Fake News: State of Grace, Epilogue

Title: State of Grace, Epilogue: I Am America (And So Can We)
Fandom: The Colbert Report
Rating: R
Disclaimer/Warnings: See the table of contents.

As the very first post of this story was on Black Friday three years ago, it's only fitting that the final one should appear today.

This is the part which catches up with, then overtakes, the epilogue of Expecting. Stephen's litany is from Dune, and his book is the excellent Meditations on Middle-earth; Tyrone is working from a book with the unsubtle title of Pornogami. The girl's way of addressing Tracey has been retconned to "Miz Tracey", on the advice of Senior Southern Correspondent politicette.

It would be remiss of me not to once more thank Senior Beta Correspondent stellar_dust, without whom none of this would have been possible. ♥

Clips referenced: the fear puppet; Hannah Montana; the burning couch; throwing drumsticks; tonight!

( I still need you to protect me. But the things I need protection from are different now. You can change to meet them—I know you can. All you have to do is let go. )

Fake News: State of Grace - Stephen's Diagnoses

In which I talk about mental illness in general, and Stephen's in particular, and Stephen's in State of Grace in extra-particular.

If for some reason you want to wade through the raw material for this, i.e. un-annotated masses of text I copied down from all the books I've read that seemed vaguely relevant, here's the latest version of the .txt file. (At 197 KB, it's larger than most of the illustrations.) Enjoy.

Legal-ish Disclaimer-Type Warnings

As usual, all of the following is character analysis of the fictional "Stephen Colbert", not psychoanalysis of the real-life actor Stephen Colbert who plays him. Anyone who comments without reading this disclaimer waives their right to complain about any pointing and/or laughing that results.

I've tried to be thorough, which means that those of you who know some basic background about psychiatry (to say nothing of readers with Actual Psychiatric Degrees, and/or Actual Psychiatric Diagnoses) will probably find yourselves scrolling through paragraphs of the obvious. This also includes discussion of triggery topics such as abuse and suicide. Oh, and there are spoilers! For the whole story, including the epilogue.

I'm not a psychiatrist; I have no medical degrees; I'm just a lay person who has done way too much reading. All of the following is sourced, and accurate to the best of my knowledge, but none of it is medical advice. If you think I've left out something essential, feel free to comment or PM me with a correction. If any of this inspires personal concerns, consult your doctor.

Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Only you can prevent forest fires.

Got it? Good. Read on....

( Fear is also increased by inconsistent and unpredictable outbursts of violence and by capricious enforcement of petty rules. )