Thinking back to that line in Go To The Mirror? when Cecil’s mom says “why are you crying when you don’t even exist?” and how it plays into the current arc in the way that things are being explained away to seem like they never existed in the first place and how she was supposedly Prophetic and-

Hmm thinking about wtnv 171 has me thinking about Cale and mirrors. Like could y'all imagine if everytime Cale saw his reflection it was KRS? Or if he saw everyone he lost back in Korea? Imagine if everyone else saw it all too.

He'd cover up that big mirror in his room and avoid looking at his reflection as much as possible and obvi there's misunderstandings like "oh the young master is shy" "Cale must see how much he looks like Jour" "he's so humble" "ah he's making a point that appearances don't matter!" etc etc but like nah bro's just haunted

Stay tuned now for whatever happens next in your life.

WtNV is a comedy but there are so many bits that are just undiluted horror or tragedy and I love it.

"A Story of Love and Horror" being so far removed from comedy that I find it genuinely distressing to hear, and it's about two incredibly minor characters

The fragmented horror of "Go to the Mirror?" that technically explains things while somehow leaving us with more questions

Cecil saying, "Stay tuned next for... I don't know. I don't care. Goodnight," at the end of episode 98

Learning what actually happened to Kevin in episode 73, "Triptych"

Literally the entire ending of episode 45, but especially, "'You know' says The Man Who Is Not Short, looking down at his crossword, 'I worry every time that I'm not going to finish these when I start them.'"

Like. It's a comedy podcast. This is a comedy.

go to the mirror?

go to the mirror? go to the mirror? go to the mirror?

[ID: the center is occupied by a tall thin humanoid shape with large wings instead of arms and a covered face. the top half of the face is obscured by a fractured mirror pattern which extends past a large halo of glass shards. the figure is lined and colored in pink. the figure is framed by purple trees which mimic the frame of a mirror. the space between them is filled with 'go to the mirror?' repeated over and over again. /End ID]

nooo don't go to the mirror again you're so sexy aha

/slowly turns the mirror away from me

a drawing i did a couple weeks ago that i updated and reposted 💜

Today on Night Vale thoughts:

Thinking about Cecil's tendency to look away from deaths he doesn't want to see. Thinking about Go to the Mirror?: Do you think disbelief in death will make it disappear? Are awareness and manifestation one and the same? Thinking about the crooked path leading to the Narrow Place, which Cecil now claims he has never entered, where he wore a black coat and never existed.

Thinking about how in Ghost Stories Cecil tells the story of his mother returning home and dying ten years earlier, when he was an adult. Yet in Go to the Mirror? he asks: When was the last time you saw your mother? It's been since childhood, hasn't it? Since then, I don't think there's been any direct acknowledgement on the podcast that he remembers her death. I could be wrong about this.

In Ghost Stories he says that he and Abby came back together, when their mom returned, to navigate that dark and narrow path of forgiveness.

But he's never been into the Narrow Place, where he wore a black coat and never existed.

You know something you wear black to? Funerals.

All of this is to say, what if somewhere in the last few years Cecil looked away from his mother's death so hard, maybe due to his fears over parenting Esteban and confronting his own mortality, that he subconsciously retconned it into never happening and now as far as he's concerned she's still Out There Somewhere? What if like @bulkhummus said, the traffic in episode 227 was about Abby, and she was going to see their mom? What if the reason everything was identical to how Abby remembered it from decades earlier was because Cecil's just kind of stuck their mom in some nebulous vision of Somewhere that never changes, because Cecil can't let it change, because letting it change would mean letting time move forward and letting what already happened happen, and that would mean letting her die?

Do I think any of this is where the story is actually going? Nah probably not. Am I having too much fun thinking about it to care? Yep thank you for coming to my TED talk

Fear of Mirrors

WTNV 209: I was wearing a black coat, and did not exist.

WTNV 171: Have you ever tried to buy a light-weight wool button-up coat, all black?

WTNV 171: Why are you crying if you don't even exist?

Why are you crying about someone who doesn’t even exist?

Sometimes, the scientist isn’t always fine.

Both my “Lubelle bringing about the end of everything” post and my “go to the mirror parallels” post have been swirling about in my head, so it was only a matter of time until they converged into a singular and painful result. I love me a good mirroring quote and of course, Cecil angst.

Carlos can only run from the painful parts of his past for so long, and I get the feeling that if he doesn’t face them soon, things are going to change in a big, possibly drastic, way. With his loved ones in the crossfire.

Text:

(Top box) Cecil’s mom: Why are you crying when you don’t even exist?

(Middle box) Lubelle: Why are you crying about someone who doesn’t exist?

(Bottom box) Carlos: I’m sorry Cecil.

Listening to wtnv 171 on repeat in front of a mirror. This will not fix me this will make me worse but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make

OH SHIT I JUST REALIZED THAT CECIL'S WHOLE BACKSTORY IS BECAUSE OF WHAT HUNTOKAR SAID

"Whose life lies directly on the fault lines of this broken reality"

She broke reality around Night Vale, and Cecil is clearly an important part of Night Vale so his entire life got fragmented. Thats why he was alive and broadcasting before the radio was invented. That's why he died in ep33, ep106, and ep171. Mirrors must be a particularly weak part of the border between realities (which would also explain why Nazr saw himself and Francis in his mirror in ASoLaH) and something about the breaking of reality is deadly to Cecil

Actually I can see why Cecil hates mirrors. My man looks in ONE MIRROR and immediately has an existential crisis on public radio.