Title: War Will Make Soldiers
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Gen
Categories/Genres: Family, Drama, Angst
Length: Short (1307 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: daftalchemist

Summary:

The Carlsberg house is full of mysteries and unknowable truths, exactly the kinds of things Tamika needs for her army.

Review:

This fic contains spoilers for Welcome to Night Vale up through episode 53.

Steve Carlsberg. Oh, Steve Carlsberg, how we have learned to love to hate you, can practically hear Cecil's snarl in our ears as we read your name. Steve Carlsberg. Did you hear it, then? I did.

Unfortunately, there's not much I can say about this fic without spoiling a vast swath of Welcome to Night Vale, but if you're caught up, you need to read this Steve Carlsberg-centric fic. It's a fascinating look into the Night Vale that exists outside of Cecil's admittedly broad but broadly biased scope. In it, we see Steve Carlsberg, not through Cecil's eyes, but telling his own story. It, and the September Monologue that it was based on, expose the way Cecil's bias has affected us, the listeners, inculcating us into despising someone we knew nothing about long before we had ever met him.

So if you haven't yet listened to episode 53, do that. Then read this fic. If you're not humbled and shamed and moved by the end of it, well.

War Will Make Soldiers

Title: I Want You to Feel Familiar
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories/Genres: Memory alteration, Established relationship, Hurt/comfort, Romance, Fluff
Length: Medium (2367 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: scioscribe

Summary:

“I know who you are,” Cecil said, finally looking at him. His pupils were still just pinpricks from the force of the light. “Carlos.” He rubbed his temples. “The power,” he said, “was out for a really long time. Citizens with power outages, especially during times of rolling blackouts, may experience a temporary sense of identity dislocation.”

(Well, Carlos is going to fix that.)

Review:

As much as I love Welcome to Night Vale, it frustrates me endlessly how little of it we get to enjoy. One twenty to thirty minute episode every two weeks. Two episodes a month. Twenty-four precious episodes in a year. That's twenty-four days we get to peek into the intricate town of Night Vale out of three hundred sixty-five, (temporal incidents notwithstanding).

More lately, I've also developed a minor facial tic when I think about how Carlos and Cecil are still in separate dimensions and not able to be cute dorky boyfriends with each other.
I have a mighty need, okay?

I Want You to Feel Familiar is the perfect remedy to both of these ailments, expanding a minor segment from an early episode into an event with actual consequence and emotional impact. Cecil is strikingly fragile in it, struggling to reconnect the hard data of his memories with the abstract emotions he knows should be attached to them. Carlos fumbles, sciences, and makes everything better.

I Want You to Feel Familiar

Posting a little early this time, due to real life stuff. So nice to be early instead of late! Haha-ehh.

Title: run, run, fast as you--
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Carlos/OMC
Categories/Genres: Asexual, Romance, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kids,
Length: Super Epic (106978 words)
Warnings: Stalking, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Violence, Threats of suicide, Threats of murder

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: branwyn

Summary:

The night that his research partner (and sort-of ex) shows up at his apartment with a gun, Carlos decides to take a mysterious but exceptionally well funded two-year research posting in a town called Night Vale.

A story in which Night Vale is there for the people who need it, Cecil's propensity to wear his innocent heart on his sleeve is perceived as a threat (until it isn't) and no one is allowed to hurt the Scientist. No one.

Review:

I love branwyn's villain in run, run, fast as you--. Don't get me wrong though, I hate the character's goddamn guts. He's just one of those villains that you have such a visceral reaction to that you want to reach through your screen and wring his ugly neck with your bare hands. But I love the way branwyn has created him, a monstrous product of our world instead of Night Vale's, and the way he colors every single scene in the fic, present in mind if not in body. He's a malignant specter, a festering poison, and the perfect foil to the sweet purity of Carlos and Cecil's developing relationship.

And what a development it is. The story is told from Carlos' perspective, from the events leading to his decision to take the research position in Night Vale, deviating slightly from canon after the events of One Year Later, and culminating in the dramatic finale roughly one month later. It runs concurrent with the canon, a somewhat more realistic (by non-Night Valean standards) retelling of Cecil's slightly dramatized reporting. Through it all, Carlos struggles to move past the trauma of his previous relationships and their respective nasty fallouts, slowly coming to accept the sincerity of Cecil's feelings for him and learning how to care for Cecil in turn.

