Skeptic

Skeptic is anyone whose Innocence is stronger then normal, for whatever reason Magic and Others will be badly affected by a skeptic's mere presence, considered a type of Aware though arguably they're anti-aware themselves.

Creation

Skeptic at it's root means to doubt, this "doubt" covers a wide range of responses to stimuli. Both things in mundane reality or, relevant here, magic. Religiosity and "rationality" are not prerequisites or obstacles in the making of a skeptic they can have personal beliefs completely unrelated to factual reality.<ref>Sharon wasn’t engaging, so she switched tacks.  “What’s this conspiracy then?  Are you a flat earther?”

“No.  I believe in science and sociology.”

“Vaccines?”

“I believe in science, and the science raises questions.  I think corporations have been sketchy for as long as there have been corporations.  Being worried about what they’re putting into your body when we don’t know what happens over generations is just sensible.”

“Secret cabal controlling the world?”

“It’s not a secret, hon.  The information is out there, people just don’t want to believe it.  The same names keep popping up, and a lot of those names are the sorts who wouldn’t have gone from being scattered refugees to some of the most powerful men in the world if there wasn’t something going on.  They organized.”

“Maybe they’re good at what they do?”

“Or maybe they collaborated and gamed the system, shook hands and made deals, and schemed their way to where they control entertainment and media.”
[...]
“Who are you!?” Sharon raised her voice, shifting her grip on the gun.  “Tell me or start saying your prayers.”

“You’d really shoot an unarmed kid?  And prayers- you’re religious?”

“Of course, and of course.  Last chance.  Who are you?” - Excerpt from Back Away 5.3</ref>

An acclimatized or adapted Skeptic is a person whose Innocence has been tested but not broken and has emerged stronger for the experience, a analogy could be drawn to immune responses.<ref name=":2">The Innocent enjoy protections from Others and practitioners, but Skeptics often turn these protections to weapons. There are many ways a Skeptic can come about, but these ways can include indoctrination or acclimatization. The indoctrinated skeptic may be brainwashed or otherwise augmented with doubt as a fundamental facet of who they are. Some are raised with daily lessons or a worldview and given no room for any other way of thinking, others are given drugs and reshaped, and yet others are starved, torn down to nothing, then rebuilt from the ground up.

The acclimatized take a gentler road. When Innocents find themselves faced with the practice or with Others, they will instinctively reach for ways to soften the blow. If there is room for doubt, they often capitalize on that room, then build on that capital. Excuses are clung to, they question their own memories or accounting of events, and may liberally revise these memories and accountings, until they return to comfortable reality. With enough repetition, they can form a comfortable bubble around themselves, where anything extraordinary is dismissed. - 4.8 Bonus Material: Dossiers</ref> They use their imagination to concoct alternative explanations for anything they encounter that's tied to practice or Others and can pull on those explanations again when they encounter similar circumstances.

Indoctrinated skeptics are 'artificially' created by things like total psychological de- then reconstruction, pharmacological intervention or simply how they've been raised or taught.<ref name=":2"/>

Other methods presumably exist.<ref name=":2"/>

Particulars

As said the fundamentals of a Practitioners world crumble in the presence of a skeptic. Karma, Magic and Others will all be affected by their presence. With a good imagination a skeptic can explain away certain events self-edit things and make reality stronger. Any anti-innocent wards are ineffective against them.<ref>“The way this is supposed to work,” he murmured, “is that Innocents are too unnerved to remark on the odd things they find.  Especially with some of these types of ward.”

“It doesn’t matter when it’s her.  It doesn’t matter that phones aren’t working across Kennet.  She called the police.  They were the cop cars we heard earlier.”

“They’re only now getting here.”

“Because time’s broken in Kennet,” Verona said. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.2</ref><ref>Meaning she couldn’t stop it from littering her clothing, or falling onto the car.

A ward inside the car glowed faintly, pushing the paper away.  But again, there were bystanders.  The men on the sidewalk.  It couldn’t be too overt.  It couldn’t defy reality or expectations.

