabits, and yet he is loved both by the townsfolk and by the man who was once a stranger, terrified and fascinated by every new and impossible phenomenon and person he encountered, who is now his husband and who has found a home in a person and a place he feels emotionally attached to, not just in pursuit of a scientific objective but by the human connections he has made in his time spent living there. it’s a story about falling in love, in every sense of the word.