Some familiar faces make up the rest of the cast. Tamika Flynn is her usual stellar self. Old Woman Josie and Erika make a few charming appearances. Even Cactus June is fleshed out in the fic, beautiful as ever and bluntly forthright. But more notably, there are a few unique additions of branwyn's own creation, like the Orphanarians, the Librarian-like guardians of Night Vale's orphans. One of whom is a girl named Nijeia, who has been twelve for a long time and is only let out of the Orphanarium to work as one of Carlos' research assistants. She befriends Carlos and eventually Cecil, blunt and a little crass and very, very pre-teen, but still a child under her experience and bravado.

run, run, fast as you-- isn't without its weaknesses, though. The Carlos whump can seem overbearing to those who are sensitive to it, a byproduct of the narrated story actively focusing on all the worst experiences Carlos endures. Cecil is perfect, almost to the point where his perfection strains the suspension of disbelief. Also, the final defeat of the villain is rather anticlimactic, considering that it happens very thoroughly off-screen and was not nearly as violent a reckoning as I personally wished it had been.

But on the whole, branwyn's fic is one of the stellar works of the Welcome to Night Vale fandom. Don't let the tags scare you off, because this is definitely a must-read.

run, run, fast as you--

Title: My Love Should Be Heard And Not Seen
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories/Genres: Alternate Universe, Sex line, Phone sex, Pining, Romance, Misunderstanding, BDSM, Infidelity (of a sort)
Length: Long (24057 words)
Warnings: Mentions of sex trafficking

Author/Artist on LJ: N/A
Author/Artist Website: lurknomoar

Summary:

Cecil Palmer is the best phone sex operator in the small company called Night Vale. One night, a slightly tipsy and very lonely scientist dials his number, and gets far more than he bargained for - a late night conversation about advanced biochemistry, a brand new fetish for surreal horror, a surprisingly reasonable internship program, some newts, and slowly, strangely, the love of his life.

Review:

I'm officially calling it. My Love Should Be Heard And Not Seen is the quintessential WtNV phone sex operator fic. I don't care what anyone says because this fic – sweet Jesus – this fic is it okay?

Awkward boys falling awkwardly in love with each other? Check. Frequent and delicious references to canon? Check. Intern Dana? Check. Typically Night Valean imagery that manages to be strange but strangely sensual? Check and double-check. Someone fetch me my smelling salts, I feel a swoon coming on.

I don't know what to say about this fic to make you understand what I love about it. Or actually, I suppose that I have the opposite problem, that I'd begin and not be able to stop. In the interests of not spoiling it utterly, I'll just tell you my favorite aspect: the ways in which their steadily evolving relationship makes them both more than they were. It's reflected most strongly in Carlos, whose perspective the reader follows, in the way he goes from a cripplingly shy, lonely introvert to a calmer, more confident version of himself. It's truly joyous to watch his steady growth and even his brief setbacks, and all the ways Cecil and his steady baritone guide him through his roughest times.

And the ending! Ugh, it's so perfect I want to cry.

My Love Should Be Heard And Not Seen

Title: don't trust the air you breathe
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Gen
Categories/Genres: Hurt/Comfort, Horror, Friendship,
Length: Medium (6884 words)
Warnings: Implied violence and possible torture

Author/Artist on LJ: devilishkurumi
Author/Artist Website: DevilishKurumi

Summary:

Set just before "Station Management" - Carlos receives a warm welcome from the Sheriff's Secret Police, which isn't so much warm as it is painful, and Cecil comes to his rescue, which isn't so much a rescue as it is an exercise in string-pulling.

Review:

More often than not, when I rec fics for Welcome to Night Vale, I dither over the Categories/Genre section, tempted to add 'Horror'. More often than not, I decide not to. This isn't because the Night Vale verse isn't a horrifying place to be. Oh, far from it. But its format, the Lovecraftian parody of the quaint little local news radio station, transforms what might be a genuinely horrific experience (if explored through, say, a more visual media) into a pleasant little aural jaunt. The unquestionably violent quotidian is condensed and explained and swaddled in Cecil Palmer's soothing voice until even the most violent deaths become peculiarly bloodless and almost, dare I say it, cute.

