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beigetiger · 2 months ago

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Kind of a continuation of this post, but I want to talk about fascism in Skulduggery Pleasant and how it’s handled, especially since it’s so relevant to our world at the moment (escapism through books? Never!) and because my interest has been captured by the way that this series clearly lays out impacting factors, where everything comes from, how it gets worse, and so on. Lot of stuff to handle, and I’m actually going to try and organize this beforehand instead of just vomiting words into my phone. I’ll also give you all the text cut of mercy.

I might have mentioned this before, but phase 2 (and by the looks of it, phase 3) depict and focus on fascism within their societies. There are several examples of this in phase 2 alone.

For example, Mevolent is introduced back in Kingdom of the Wicked, but the reality of living in a society ruled by him is most properly shown in Seasons of War. His society seems almost perfect for the sorcerers that live within it, but that’s only because those who didn’t fit the mold perfectly were killed. He has thought police and is personally able to track what his subjects are thinking about. And, of course, the Leibniz sorcerers dehumanize, oppress, and enslave their mortals because it’s all they’ve ever been taught to do. This particular flavour of society is probably least reflected in our current society of all the examples that I’m going to talk about, so I’m not too stressed about this one.

There’s also Martin Flanery, the very unsubtle stand-in for Trump. I’m mid about him as a character, but I think the series did a good job showcasing the difference between Creed, who’s calm and calculated and takes advantage of his follower’s rage, and Flanery, who feels and acts upon his rage just as much as any of his followers, while also showing that Flanery is still a threat. His lack of calculation doesn’t make him an easier opponent to defeat, it just makes him more of a wild card. And his soldiers are very much a reflection of this as well. Flanery’s soldiers use Splashes to become stronger but often have roid rage as a result, and they constantly get into fights and kill each other, causing incredible collateral damage in the process. The cops who worked under Creed, on the other hand, tended to be a lot colder, sneakier, and all-around more strategic, reflecting the climate that they’re thriving in. This isn’t just limited to Flanery, but this series also does a really good job at depicting the sheer idolization that these literal fascists are regarded with by their subjects and how it effects others.

But enough of that, I’m now going to talk about the whole reason I decided to write this stupid thing: Roarhaven and sorcerer culture as a whole.

Roarhaven post LSoDM has a whole bunch of factors impacting it and it’s social development, but one of the more major ones is sorcerers finally being given a place to be themselves and develop their own culture as opposed to just adopting whatever the mortals are currently doing. Sorcerers didn’t really have much of an individual culture for hundreds and hundreds of years because they intentionally repressed themselves so that mortals wouldn’t find out about them and possibly try to fight them. There was some slight amount of culture in places like when Roarhaven was a tiny village or those streets that are entirely owned by sorcerers, but those places were often bitter and in poverty in order to make themselves go under the radar, and so would only have offered comfort to certain kinds of sorcerers who just want others that they feel understand them.

But although the Sanctuaries may agree that silence and repression of diversity is the correct way to go about their lives, it’s extremely clear that there are many sorcerers who disagree with that (see Mevolent and his followers) and it’s clear that the Sanctuaries never bothered to stamp these disagreers out entirely as Mevolent did to his, only punishing them if they tried to reveal themselves to the mortals. This left these people alive to spread their ideologies to others.

And as I said earlier, the war that covered nearly the entire planet and was somehow kept from mortals for hundreds of years is also a huge factor for sorcerers. Between that and the inter-Sanctuary war, nearly the entire sorcerer population is a war veteran who was stood witness to or even committed absolutely sickening acts that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. They have nearly nothing resembling actual functional therapy and PTSD is probably incredibly common among the population. The Corrival kids, the ones too young to have been in war, have had to grow up in these environments and being raised by these people, and we see so clearly in phase 2 just how much generational trauma impacts people and ruins uncountable numbers of lives. Sorcerers also pretty much never die of old age. A select few of them live to be old, yes, but even they always die violently. There is no peaceful or happy ending for sorcerers, their lives are dark from the beginning through to the end, even to the point where the knowledge that they’re going to die acts as a comfort instead of a curse.

