the doppleganger | pistoletdefleurs

atracaelum:

Having some thoughts about The Sandstorm A and B, Kevin and Cecil, and what Night Vale and Desert Bluffs represent.

So, Kevin sees a picture of Cecil, and describes him as identical to himself except for “Is that a smile? I can’t say.”

Cecil sees a picture of Kevin and describes him as identical to himself, except for the smile, which is absolutely not a smile, and his coal black eyes.

Kevin sees Cecil’s eyes as the same as his own, but Cecil does not, and neither of them see the other as having a natural smile.

Now, frequently this is taken to indicate that there’s something off about Cecil’s appearance, and when you listen to 19A on its own this is indeed what comes across, but after listening to Desert Bluffs’ radio in 19B, I’d say it tells us more about Kevin than it does Cecil, and more about Desert Bluffs by extension.

A clue actually lies in the Desert Bluffs’ proverb:

Step one: separate your lips. Step two: use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step three: widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.

The people of Desert Bluffs are happy. They must be, they’re always smiling. Everything is fine. The doubles don’t fight to the death, they hug and build shelves. Their radio equipment is modern and covered in blood and viscera. Kevin has perfectly normal eyes.

Desert Bluffs is at least as horrifying as Night Vale, and it goes unacknowledged. It doesn’t seem to even register. Everything is fine. Strex Corp says so.

Night Vale is the horrifying place where the horror is talked about casually, normalized. Even when frightening to those used to it, it’s still business as usual, there’s no point hiding it or anything else, really. Night Vale is full of lies and secrets that everyone knows about because Cecil doesn’t stop bringing them up. We know when he’s being manipulated or fed things to say because he pretty much outright says when this is the case. Cecil questions all the time, even when delivering a PSA to never question anything ever. Night vale is horrifying; it is also honest and aware.

Desert Bluffs is the horrifying place where everything is just fine. How it is the people are so conditioned to not just ignore their conditions, but come up with positive alternatives in their minds, is unclear, but given Kevin’s brief monologue on Strex Corp, I’d theorize mind control chips or something. Brainwashing. Kevin is sedate and cheerful and feeds the delusion because he can’t do otherwise. What he sees and what he comprehends? Is not reality.

So let’s take this back to Cecil and Kevin’s appearances.

Cecil is average, almost to the point of absurdity, at least in terms of his physical appearance (he seems to pick up the slack with his dress sense if that date is any indication). Kevin would perceive real smiles as strange given his conditioning, and likely is unaware of how odd his own eyes are. An average, ordinary man in an utterly strange town, who speaks of the strangeness in ways ranging from awed to totally unconcerned, but it is spoken of nonetheless.

Kevin is horrifying. His smile is wrong, his eyes are wrong, a parody of normalcy. His town is strange and so is he, but in his depiction it is… all fine. All normal. The blood and viscera are normal. His eyes are not black pits, they are normal. He doesn’t seem capable of feeling fear, even, he’s pretty unconcerned about being in a strange radio studio. Everything is fine, after all.

Normalization of the strange / denial of the strange.

And that’s why Desert Bluffs is so much worse than our familiar Night Vale.