Fake News (FPF) | Mirror, Mirror | PG-13 | Gen

[scripted_sra]

Title: Mirror, Mirror
Fandom: Fake News (FPF)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None, shockingly.
Warning: It’s stylistic. Bear with me.
Summary: liberal!"Stephen" and conservative!"Stephen" are mirror images of one another.
Word Count: 1,028
Disclaimer: All copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. This work is not created for profit and constitutes fair use. References to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
A/N: I have written one other fic in a similar vein (quite awhile ago, in another fandom entirely) and I thought it was the perfect format for this one. Involves the liberalverse, in which sailorptah has a few things written (go check them out, for they are fabulous). She is evil and commands an army of nefarious ninja attack bunnies; therefore, this is all her fault. Thank you for the beta, Abigail. Oh, and in case you're wondering: hell yes this was a bitch to code.


“I have to look perfect,” he says to his mirror,

absently stroking at his beard and looking smugly at his unruly head of hair.

examining his clean-shaven face and looking critically at his perfectly-coiffed hair.

His reflection is the only person he can talk to, the only one who gets him, who allows him to be honest. It’s far too dangerous to trust anyone else, and he’s made an art of keeping people away by

pulling them too close, stepping gaily across their boundaries and sending them fleeing as fast as they can in the opposite direction.

erecting impenetrable barriers, lashing out at any who dare attempt to break them down, scaring them away before they even get started.

Other people don’t understand. They question why he acts this way, pretend as if they know better, as though he’s oblivious. Like

Jon! Spineless, middle-hugging, golden-mean-fallacy-loving coward, nowhere near bold enough to take a firm side, as though that’s something to be proud of.

Jon! Spineless, bleeding-heart, elitist-fact-loving coward, too wimp-willed to even shout back, as though being “reasonable” ever made any difference.

He knows Jon means well, knows that Jon cares, but Stephen also knows what he’s doing. He knows he can’t allow Jon to see any deeper than he already does; he can’t let him see how afraid he is, that he’s terrified of

snapping one day, of allowing his anger to swallow him whole, of being consumed by it, letting it run him, making him push things too far, making him violent, making him doubt himself.

losing his steam, of not being able to keep up the steady current of rage, of having to stop, slow down, being forced to think, to consider, making him wonder, making him doubt himself.

He can’t tell Jon what he needs; he can’t tell anyone. That secret is too shameful, too off-putting, too utterly mortifying. How would anyone react if they knew that he

wants to enforce the restrictions and boundaries he decries every day, to be in control, to dominate.

wants to be ruled by the restrictions and boundaries he claims he’s created, to be in someone else’s control, to submit.

Even if they didn’t react with disgust, with horror, or revulsion, what’s to stop him from taking it too far? He’d let it get out of hand, let on that he’s

drowning in greyscale.

trapped in the rigidity of black and white.

His reflection won’t judge him, at least, will give him the support he needs. He can get this out somewhere, in a way that’s safe. He knows it’s best this way, because after all, how horrible would it be if something changed, if he became someone new, someone who

never saw any nuance and missed the most important pieces of all?

saw nothing but nuance and missed the big picture entirely?

He looks again in the mirror, concentrating this time, because he needs to get on with the day, with his life. He needs to get ready, to start the illusion, and he’s expecting to see

a smile on his lips, the light in his eyes, knowing emotion is the key, that he’s better than everyone else (and he’ll tell them if they doubt it, because he’s worked hard to be elite, though of course it’s just so obvious).

his lips pursed into a firm line, his eyes expressing sternness, knowing that stoicism is the key, that he’s better than everyone else (not that he’d say so, because he’s a regular guy, but it’s just so obvious).

Instead he sees lines that shouldn’t be there, a weariness etched on his features. Why does he look tired, unsure, and possibly just the tiniest bit sad? It doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t the carefully crafted image he’s trying to show to others; this is something else entirely, something that exposes him for the

monster he is, with the bubbling anger simmering, surging abruptly and violently, waiting for the right moment to strike, to unleash itself, waiting for him to let it boil him alive.

sissy he is, with the near-freezing current of repressed emotion running through his veins, waiting for the right moment to seep out, to leak themselves, waiting for him to let it drown him entirely.