The sorcerers have also watched mortals commit countless genocides and acts of horrific discrimination and destruction and have been unable to do anything about it due to this idea enforced by their governments that they cannot interfere with the affairs of mortals, and that the mortals must simply learn to be better on their own. Hell, a lot of sorcerers have probably been directly impacted by these genocides, and their friends were probably tormented by the fact that they could do nothing about it. And due to their lack of culture and overall opportunity to do these things over the years because of the war, many of the sorcerers (especially the students who weren’t soldiers) start to feel just a little too good about themselves and their people, pointing out that they’ve never done things like that while failing to realize that the reason they’ve never really done that is because they’ve never been given an opportunity to do so.

And of course in modern times, there are issues like climate change, impending war, and increasing discrimination that sorcerers still aren’t allowed to do anything about despite living in the same world and still being impacted by, leading to a sort of “I wonder if things would be better if we were in charge”, as discussed often by Corrival kids and sometimes the Sanctuary workers. They’ve all heard of Dimension X of course, but those who don’t straight up agree with what Mevolent was doing either justify the thought by claiming that they’ve seen his mistakes and could do it better (introspection, anyone?) or, in the case of people like Valkyrie, just shake off the thought and tell themselves that it would never work out in practice.

And how sorcerers view mortals, even the supposedly good sorcerers, is also an important thing to consider here. There are, of course, sorcerers like Nefarian who have a cartoon villain view on mortals and think of them as little more than cattle, but there are more nuanced ways of thinking about mortals that are still not actually that great. In HBL, Ghastly talks about how he’s worse than mortals because he’s been given this gift that elevates him to some status above them, and yet also chooses to compete in wars for seemingly no end. And that’s the thing, this way that he subtly thinks of mortals as simple creatures who don’t understand the glory of the world as he does, who’s actions are understandable because how could they ever know better?

I also think that Valkyrie’s perception of mortals is fascinating because of how we get to see it evolves over time. When Val is fourteen or so, she actively rejects the term “mortal” because she sees it as dehumanizing and elevating of the sorcerers to a higher status. But as she grows older and becomes more attached to sorcerer society as opposed to mortal society, she stops complaining about the term and begins to adopt that mindset that so many other sorcerers have of almost being a shepherd. Instead of protecting mortals for the sake of keeping other people safe, it sometimes feels more like a duty to keeping the livestock alive more than anything else, and she actively refers to mortals as bumbling fools who get themselves killed unnecessarily in HBL.

Now, this is where Roarhaven as a city actually starts to come into play. After all, it lends sorcerers an entire city away from the prying eyes of mortals, and there’s nothing that actually makes them go back to interact with them. They can just live in the city forever and have all the resources they need. But spending so long away from and never interacting with the mortals they’re supposed to protect leads to disconnection with them from the sorcerers. The sorcerers see their city as cleaner, nicer, more organized, and overall better than anything the mortals could possibly create. Sorcerers live longer lives, are more open-minded, are stronger and capable of doing more, and so they must be better than those foolish mortals who become more close-minded as they get older.

And of course the Sanctuary is supposed to disagree with this sentiment (emphasis on supposed), but it doesn’t really matter because the Faceless Ones worshipers who have been saying this for hundreds of years and haven’t been stamped out by the government get to spread this idea around to their fellow citizens, who refuse to go back and actually reconnect with the mortals. It’s like how fast transphobia spreads among those who don’t actually know any trans people; the lack of ability to disprove the information and ideas you are being given causes them to become real to you.