In a way, it was like the skeptic effect that had followed Sharon around, when the Aware had come.
[...]
The Hennigar ignored the cops, following after Lucy, but the same environment-claiming effect he’d been using didn’t work on an area as wide-open as the road.  Lucy avoided going into the hedges, and when he walked forward a few feet, she crossed maybe ten or twelve feet on all fours, before looking back.
[...]
The same All-Innocents-are-a-bit-skeptic level of stuff applied.  Even mid-rage, the Hennigar seemed to know enough to hold back, or the practice forced him to, getting weaker. - Excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.y</ref>

Scrying will not work on skeptics and can be used to shield someone for such attention, this would not destroy the trail however.<ref>

Wye: No. It bothers me I can’t. I started to look for other things. Financial connections, colleagues, people who I know he knows who might have hidden him. I talked to the three skeptics at Sargent Hall, thinking he might be in their company.

Chase: That wouldn’t explain the lack of a trail between here and there. - Excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.4</ref>

Hosts and Vessels can have their protections damaged by being in range of skeptics.<ref>“You couldn’t get close?” Verona asked. “Did the skeptic mess with your hosting stuff?”

Edith’s lips pressed together into a tight line.

Out of the sight of the two in the car, Lucy touched Verona’s wrist, squeezing lightly, while keeping her eyes forward.

“I hope you’re okay,” Lucy said.

“We should be, given time,” Edith answered. “We’re a bit shaken. We thought we would overpower them with a show of force, and eat the karma.”

Lucy winced.

Edith picked up her hand, and Lucy could see that the sleeve of her jacket was burned, and the flesh beneath had blisters. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.1</ref>

They may have some issues getting into or interacting with the various Realms.<ref>“Sharon Griggs is out there,” the Cat said. “She can’t seem to help deal with Daniel unless she comes in here… which I don’t think she can do, because she can’t see here, or if we get Daniel out there.” - Excerpt from Back Away 5.c</ref> Though their power can negatively effect most others those that are still visceral can still hurt them.

Effects of Skeptics can overlap though this is seemingly uncommon,<ref>[Bristow] doesn’t send more than one [skeptic] out at a time, as a minimum of one is required to keep the complex in balance, and the effects don’t tend to overlap. - 4.8 Bonus Material: Dossiers</ref> possibly related to the background and views of a skeptic; how they deal with anything supernatural.

Their protections even work with "dumb" Others due to the instincts such creatures posses.<ref>“On the other hand, if they are bound by the Seal, that binding will usually bear provisions about how they may interact with humans.  Unbound, they have difficulty approaching and instinctively sense the karmic danger of breaching order.  Even the dumbest ogre may recognize that mankind is bright and mighty and interconnected, and hunt elsewhere.  Bound, they are restricted from hurting man, and still pay some karmic penalty, if they get caught, not simply for approaching or risking that capture.  And man thrives, the innocent protected on both fronts.” - Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.1</ref>

Part of the pattern of their awareness is that they are drawn to practice only to discount and remove it, when this happens to Wards things can go wrong very quickly.<ref>Skeptics are ignorant and ignorance is dangerous.  Practice struggles to find traction on a Skeptic, and Others suffer a heavy cost to their karma and Selves simply for stepping into the light when the Skeptic is present, even though the Skeptic is often so insulated that the appearance of a god in its full bearing could be dismissed one way or another.  Conversely, when the bubble is popped (again, if it can be), the cost is usually dramatically heavier than usual.  The biggest Skeptics are often dangerous due to their propensity to dampen practice in an area around them and their simultaneous draw to practice; they have a habit of unwinding or bypassing protective wards that are keeping troubling Others locked up, or walking blithely through barriers meant to keep civilians out of a sensitive or dangerous area, often bulldozing the way for other Innocents to pass through. - 4.8 Bonus Material: Dossiers</ref>

Named Skeptics

• Joseph, Blake's Friend<ref>There wasn’t much here. The hair was gone, but the dark crust on the interior wasn’t.
  