He knows that pretending isn’t exactly easy, but it’s necessary. He can’t show this kind of expression to the world, most certainly not; it gives far too much away. He won’t let it happen, not now, not ever. He’ll keep it in check if it kills him, and he thinks that is what it’s threatening to do, but he won’t let himself panic. The best response in this situation is

factiness, telling himself the facts of the matter, in a calm, disinterested tone, because surely that is the way to stop the churning of anger beneath the surface.

truthiness, telling himself over and over again that things are okay, because if he says it enough it will be, stopping any emotion bubbling up in its tracks.

Maybe the mirror isn’t helping him. Maybe he can’t trust his reflection after all. Instead of an ally, perhaps he’s a foe, someone who will betray his secrets, who will let slip that he’s living a lie, who will tell everyone that he doubts, sometimes, if he’s doing the right thing. Maybe his reflection is trying to trick him, trying to get him to confess.

He won't let it!

He won’t let it!

In an instant, the face in the mirror blurs, and maybe he’s seeing himself or a reflection of a self that has a resemblance but isn’t his—

because he would never use that much hair gel, or conform that rigidly to the ridiculous, constraining structures surrounding a man’s appearance.

because he would never let his hair get that wild, or refuse to shave for so long, because men were not supposed to run around looking like unwashed hippies.

—and then the mirror shatters. He manages to be surprised, even as the blood from his hand falls in perfect little droplets to the basin of the sink below, the bright red color contrasting sharply against the stark white of the porcelain.

Comments

[erinptah]

And I have neglected to tell you directly how awesome this is.

Although, in my mind, l!Stephen's trust issues are actually flipped - it isn't that he doesn't trust people; it's that he trusts them too much. Like, if a completely random stranger walked up to him and said "You suck," he would go, "All right, your opinion is completely valid, and if you have any advice for me on how to suck less, I'll be glad to follow it." It's only his own thoughts and feelings and convictions that he doesn't trust.

And he chastises Jon for daring to call people on the carpet and yell at them. "Why were you so mean to Cramer, Jon? Didn't you see he was upset? How could you hurt his feelings like that?"

that he’s better than everyone else (and he’ll tell them if they doubt it, because he’s worked hard to be elite, though of course it’s just so obvious).

Oh, ouch. Stab to the gut, that one. (He cannot understand why this upsets people, either. After all, he does have an Ivy League degree - that's a fact, so how is it arrogant to tell them so? They must be getting upset out of repressed jealousy! What else could it be?)

[scripted_sra]

Although, in my mind, l!Stephen's trust issues are actually flipped - it isn't that he doesn't trust people; it's that he trusts them too much.

I see what you're saying, but my thought processes are similar to what I was saying about the appearance thing. By doing what you described, he's effectively going so far he pushes through to the opposite side. It's like with the boundaries thing. Both l!"Stephen" and c!"Stephen manage to keep people at arms length. l!"Stephen" does this by appearing to have absolutely no boundaries of his own, thus scaring people off, whereas c!"Stephen" does this by erecting nearly-impenetrable boundaries, so even if you wanted to get close you'd get discouraged and give up. It's the opposite way of going about it, but it still ends up at the same thing: no one is really all that close to either of them, save Jon.

(If that doesn't make sense, I apologize; I just woke up.)

ETA: I was thinking about this some more and wanted to add: it's impossible to trust everyone, which is why I think it makes it seem like he doesn't trust anyone. It'd be like simultaneously trusting someone who said, "The world is flat." and someone who said, "The world is round." You can't trust them both, because they're contradicting each other. So I think in the process of l!"Stephen" trying to trust everyone he really just kind of ends up going nowhere.

Also, I don't think c!"Stephen" remotely trusts himself. He certainly projects that image, but he's as insecure as you can get at the core of things. Which is part of why I think that they basically do the same thing in terms of trust.

Does any of this babble make any sense? I hope so.