And now for the children, who have less life experience and even less memories of mortals than the adults do. The students are easy to leave imprints on, and we’ve already seen how even the best intentioned kids express some anti-mortal sentiments. They know that their world is dying and it’s the mortals faults. They’ve grown up in this world being told over and over that they are better and wiser than mortals, and have been taught by their parents and by each other to view mortals as mayflies. Nothing more than insects. Even people like Omen wondered if maybe things would be better if they simply took over. Quietly took the world off the mortal government’s hands and into their own, where their everlasting wisdom can lead them to a better future. Because the kids don’t remember what the war was like, and it leads them to be disconnected from their parents. And that leads them to find affirmation among each other instead, at a boarding school where they almost never see their families and where even the teachers will indulge in anti-mortal sentiments. It’s such an easy rabbit hole for them to fall into, especially since Roarhaven hasn’t developed any sort of system to keep the kids up to date with the world and politics outside of Roarhaven, and so they just learn from each other.

And the reason that Roarhaven’s government isn’t able to do much about the children turning towards fascism is because the government kind of sucks. They have this idea that they don’t need things like lawyers because they have mind-readers and lawyers are a measly mortal invention while failing to consider the fact that lawyers exist to make sure that rights are being followed. Except that I’m not actually sure that the sorcerers have anything like rights outside of loosely following what mortals have, since police brutality seems incredibly common and the cops seem allowed to just do whatever they please. They also have nothing like a democratic system and their top governors can be easily put under influence by someone with money (e.g. China and Damocles).

There’s definitely more I could say to point this out, but I think it’s already clear enough (hell, it’s even discussed in the series itself) that the Sanctuary’s current government system is corrupt, outdated, and leaves room for dictators and fascists to take over and for the people to continue harming each other with no end in sight and needs to be replaced with something that would allow sorcerers as a whole to grow from the trauma that has brought them ruin for hundreds of years and maybe even finally help to create a better world for everyone.

#hey where’s that meme from its always sunny with that guy and the conspiracy board #I am so sorry for writing this lmao #not checked for spelling I’ll do it later #surely this could have been worded better in some places. so sorry if I say something stupid by accident #skulduggery pleasant #i am once again skulduggeryposting #me? NORMAL?? who’s that #I need to check how many words this is #TWO THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED SIXTY WORDS YOU GUYS #I AM SO. FUCKING. NORMAL

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selfcontainedunivcrse · 4 months ago

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WOE QND PLAGUE BE UPON YE 🏷️🍳 RC, 🧸😍cVwoop, 📊 for both

🏷️: What is their full name? Do any of their names have any special meaning? How did you come up with them?

Its full name is Release Candidate! RC stands for this. It fits in with the naming scheme of Proto, which was what I settled on for Vwoop1/Web1Vwoop/Etc, which is named Proto because it’s a reference to Prototype + Prophetbot from Oneshot!

Why these guys? Minor spoilers 4 the true end of Oneshot (just this paragraph). There is a robot that is made to be the tutorial guide at the beginning of the game, who is basically treated as one of three children of a major figure in the game. It is specifically a robot who is humanlike / not bound to programming because it has been taught how to have meaningful relationships with humans. And I cannot remember why because it’s been actual years since I’ve done a full playthru I rlly need to again o7 But. It is replaced with Prophetbot. This is Prophet’s description. And while Vwoop isn't like this the whole intent of it ...

It isn’t quite analogous but the Oneshot robot thing (+ as Oneshot is in many places inspired by Little Prince, which I also need to reread) is big inspiration for everything behind a lot of how I like to interpret Minecraft and Roleplay Rules and specifically “mob children” (picking that baby piglin to be my Minecraft son type thing, which is relevant because this happened to Proto).

But, uh, RC.

Well. Since I had Prototype, if I was going to differentiate, I’d want to keep with the programming theme, right, especially more as I’d gotten into Seren as a modder specifically and doing more worldbuilding about magic as modding and programming the game, and had an even stronger interest in meta stuff, and.

Well. I couldn’t. Call it Vwoop Alpha. Or Beta. There are implications. So it’s a Release Candidate! Also RC takes its meta-name due to like, seeing the horrors, and RC is snappy and easy, and it doesn’t really tell anyone what its name means? So just an acronym is very easy to use. RC :3.

