Welcome to Night Vale Ask Panel

[otakuotome]

Hello fellow Fanime attendees, I'm interested in hosting a Welcome to Night Vale ask panel where cosplayers from the series gather and answer questions from the audience. If there are cosplayers interested in helping me with this I'd love to hear from you. I'd like to get at least 5, as for the max number of people I'm not sure how many people are allowed to be presenters in a panel. The named main characters would be great first priority (Cecil, Carlos, Kevin, Old Woman Josie etc.) but I'm happy with any Night Vale characters who would like to join. Doubles work too if I get more than one of each character interested.

Characters for the Panel: all are tentative until the Panel itself is registered/approved

Nightvale Community Radio Intern: otakuotome
Cecil: Eli
Carlos
Kevin
Old Woman Josie
The Angels
The Man In the Tan Jacket
Mayor Pamela Winchell
Steve Carlsburg
The Hooded Figures
The Glow Cloud
any other characters I didn't list

[Gwydion]

I'd like to see this happen. ^^

[Tenya]

I would love to see how someone would cosplay the Glow Cloud. That would be amazing.

(I'd go to this panel if it happens. Still undecided if I'll actually cosplay from this, though. I mean, I actually am a research scientist who studies earthquakes in the desert, but my hair really isn't perfect, so I dunno.)

[Gwydion]

I would love to see how someone would cosplay the Glow Cloud. That would be amazing.

(I'd go to this panel if it happens. Still undecided if I'll actually cosplay from this, though. I mean, I actually am a research scientist who studies earthquakes in the desert, but my hair really isn't perfect, so I dunno.)

For all we know Carlos' hair isn't either, Cecil just thinks it is. ^^

'Sides I'd say your job makes you more than qualified for it, "perfect" hair or no.

[Tenya]

I would love to see how someone would cosplay the Glow Cloud. That would be amazing.

(I'd go to this panel if it happens. Still undecided if I'll actually cosplay from this, though. I mean, I actually am a research scientist who studies earthquakes in the desert, but my hair really isn't perfect, so I dunno.)

For all we know Carlos' hair isn't either, Cecil just thinks it is. ^^

'Sides I'd say your job makes you more than qualified for it, "perfect" hair or no.

Haha, you have a point!

Considering that many of my friends (and myself) tend to forget about haircuts until we're overdue, and considering how much Cecil freaked out about Carlos' haircut, maybe "perfect" equals "shaggy" in this context...

(I actually don't have my own headcanon for what Carlos and Cecil look like, at least not yet...)

[THUG BEAR LIFE]

hey, guys. as someone who helps run panels, as an avid night vale fan, and as someone who was actually asked via tumblr about the idea of running a night vale panel, i'd like to put in my two cents about why maybe...a night vale panel isn't such a good idea? not without permission from the creators, at least.

night vale is poignant in its loose degrees of interpretation. the creators have done their best to maintain ambiguity in things such as setting, character appearances, personalities, and the like. having an ask panel with people cosplaying physical interpretations of characters who have no canon appearances strikes me as a little disrespectful to the series!

it's totally fine to cosplay the characters. that's radical. i cosplay cecil, myself! but something just reeeeeally strikes me as not kosher to have an official panel using cosplayers projecting their headcanons onto the characters they're cosplaying. the only way i could imagine that being circumvented would be to have a BUNCH of different cecils, and a BUNCH of different kevins, and a BUNCH of different old woman josies and angels and carlos and yeah that will get way too messy way too fast. there's also the issue of completely differing personality/history headcanons, given that there's little to no set canon for things such as cecil's childhood, carlos's life outside of night vale, kevin/desert bluffs, etc. there isn't much canon information to do an ask panel ABOUT.

secondly, the creators are REALLY good about getting back to the fandom about stuff like this! when asked about selling merch, they replied promptly that, no, they would not like us selling merch of their characters. when i sent an email myself asking if it was ok to hand out free night vale stickers at shows/cons/etc, they replied back saying, yes, that's totally fine! so i think it would be very respectful of you to email joseph or jeffery and ask them if they are ok with you guys running an ask panel. for all they've done for us with this series, it's the least you can do!

anyway, yeah. i only post this because i had someone ask me on tumblr about running a night vale panel, and i gave them much the same answer that i'm posting here. obviously i can't stop you! but i hope i've given you some food for thought, at least. please be mindful that ask panels are fun and doing one for a fandom you like can be really exciting, but there's a loooot of consequences that i really think you ought to consider.