don't trust the air you breathe is the exact opposite. In DevilishKurumi's Night Vale, wounds hurt and bleed, death treads ever on your heels, and safety comes for an occasionally steep price. This the Night Vale we won't let ourselves see, and experiencing it is more visceral for our willful ignorance than it might otherwise be. This is the Night Vale where you follow the rules, or else.

don't trust the air you breathe

Title: Welcome to Cyber Vale
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Dana/Leann, Kevin/Original Male Character
Categories/Genres: Alternate Universe, Sci Fi, Action/Adventure, Romance, Fluff, Humor, Amnesia, Mystery
Length: Epic (49906 words)
Warnings: Very temporary character death

Author/Artist on LJ: N/A
Author/Artist Website: Hubris_And_Crafts

Summary:

Based on an AU SciFi concept by freedomconvicted on tumblr. Carlos is a scientist who has been called in to assist with C.E.C.I.L, an A.I. that runs the artificial planet known as the Vale Colony. However, none of his superiors bothered to inform him that the A.I. appears to be completely insane. And prone to falling in love.

Review:

When is a Night Vale not a Night Vale? When it's a Night Vale in space!

I've always been a fan of science fiction, a love instilled in me in the early days of reading when at least a dozen of my father's science fiction books were lying around at any given time. So for there to be a full-length sci fi AU of Night Vale? Well, sign me up!

The fictional future of Welcome to Cyber Vale is a subtly realized world, left mostly blank for the reader's imagination to fill in, assisted by the little tidbits of information that are fed to us, mostly by casual mention of the characters. It's minimalist worldbuilding, which seemed a little odd to me as a veteran sci fi reader, until I realized that that very minimalism is precisely characteristic of the canonical Welcome to Night Vale itself.

It's that very sense of in-character atmosphere that makes this fic stand out among the many Alternate Universe fics I've read. So much of the time, writers will take characters out of their original canon to put them in settings and circumstances that bear little to no resemblance to the source setting. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. I can think of few things more thrilling than seeing how a character exists in and reacts to a world they weren't originally created in. But Hubris_And_Crafts's ability to write so many parallels with canon while creating a world new and different took my breath away. I found myself grinning at all the characters and their familiar quirks and laughing with excitement at all the phrases and stories lifted from the canon to be given new homes in this new universe. Reading Cyber Vale, everything was the same even while nothing was the same.

And that's the very charm of Welcome to Night Vale itself, I think. That sometimes things that are so strange can be so comfortingly familiar in spite of their alienness.

Welcome to Cyber Vale

Title: No Place Like
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories/Genres: Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Domestic, Fluff, Romance
Length: Medium (3724 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: xparrot
Author Website: Xparrot

Summary:

When Cecil said, "I've heard many couples find it romantic--it's a fun bonding experience!" Carlos considered the Night Vale definitions of 'romantic', 'fun' and 'bonding', then took out another life insurance policy.
~
Housewarming, Night Vale-style.

Review:

Usually, when I review a fic, I have a theme I know I want to work with, a proverbial dead horse to beat and a few favorite fic elements to beat it with. This time though, no such luck. There's just something about Xparrot's No Place Like that grabbed me and sucked me in, and then spat me out saying, “Welp, that's this week's rec.” Maybe it's the characterization, how Carlos and Cecil are simultaneously completely normal and utterly bizarre in turns. Maybe it's Cecil's boundless love and hope or Carlos' fear of the normal and mundane and unfascinating. Maybe it's the bravery that they both show in putting so much faith in their relationship. Maybe it's the house and its charming quirks. Who knows?

No Place Like

Title: What We've Got Here
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories: Romance
Length: Medium (2399 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: margo_kim
Author Website: Margo_Kim

Summary:

Carlos's reaction to the first date involves a lot more anguished cries than Cecil's, though to be fair, they're only anguished cries of "Why did I do that, why did I say that, why am I allowed to interact with other people" so they're still better than at least eighty percent of Night Vale's late night wails.

Review:

If there is anyone in the world who says they don't anguish over a first date, they are lying. Or they are dead. In Night Vale, I suppose, it is possible to simultaneously do both, but neither of these apply to Carlos the Scientist, freshly returned from his painfully awkward (from his perspective, at least) first date with Cecil Gershwin Palmer.

On the surface, this fic is not much more than character exploration and an embarrassed recounting of a painfully awkward date, but where its magic lies is in its pointed contrast with the canonical recounting of the aforementioned date. It illustrates the stark differences between Cecil and Carlos while simultaneously and charmingly illustrating their peculiar congruence.

