Carlos can remember the first time someone called him queer. He can recall being unable to answer his best friend's question about whether or not he thought a girl was cute and the harsh taunt that followed. He can still picture the label landing on him, marking his entire being as different, abnormal, strange.
Ever since that day in seventh grade, he's felt like he doesn't belong. As hard as he tries, he can't hide this fundamental part of him, this queer part that loves boys, this part that no one else accepts.
It's something he doesn't know how to handle, a burden he fears he'll live the rest of his life under. It follows him through high school, where none of his classmates will make eye contact with him and all of his friends refuse to hang out with him out of fear that he'll try to kiss them. It attaches itself to him during college when the girl he was pressured into dating insists on coming into his apartment after a date and he can feel the sweat dripping down the back of his neck as he lies about having a huge chemistry exam he has to study for tomorrow. He is a constant outsider, sure that he has no place that will ever let him embrace his queerness.
Until he arrives in Night Vale.
Night Vale is different, abnormal, strange, just like him. Here, people cower in terror from street cleaners, outlaw wheat, and allow a glow cloud to serve on the school board. But here, without a second thought, they accept the part of him that has always made him feel left out.
Finally, in unusual little Night Vale, he finds his unusual, little place.
And all it took was a town that was just as weird as he's always been labeled.