[otakuotome]

hey, guys. as someone who helps run panels, as an avid night vale fan, and as someone who was actually asked via tumblr about the idea of running a night vale panel, i'd like to put in my two cents about why maybe...a night vale panel isn't such a good idea? not without permission from the creators, at least.

night vale is poignant in its loose degrees of interpretation. the creators have done their best to maintain ambiguity in things such as setting, character appearances, personalities, and the like. having an ask panel with people cosplaying physical interpretations of characters who have no canon appearances strikes me as a little disrespectful to the series!

it's totally fine to cosplay the characters. that's radical. i cosplay cecil, myself! but something just reeeeeally strikes me as not kosher to have an official panel using cosplayers projecting their headcanons onto the characters they're cosplaying. the only way i could imagine that being circumvented would be to have a BUNCH of different cecils, and a BUNCH of different kevins, and a BUNCH of different old woman josies and angels and carlos and yeah that will get way too messy way too fast. there's also the issue of completely differing personality/history headcanons, given that there's little to no set canon for things such as cecil's childhood, carlos's life outside of night vale, kevin/desert bluffs, etc. there isn't much canon information to do an ask panel ABOUT.

secondly, the creators are REALLY good about getting back to the fandom about stuff like this! when asked about selling merch, they replied promptly that, no, they would not like us selling merch of their characters. when i sent an email myself asking if it was ok to hand out free night vale stickers at shows/cons/etc, they replied back saying, yes, that's totally fine! so i think it would be very respectful of you to email joseph or jeffery and ask them if they are ok with you guys running an ask panel. for all they've done for us with this series, it's the least you can do!

anyway, yeah. i only post this because i had someone ask me on tumblr about running a night vale panel, and i gave them much the same answer that i'm posting here. obviously i can't stop you! but i hope i've given you some food for thought, at least. please be mindful that ask panels are fun and doing one for a fandom you like can be really exciting, but there's a loooot of consequences that i really think you ought to consider.

This is all very true. I did email the creators and they said it would be fine as long as I didn't claim the panel was official or endorsed by WTNV or CommonPlace books, which I wasn't planning on doing anyway, thus a "fan panel" not an "industry panel." As it stands, no one has contacted me or shown any interest in pulling this together with me, so it's probably not going to happen, but it's still important to get permission, so thank you for reminding me.

[Tenya]

I've never organized a panel before, and honestly am not sure how it works, but I'd still like to see a WTNV one. If there's some way I might be able to help, let me know.

And regarding the issue of canon/fanon/interpretation, I actually think that infinite possible interpretations is one of the really cool things about non-visual media. There are N number of ways you could be a Cecil or a Carlos or a Josie, and they're all equally valid and fun, and a panel in which every member has a different interpretation could lead to all sorts of weird and unexpected. I think that's a positive - interactions between different interpretations, and knowing that a WTNV fan panel at one con would likely be quite different from one at another con. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no way this panel could be anything but a fan panel, since none of the people involved work for the show, so why not use that space of possible interpretations to show how creative and wacky the fandom is, and how inspired people are by words and sounds alone?
(Especially since, as it seems, we do have the creators' permission.)


(Edit: As a sidenote, it actually kind of weirded me out how much the same all the Cecils and Carloses at ALA looked. There's no official design! How did this consensus and limitation on interpretation happen?)

[Vasyenka]

This sounds like a lot of fun! Funny enough, my friends and I are going to have a WTNV group at Fanime (Cecil, Carlos, Man in the Tanned Jacket [or hooded figure] and an intern), however we were planning to only wear our costumes on Day 0. If we could have an idea of what day you're planning this panel, I can ask my group of they'd be interested in participating~ c:

[otakuotome]

@Seismogenic: thank you! I'm happy you are interested in attending. I was planning on being the latest intern and introducing the characters as a order from the Sheriff's Secret Police or something, but I'd be happy with another Intern if you interested in participating with the panel itself. PS: I think tumblr is to blame for the close designs of characters as a lot of artist have latched on to similar designs for Cecil and Carlos.

@Vasyenka: woo Nightvale group. I'm not sure how soon Fanime will have it's panel registration up, but as soon as they do I'll try and see what is available. Perhaps mention it too them to see if it sounds like something they would want to do and see what time of day works best and I'll try and request that.

[Tenya]

@Seismogenic: thank you! I'm happy you are interested in attending. I was planning on being the latest intern and introducing the characters as a order from the Sheriff's Secret Police or something, but I'd be happy with another Intern if you interested in participating with the panel itself. PS: I think tumblr is to blame for the close designs of characters as a lot of artist have latched on to similar designs for Cecil and Carlos.

I'm actually thinking of cosplaying Carlos, since, as I said earlier in the thread, I actually am a research scientist who studies seismic phenomena, sometimes in the desert. My hair is not perfect, but hey, that's where the costume part comes in, hahaha.
I don't know if that'd be helpful for what you had in mind for the panel, though, whether organizationally or in terms of participation.

[otakuotome]

@Seismogenic: that works too! Perfect hair or not I'd be happy to have a Carlos on the panel.

[Vasyenka]

My group got back to me, and they'd be interested in participating! (fun fact: our Cecil actually does a really good Cecil Baldwin impression rofl) I think Saturday evening/night would be best on our end, so if this winds up becoming a thing we'd love to attend~ c:

[hitintothecove]

My friend did Steve Carlsburg with me at the last con we went to. I can try and see if he wants to do that again for the panel. He and I are really good friends, and we can riff off each other really well. I tend to make fun of him a lot. - Eli

[otakuotome]

@Vanyeska: Yay! I'll let you all know when the time and date are if the Panel is accepted.

@hitintothecove: if he wants to we'd be happy to have him!

[graphdesino]

If it's not too late for me to join, I have an Eternal Scout cosplay I'd like to show off!