And thank you! Both for the comment and the handy C4 to throw at my writer's block; I've been trying to produce something for ages with no success. =P

(The downside to the fic journal is that I give up my handy ability to edit comments, so I have to repost things. D:)

[erinptah]

They're doing essentially the same thing, or at least it's having the same effect. They just come at it from opposite directions.

The thing about l!Stephen is that he doesn't realize what he's doing. He thinks he's being totally open and approachable, and cannot understand why someone wouldn't want to deal with him. If you raised the idea, he would figure it's probably because he still comes off as too closed-off and stoic, and redouble his efforts to share every last one of his emotions.

I think in the process of l!"Stephen" trying to trust everyone he really just kind of ends up going nowhere.

EXACTLY.

He ends up doing a lot of "agreeing with whoever's in the room at the time," because he's afraid to be contrary. And when he sees two people disagreeing, he's all, "Well, both of you make good points, and I'm sure both of your views are valid." (It's the problem Jon complains about in the news, how they think "fairness" means "bringing in a person on each side of the issue and letting them yell at each other, and then declaring that they've had a good debate," regardless of whether or not one side of the issue is palpably saner.)

Meanwhile, c!Stephen doesn't trust himself, but he trusts other people even less. (Why he wants to be President: "I would be crazy to let anyone have that kind of power over me.") So he clings to the truthiness that he does trust himself. Doublethink: he refuses to let himself know what he knows, that he is completely untrustworthy.

(His response to even a logical, helpful, well-intentioned critique would be "NO YOU SUCK." Followed by a round of "Who's attacking me now?")

Whereas l!Stephen thinks that any idea of himself as trustworthy would be a comforting illusion (after all, how arrogant would it be to trust his own opinion when there are people who disagree with it!), and refuses to engage with it. So he undermines his own opinion even when it's completely legitimate ("No, actually, I think the world is round").

Back to the T-shirt thing: l!Stephen didn't buy the counterculture shirt for the sake of his own image, but for the sake of the band. He figures any band that goes against the mainstream that much ought to be supported, because everyone's music deserves just as much financial backing as any of the chart-toppers. (Never mind that he secretly thinks their music sucks, and his iPod is full of pirated Billy Joel and Katy Perry.)

[Kind of like leaving an encouraging comment on a mediocre fic, just because it features a rare pairing that you think deserves more attention...]

I will throw dangerous chemicals at your writer's block any time :D

[scripted_sra]

The thing about l!Stephen is that he doesn't realize what he's doing. He thinks he's being totally open and approachable, and cannot understand why someone wouldn't want to deal with him.

Does he, though? That's the thing I'm not totally sure about; he's just as repressed and terrified of showing his real self as is c!"Stephen", and this manifested in the same way: strengthening an outside image. One's hiding behind Straw Liberalism and the other is hiding behind Straw Conservatism, but I think that they both know they're hiding. Neither will admit it because l!"Stephen" would reject it with, "Nonsense! What's to be scared of? I'm accessible and approachable to all!" and c!"Stephen" would reject it with, "Nonsense! What's to be scared of? I'm strong and manly and never afraid of anything!"

Secretly, though, they both know what they're doing: they're keeping people at arm's length because it's just safer that way, and they're both terrified of what could happen if they don't.

Back to the T-shirt thing: l!Stephen didn't buy the counterculture shirt for the sake of his own image, but for the sake of the band. He figures any band that goes against the mainstream that much ought to be supported, because everyone's music deserves just as much financial backing as any of the chart-toppers. (Never mind that he secretly thinks their music sucks, and his iPod is full of pirated Billy Joel and Katy Perry.)

I wonder if this isn't just a rationalization on his part, though? I mean, obviously, he's not going to consciously think to himself, "I can't look a certain way, so I'm going as far in the opposite direction as I can, and this shirt is part of that." so instead he thinks, "So what if I don't listen to it? They deserve my support anyway!" because it conveniently dovetails with his beliefs and gives him an excuse to continue crafting his image without admitting to himself that he is crafting his image.

This is possibly my new favorite thing to think and talk about. IT IS SO INTERESTING. THERE ARE SO MANY POSSIBILITIES.