  I got my finger thoroughly smudged, then drew a diagram on the top of the coffee table.
  
  “By doing this,” I said, as I drew, “I’m introducing you to this world. Your mistakes from here on out are mine, in part. The consequences can be heavy, and I’m not in a position to be able to afford mistakes.”
  
  I wasn’t sure how well this would work. Glamour fed on belief, and there were a number of disbelievers here.
  
  But I might kill myself if I used blood, and I had no idea how to use the Stonehenge charm that Evan had taken from Duncan.
  
  I moved my hands back.
  
  The coffee table slid a solid two feet, and the diagram disappeared.
  
  “You kicked it,” Joseph said.
  
  “He didn’t,” Goosh said.
  
  “Nope,” Alexis confirmed. “I watched.”
  
  “Magnets, then,” Joseph said. “Strings.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.2</ref> (possibly)
• Sargent Hall Tenants
  • Sharon Griggs (acclimatized)
  • Thea (unknown)
  • Unidentified Third
• Rieth Library Blind<ref name=":4">

The Rieth Library studies Others, traces them back to origins or realms of origin (Abyss, warrens, spirit world, courts) and maintains contact with several higher-ups. Alabasters, Spirit Kings, Goblin rulers, etc. When they set their sights on a particular Other or Practitioner it's typically for a major reason. They then cite old rules, precedent, deals, and stuff dating back hundreds of years, or otherwise appeal to specific individuals, to obtain permission at the source to have their target dealt with. When successful, which is often, practitioners can be cut off from their practice, or Others weakened and cut off from allies or power sources. Their executioners are 'The Blind', men and women raised from birth to be steeped in doubt and skepticism, while the higher ups are the opposite. The doubt is a blessing that affords The Blind further protections and diminishes every Other and practice in an area. This combines with the Big Karmic O.K. they get from the higher-ups to make them very matter-of-fact, to-the-point Witch Hunters. Their victims typically have their eyes gouged out, eardrums pierced, and hands cut off, before being bound as necessary in power suppressing restraints, if Other or nonhuman enough. - Wildbow on Witch Hunters</ref> (Indoctrinated)

• Verona<ref name="V1"/><ref name="V2"/> (formerly)

Trivia

• Skeptic as a word is used in both Pact and Pale but the distinction between it in its casual usage and the phenomena for Aware is not fully explicated.<ref name="V1">“We have no intention of letting you die,” Miss said.
  
  “Why were my eyes last to open?” Verona asked “That doesn’t seem right.”
  
  “It’s a good thing, Verona. Those things that let you hold onto what came before, like skepticism, imagination? They’re going to be things that make you an excellent practitioner, should you follow through here today.” - Excerpt from Lost for Words 1.1</ref><ref name="V2">“I do believe she is,” Maricica said. “She dove deep but she resurfaced. Most who take animal forms don’t learn to speak so quickly. As Miss suggested before the awakening ritual, skills like a strong imagination make a good skeptic and a good practitioner both.” - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.3</ref>
• Skeptic is used here in the most basic questioning of reality sense,<ref>Wildbow on Discord </ref><ref>Dash to Pieces 11.12</ref> int the real world skeptics tend to divide themselves between those that follow scientific criteria and those who deny basic reality to suit themselves or an agenda.
• Mystics have long claimed a phenomena similar to this is responsible for their own failures of 'magic'.
  • A relevant historical anecdote here is the deteriorated relationship of Ehrich Weiss and his friend Conan. Briefly, Ehrich would accompany Conan to seances and similar, disproving and exposing all as some variation on scams or confidence trickery. Conan retorted that the answer must be that Ehrich in fact had real magical powers that were canceling out those of the hucksters.<ref>This story is can be seen in numerous contexts, selected versions can be found here, here, here and here.</ref>

References

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