What I liked best about What We've Got Here was that very stark contrast, the way Carlos's inability to communicate effectively is so very different from Cecil's natural gift for communication. After all, Cecil's defining trait is his ability to communicate, and that the true affection they have for each other still shines through makes it all the more magical, even in a town like Night Vale where everything is vaguely magical.

What We've Got Here

Title: She said, watch with all your eyes
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories/Genres: Voyeurism, Pining, Romance, Fluff
Length: Long (17556 words)
Warnings: Stalking, of a sort. (As a fringe benefit of Cecil's 'omniscience')

Author/Artist on LJ: whitedatura
Author/Artist Website: whitedatura

Summary:

Cecil has eyes everywhere in Night Vale. Literally. (Or: an exploration of Cecil's occasional omniscience.)

The decision to keep a close eye on the new addition to Night Vale's scientific community had everything to do with Cecil's professional integrity as a journalist and nothing to do with Carlos's perfect hair or his beautiful lab coat or the strong, capable hand that Cecil was currently shaking.

Review:

For those of you not familiar with the Welcome to Night Vale fandom, there's a popular trend of portraying Cecil with a third eye to represent the peculiar omniscience he seems to use from time to time when describing this event or that. She said, watch with all your eyes is a textual portrayal of roughly the same thing, extra eyes drifting about and informing Cecil's news reports. (And also enabling his stalking of a certain perfect scientist.)

The story follows the canonical timeline, from that first day when a new stranger with perfect hair and a perfect lab coat comes to a very scientifically interesting town, up through the slow but steady development of their relationship. Told from Cecil's point of view, (all of his points of view), the reader gets to see the side of Cecil that isn't just the ephemeral twenty-minute radio segment, but the awkward, pining man that frets and worries and watches from not quite as afar as you'd think.

It's a very charming story, in that way that all things Night Vale are. That is to say, charming on the surface, and disconcerting everywhere else. Through clever use of poignant detail and casual omission, whitedatura has managed to capture that Night Valean je ne sais quoi that thrills and comforts and makes all the fine hairs on one's nape stand on end while contributing to the already vibrant richness of the canon. The use (and misuse) of Cecil's Eyes is played out with such excellence it almost seems insulting that it's not actually a feature of canon.

Also enthralling are those small glimpses of Carlos' character that the reader can occasionally make out through the heavily tinted lens of Cecil's perception. In fact, my only qualm with the story is that there aren't more of these little peeks as Cecil slowly comes into the knowledge that his 'perfect' scientist is not so perfect at all. But for all that those brief glimpses are rare, the reader still gets a sense of Carlos as the hesitant, socially awkward scientist who comes to care just as strongly for Cecil as Cecil does for him.

And the smutty coda Recurrence is pretty fun, too.


She said, watch with all your eyes

Title: hadn't built up my defenses
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Gershwin Palmer
Categories: Alternate Universe, Pre-Canon, High School, Romance, Drama, Mystery
Length: Medium (12177 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: AugustaByron

Author's Summary:

Carlos hates the desert, and he hates sand, and he hates Night Vale, and he hates his dad's stupid job with its stupid transfers. He hates the idea of spending an entire school year in this boring town.

Review:

hadn't built up my defenses is the 'beginning of the beginning', (to butcher a common phrase), another way things might've begun in the grand saga of Cecil and Carlos. In it, Carlos is transplanted into Night Vale after his father is transferred to the town for mysterious reasons. Even more mysterious still is Carlos' first day at the high school where he, (to butcher a rather less common phrase), 'falls in crush, instantly' with Cecil, the boy assigned to show him around his first day. The story progresses as most boy-meets-boy high school romances do, with the usual gory horror of Night Vale life plodding along in the background. Still, it manages to hint at deeper, more terrifying mysteries that foreshadow the events and persons introduced in the canonical episodes.