I will throw dangerous chemicals at your writer's block any time :D

That is true friendship right there. =P

[erinptah]

The thing about l!Stephen is that you have to take the things c!Stephen does and invert them at the core. So the opposite of "I'm a hardcore conservative ideologue" is not "I'm a hardcore liberal ideologue", but "I refuse to take a position on anything." And the opposite of "I'm repressing this certain set of characteristics, now stop asking and go away," is not "I'm repressing this other certain set of characteristics" but "here, let me be completely and painfully open about everything, whether or not you asked, including my special-snowflake deep emotional pain, and the explicit sexual fantasy I had about you last night, hey, wait, why are you running away?"

(Thus why l!Stephen had to be seriously hurt for the last fic to work: because he's inclined to talk mournfully about his special-snowflake pain, to the point where you want to grab him and say, "Shake it off, Col-bert!" So I couldn't let there be any doubt in the reader's mind that this hurt was actually serious.)

If c!Stephen is cut from the same cloth as Chuck, then l!Stephen is cast in the same mold as Geoffrey. ("I'm a pacifist!", he says cheerfully, before walking out and letting the homophobic new teacher beat him up.)

[For that matter, there's a bit of House in him. Always late, always scruffy, almost pathologically rude, partly in defiance of his perfectionist father. As opposed to c!Stephen, who is always on time, always polished, and while his standards of politeness are screwed-up, he clings to them.]

I think l!Stephen works best if, when reading about him, you get the urge to say things that feel very c!Stephenish. Like "It's okay to be angry" and "Shake it off!" and "No, actually, that's not normal or acceptable" and "Put on a tie - or, at the very least, a shirt."

This is possibly my new favorite thing to think and talk about.

I know, right? It's been popping up in my brain all day :D

(The hotel Internet plan is not quite so draconic as I had first thought. Still has time limits, though. Not that I'm complaining - I have touristy things to do for much of the day anyway, the lure of l!Stephen meta notwithstanding :3)

[scripted_sra]

The thing about l!Stephen is that you have to take the things c!Stephen does and invert them at the core. So the opposite of "I'm a hardcore conservative ideologue" is not "I'm a hardcore liberal ideologue", but "I refuse to take a position on anything."

Okay, now I understand exactly where our difference in viewpoint is coming from. My mindset is that I think there's room to be inconsistent here, (or maybe the fun I find in writing a Straw Liberal is clouding my judgment; whichev =P) because c!"Stephen" himself is not consistent. He is, strictly speaking, not always a hardcore conservative ideologue. There are aberrations every now and then. So I think that l!"Stephen" may waver in the same way.

And the opposite of "I'm repressing this certain set of characteristics, now stop asking and go away," is not "I'm repressing this other certain set of characteristics" but "here, let me be completely and painfully open about everything, whether or not you asked, including my special-snowflake deep emotional pain, and the explicit sexual fantasy I had about you last night, hey, wait, why are you running away?"

The point that I'm trying to make is that this is a twisted form of repression, because in the end, the result is the same, in that he's scaring that person away, probably for good. And what's more is that I think he secretly knows he's doing this, just as c!"Stephen" will be all, "You are 100% wrong and probably going to hell where you will burn in a fiery pit for all eternity--hey, where are you going?" yet really knows exactly where that person's going: away from him, which is exactly what he wants. Am I making sense?

For that matter, there's a bit of House in him. Always late, always scruffy, almost pathologically rude, partly in defiance of his perfectionist father. As opposed to c!Stephen, who is always on time, always polished, and while his standards of politeness are screwed-up, he clings to them.

...this is kind of hilarious to think about, since c!"Stephen" considers he and House kindred spirits. Who would l!"Stephen" cling to in that manner? Cameron? =P

Bah! Touristy things, pfft. Who needs that when you can geek out on the internet all day? =P

[erinptah]

The thing about l!Stephen's strategy is that, while it's a bad one, calling it "a (twisted or not) form of repression" makes it seem like every problem goes back to repression. Clearly c!Stephen's strategy is repression taken to the extreme, but l!Stephen's problem comes from too little repression.