(Ironically, it’s the most like it’s “supposed” to be, in-universe, cVwoop would be the “unstable” version but cVwoop is My favourite version because I can be biased :3. My Vwop. I think if I chose a thematic name for it it would be Vwoop Nightly/Nightly Build, because it is the most volatile and like. changes as a person due to the things around it. But I like it just being Vwoop shrug)

🍳: Are they good at cooking? Do they like to? Why and how did they learn to cook, or, if they didn't, why didn't they?

RC can cook. I think it likes to, even, but not really like. Substantially. Because see. On the server it originated from there was the mod Spice of Life, which gives different “food diversity points”. And it doesn’t really cook for that at all, so I like to think it just kind of makes. The equivalent of snacks. It cooks breads and sweets. It eats whatever it needs to to minmax but it’s kind of scrunching its nose at some things – such is the play. When it makes a world, it is NOT adding Spice of Life.

However, Popcorn taught it how to cook, and also is the one feeding it all of the minmaxxer food. They cook together sometimes, or RC helps him gather mass amounts of ingredients to meal prep.

🧸: What was their favorite childhood toy and why?

The first Ranboo plushie it made itself. It has made more, and more plushies in this world. But for a little while it would carry it like a safety blanket :]. It loves… Ran Boo.

😍: What traits, physical and/or mental, do they find attractive in other people?

The question probably means in like, romantic/sexual attraction but Vwoop is incredibly aroace. It has a love interest and is happy about this and is happy w/ Finch Specifically, but this does originate because it lives in a society. It’s even had all of these complexes without properly articulating that this is what it wants from fae. Which is even more what you’re supposed to do, it’s read a book before! That’s the whole point of the dating phase!! It does, however, think that people are joking and/or lying and/or overexaggerating that attraction exists. But people are strange, so.

With that out of the way platonically it so has a type. It is deeply endeared by eccentrics and people who it views as competent. It also likes it when people aren’t as concerned as it with social propriety, too, even though it doesn’t express this (they do not make it feel more scared to be alive). As a whole honestly it just likes people that can make it feel safe? It likes loyalty (a normal amount) and it likes being able to trust people.

📊: What is their best stat? What is their worst/dump stat? How do these affect how you roleplay as them?

This is kind of backwards since MCRP, but here is what stats I think they would have Because of how I rp them.

I think both of them would have really high dexterity due to being small and not stopping moving. I think RC is a bit more conscious of this because its forced to be a physical fighter (large servers have too much lag to effectively use a bow, which is depressing and cruel). It definitely tries to control space when it fights, especially in environments with scary magic weapons that Do Effects To You. I would place it as having high strength as well, but its not confident in its ability to fight through Magic Nonsense, so movement is generally more relevant.

I had to ask my resident dnd player actually about cVwoop but xe confirmed that I was right in thinking Vwoop’s highest stat would probably be charisma? Its best skill is absolutely the ability to convince people of things, and to kind of control its reputation as Nice.

Both of their dump stat is wisdom, for the same reason of having about two years’ experience in this whole being alive thing.

#and the universe said you are not alone!#and the player dreamed again #I SAT ON THIS FOR A WHILE. :3 Hi thank you for the ask #There is an anecdote I couldn't word about like. childhood trinkets. Not its favourite but its experience breaking something outside of its #means to fix considering it can't. mod things. like the other people around it.#And on attractive traits: Do you ever look at your characters two closest confidants and be like oh no it has a type #It does have a type. Maybe a bit more than properly articulated. The endearment for eccentrics cannot be understated.#Also a worthy note to constitution for cvwoop on account of the fact that resilience is probably one of its big things. And also in a direc #playing it circumstance on the way its magic works (no arms) it would probably have its magic stat be con (sustaining itself; rather than #Casting Spells) + also use this for strength. Because asking Day did turn into How do you hombrew cvp into DND #I've never dungeoned a dragon personally #Thank you for the enrichment graph i have enjoyed chewing on it sorry its like 1k words #Also don't tell Day (/SILLY) but Vwoop is NOT A GOOD PARTNER THIS COMP?ALLO? AXOLOTL IS MAKING IT EVERYONES PROBLEMMM. its on record that-#finch doesn't. care. HOWEVER.

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