But what makes this fic more than just any old high school AU is the way AugustaByron creates a Carlos-centric story that parallels the later canonical Cecil perspective. Carlos is attracted to Cecil's most prominent feature from their first meeting, an attraction that goes unrequited for some time, through a partner project and a not-date. And just like in canon, it's Carlos who initiates their relationship. Unfortunately, the very mystery that brought Carlos to Night Vale in the first place is what throws a wrench in their fledgling romance, a wrench that tightens down the bolts of their respective destinies, setting them both down the paths that will later lead them to the Night Vale we've come to know and love, warts and viscera and all.

hadn't built up my defenses

Title: The reconciliation of science and religion (or lack thereof).
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Gershwin Palmer
Categories: Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Medium (2688 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on AO3: dee
Author Website: badfic

Author's Summary:

Carlos doesn't know what Cecil is, but maybe it doesn't matter. Also, Cecil's show gets a Special Guest!

Review:

One of the most enjoyable aspects of Welcome to Night Vale, (aside from Cecil's dulcet, suede tones), is how the town's weirdness seems normal after a while, how its complete lack of logic and sense flow in logical, sensible ways once you get used to them. Even the unpredictable can be anticipated, when you're in Night Vale. So when Carlos is unexpectedly confronted with the reality Cecil's multidimensional, eldritch form after a guest interview gone terribly wrong, he just shrugs his shoulders and accepts it as part of the man he loves. He's an outsider, not a bigot.

The reconciliation of science and religion (or lack thereof). is a charming little slice of Night Vale: the familiar grind of day-to-day life layered thickly with a Lovecraftian lacquer, all seen from the perspective of the not-quite-outsider-anymore scientist Carlos. For the romantics, there's a pinch of love overcoming all obstacles, and for the action fans, a daring rescue. And for anyone listening out there, the weather.

The reconciliation of science and religion (or lack thereof).

Title: Bad Habits
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Categories: Domestic, Fluff, Established Relationship, Romance, Body Horror, Slice of Life, Hurt/Comfort
Length: Medium (7141 words)
Warnings: N/A

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: winterhill

Author's Summary:

Once Cecil and Carlos have made it official and moved in together, they have to learn to live with each other’s disgusting habits.

Review:

Nobody is perfect, let alone one's significant other, but there's nothing quite like cohabitation to drive the point home that sometimes the person you love most in the world has the most disgusting habits in the world. Like letting the layers of skin that their tentacles shed during molting season clog the shower drain. Or being a horrifically noisy eater. Or divulging private aspects of a relationship to the entire town. Or missing dates because of work.

No, nobody is perfect. But as winterhill's Bad Habits so forthrightly illustrates, they become perfect when you learn to accept them for what they are.

Bad Habits

Title: The Rat and the Ruby Slippers
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Kevin, Carlos/Cecil
Categories: Amnesia, Drama, Established Relationship, Horror, Mystery, Romance
Length: Medium (7119 words)
Warnings: Emotional and mental manipulation by an Eldritch entity

Author on LJ: indigostohelit
Author Website: indigostohelit

Author's Summary:

Carlos is having the strangest dreams, and the strangest headaches, like there's something he's supposed to be remembering. Not to mention the intern's wedding coming up, and that new chemical StrexCorp wants him to develop. It's going to be a busy week.

Review:

In psychology, there's a concept called 'object permanence', which is the brain's capacity to understand that an object exists even when it can't be observed with any of the five senses. Indigostohelit's The Rat and the Ruby Slippers explores that idea within the Welcome to Night Vale universe and how it ties into memory and, more prominently, amnesia.

Truthfully, there's very little I can say without utterly spoiling the fic, except that indigostohelit is thorough when it comes to exploring the different aspects of memory, particularly their mutability and the power they have. Also, their resilience against being forgotten. After all, memories are physically built into our brains, endless collections of endless data written into the very fiber of our being, and though we may lose the way to those memories, we still carry them within us, just as surely as we all carry a little bit of home within ourselves no matter where we go.

The Rat and the Ruby Slippers is a story of how Carlos discovers that, and how he saves all of Night Vale from a fate worse than death.

The Rat and the Ruby Slippers

Title: a love song for schrödinger
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Carlos/Cecil
Categories: Fluff, Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Domestic
Length: Medium (2220 words)
Warnings: Mild violence

Author on DW cricketmask
Author Website: patho

Author's Summary:

With his own two eyes Carlos has observed a house that empirically doesn’t exist. He’s never seen a quantum particle, but his computer models and lab readouts reassure him of their presence. Cecil – lovely and wonderful and strange Cecil – is comforting and solid in every way…except in Carlos’ peripheral vision, when his edges waver as though the lack of direct observation has left him unsure of what shape he should be.