Like...okay, anecdote time. A couple of years ago I was on a group trip, an academic thing, where the organizers booked these big blocks of hotel rooms and stuck us in them in pairs. And my assigned roommate wouldn't bother going into the bathroom to change - she would just strip in front of me. So finally I said, "Look, aren't you at all uncomfortable with this?" To which she said, "No, I'm not ashamed of my body."

Not wanting to take the (repressive!) side of Your Body Is A Shameful Thing, I spent a lot of the trip quietly cringing, thinking damnit, woman, put some clothes on.

She didn't get to that point by repressing things. She got there by thinking that repression is bad, and therefore she had to avoid it at all costs, to the point of not having what I would think of as a sense of basic modesty with respect to a complete stranger.

The thing to say to l!Stephen is not "You're still repressing!", but "In trying to take down all your pathological walls, you have also taken down the legitimate boundaries that you need to be safe and healthy. You need to put those boundaries back up. And also your pants."

I don't know if he realizes that he's scaring people away. I think c!Stephen desperately wants someone to reach out to him - but he doesn't think he can trust them, so he keeps testing them, being angry and pushing them away in order to weed out the untrustworthy ones. Which ends up being almost everyone. Whereas l!Stephen wants people to reach out to him, and refuses to put up c!Stephen's pretense of pushing them away. So he tries not to do anything that would drive someone off, including being so rude as to suspect them of being untrustworthy. No matter who they are. (Thus his one canon appearance: "The terrorists are nice people deep down, I'm sure! They would probably come around to our side if we just sat down and had a conversation where we shared our feelings!") And he can't figure out why that very openness would cause people to draw away.

Also, yes, l!Stephen is totally a Cameron fan :D

[scripted_sra]

I don't know if he realizes that he's scaring people away. ... So he tries not to do anything that would drive someone off, including being so rude as to suspect them of being untrustworthy. ... And he can't figure out why that very openness would cause people to draw away.

I think this is the main bit where we'll have to agree to disagree. I think l!"Stephen" is very aware of how he's causing people to flee from him. I don't think he'd ever admit it to anyone, and he'd certainly feign confusion, but I think that when you get down to it, he's just as aware of what he's doing as is c!"Stephen".

I'm currently trying to imagine my little pet pairing, (Wilson/"Stephen", of course =P) and I sadly think it would not work at all with l!"Stephen". c!"Stephen" and Wilson have issues that dovetail nicely (Stephen's neediness; Wilson's need to be needed; the way they both present that 'I'm so perfectly put together! See!' front; Stephen's lack of subtlety to complement the way Wilson is the definition of subtle; so on and so forth) but I think he and l!"Stephen" would be tragically incompatible.

...which is why it's doubly-interesting that l!"Stephen" and c!"Stephen" both fit with Jon extremely well. Jon's just that awesome, apparently. =P

[erinptah]

I don't think he'd ever admit it to anyone, and he'd certainly feign confusion...

See, the thing is, I have a couple of friends like l!Stephen. And I don't think they have that much guile in them.

For that matter, I've been basing a whole lot of his mental makeup on things I've done myself -- exaggerating for satirical purposes when necessary, though sometimes it isn't even that. Like, I have had (still have, though at least now I'm more aware of it) a tendency to emote all over people, running on the half-conscious line of logic that "I will share something deep and personal, you will share something deep and personal, we will totally bond!" [As l!Stephen would add: "Even if you are a terrorist!"] And for the longest time I could not figure out why people would back off from that.

As for Wilson - he has, on occasion, done things out of emotional-screwed-up-ness that make me gape at the screen wondering if the writers are following me. So, yeah, he probably wouldn't do well with l!Stephen =P

Jon, however, is basically awesome incarnate, so. =3

[scripted_sra]

Aha, I see. It's interesting, actually, but in terms of defense mechanisms I personally am actually much more in line with c!"Stephen". Especially in the vein of "erecting near-impenetrable barriers because letting people in is far too dangerous." Maybe that's why writing him comes more intuitively for me.

Wilson is pretty much the only reason I still watch House these days. His emotional-screwed-up-ness just makes me love him all the more.

That is totally the truth. =P