It means absolutely nothing, to see a thing in Night Vale.


Review:

And angel that may or may not be real. Senses that may or may not count. A town that may or may not be a man. (Or perhaps, a man that may or may not be a town?) A cantaloupe that may or may not be sentient. The Voice of Night Vale, who may or may not be thirty-four. Carlos, who may still be an outsider. Or maybe not.

a love song for schrödinger encapsulates Night Vale's vaguely sinister yet bewitchingly quirky weirdness in a neat little two-thousand word package. For anyone wanting a taste of what Night Vale is like without jumping headlong into the podcast itself, this fic is a clever little aperitif to whet your appetite. It mixes canon with headcanon, as much of Welcome to Night Vale's fanfiction is admittedly wont to do, but inoffensively, the author's interpretations of WtNV's open ended-ness enriching the canon's natural flavor as opposed to overwhelming it.

For anyone already jugular-deep in WtNV, this fic is a tasty little morsel from Carlos' perspective, having already adjusted to the charming town with its daily horrors, and as always, discovering the world around him in new and (occasionally) dangerous ways.

a love song for schrödinger

Title: How I Survived My Summer Vacation, by Tamika Flynn, Age 12 3/4
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale
Pairing: Tamika Flynn/Original Female Character
Categories: Action/Adventure, Romance, Horror, Friendship, Missing Scene
Length: Medium (5516 words)
Warnings: Violence, Off-screen deaths of minor OCs

Author on DW: thingswithwings
Author Website: thingswithwings

Author's Summary:

The first book on Tamika Flynn's Summer Reading Program Sticker Chart is Lord of the Flies.

She doesn't really like it.

Review:

Being a voracious reader and someone who works in education, I can honestly say that there are few things that are more tragic to witness than the decline of recreational reading. As such, How I Survived My Summer Vacation, by Tamika Flynn, Age 12 3/4 (henceforth referred to as How I Survived for my poor fingers' sake) is near and dear to my heart, the courageous tale of young Tamika Flynn, who, through literary analysis and cunning and a little straight-up murder, leads her fellow Summer Reading Program peers to triumph against the public library's monstrous librarians. (And finds a little love along the way.)

How I Survived is a celebration of literature and a very Night Valean bildungsroman, subtly comparing and contrasting the respective literary milestones of our world and the world of Welcome to Night Vale with the finesse of a particularly well-written expository article. It reminds us of our own experiences with the books we read during childhood, books like The Giver, Bridge to Terabithia, and even Harry Potter, and shows us those same books from the perspective of children who read them not out of enjoyment or obligation, but as a method of survival. Literature becomes a weapon in the hands of Tamika Flynn and her fellow Summer Readers in a way it no longer is for those of us in the 'real world', and when the children escape from their Program to rejoin their families, the reader is right there with them, celebrating the triumph of literacy and the miracle of literature.

How I Survived My Summer Vacation, by Tamika Flynn, Age 12 3/4

EDIT: Many thanks to mothlights for telling me about Rhea's podfic version of How I Survived. Check it out!

Title: Consequences of iPod-Theft
Fandom: Welcome to Night Vale, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Pairing: background Carlos/Cecil
Categories: Humor, Crossover
Length: Short (1179 words)
Warnings: None

Author on LJ: N/A
Author Website: EHyde

Author's Summary: It can't get much weirder than Norse gods and fire-breathing robots, right? That's what Darcy Lewis thought—until a vague, yet menacing, government agency reassigned her to work with a different scientist in another small desert town ...

Review:

Despite having been around for over a year already, Welcome to Night Vale's fandom has only just bloomed in the past few months, launching this once obscure podcast into some place slightly less obscure, but still pretty obscure. As such, most people are complete strangers to the show, outsiders to a fandom most of them don't even know exists.

In recognition of that, I present to you Consequences of iPod-Theft, a Welcome to Night Vale/Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover in which Darcy Lewis, just post-Thor, is taken by SHEILD to the desert town of Night Vale to play assistant to its resident scientist, Carlos. They're both of them outsiders with an outsider's perspective of Night Vale, but they find ways to fit into the bizarre patchwork of the town like they'd been meant for Night Vale all along.

To say any more would spoil the fun, but I leave you with ( this charming excerpt. )
Consequences of iPod-Theft