After a lifetime of wickedness, you have been sentenced to hell. However, it’s not fire and brimstone. Instead, it’s a simulation of a high school dystopia.
You find yourself a resident in a magically enclosed suburbia. In the very middle is a large school (playgrounds, ringing bells, the whole mojo) that forms the center of the community.
To your horror you resemble your 9th grade self. Your new “parents” are cold, neglectful, and mean. They leave you alone mostly and they give you lunch money and pay for your stuff up to a limit but if you embarrass their “standing” in the boring suburbia in any way, they will very firmly and sometimes violently discipline you. Somehow, in this universe, this sort of thing is 100 percent lawful (and God Forbid even encouraged).
You are required to attend the awful school 5 days a week and it is completely dominated by several gangs of bullies that not only regularly demean people but also violently assault them. These bullies seem to be above the law and above the rules.
Though the bullies form a minority (and are overwhelmingly jocks), everyone else is either just lucky enough be part of a clique or God Forbid are total outcasts. “The Crowd” generally has the following characteristics:
1. They are terrified of the bullies unless they are confident they have their favor or have characteristics (such as beauty, limited favor with teachers etc) that can be leveraged to minimize being targeted
2. When someone gets bullied in plain sight, the bystanders laugh, cheer, snicker and pile on insults, usually not a single person helps the victim and if they do they will likely join in the misfortune. Others watch in quiet horror, shock or amusement.
The teachers and school authorities are just like the parents. They don’t care. Unless you disrupt their classes or make them a target or inconvenience them in some way, they turn a blind eye to the oppression of the bullies. Most of them have the personality of a disconnected, cynical, public school instructor and they do the work metaphorically pinching their noses.
Having said that though, it is SITUATIONALLY possible to unlock/gain temporary periods of limited protection from a few teachers though keep in mind teachers come and go in this system due to high turnover and they can easily lose interest in you.
While it’s possible to gain these limited favors, the highest levels of what resembles “government” in this hellscape are always pro-bully though it may take some escalation for them to enter the fray.
…
Now you might be thinking… what happens if you die or get hurt in this hellscape? Can you burn this awful place down? Is this America?
First, no it’s not modeled after America, rather, it’s a Canadian hellscape (there are no guns and there is no right to bear arms oh no 0_0).
Toon force factors operate so that while people suffer and get hurt, they never seem to die and you’re always back 100 percent in a few days. The same goes for any property damage done to the school (things just magically get rebuilt). It is also unclear why but the toon force somehow on balance favors the bullies.
Everyone in the hellscape except you seems to think this is going somewhere (they will graduate, the magic barrier will SUPPOSEDLY go down periodically, there is college, a bigger world etc). You’re convinced these “NPCs” are alive but somehow just creations of a different kind from you. They all feel there is a point to this which is why most still try at grades etc.
However, you know the truth. Which is that after you live from 9th to 12th grade… it resets with you in 9th grade again (with the exact same background and setting but with 99 percent new NPC characters though there are a few particular colorful characters who get reset as permanent mainstays too… these guys average out to the same grotesque character settings as previously outlined though there is an element of luck, you may get a slightly better or a slightly worse batch). And then yes… it’s another 4 year ride before the next reset, ad infinitum.
Now the school apparently has some kind of a magical treasure which no one can use properly because no one here is a magic user. From time to time though, extremely powerful afterworld iterations of IM Verse hypothetical characters will show up to try and take over the school and the town, steal said treasure, and use it to create a new order.
The list of visitors who have tried to attack this rotten place are endless:
- Corporate managers and thugs from Basic Psych
- Dark Witch Maggie
- Mafia Queen Aurora and a whole gangster squad
- Military forces from The Empire
- Witch Queen Annie Holstadt
- IM Verse Olympians including Zeus, Artemis, Athena, Apollo etc
Because the school bullies are so bad, people might even quietly root for these traditionally antagonistic characters. It always ends the same way though.
Somehow whenever they show up to try this the unlikable bullies (or some other allied element from the school) get massive plot armor along with tons of toon force, allowing them to defeat these characters which should never happen. Either that, or the invading party temporarily succeeds, manages to install a new regime at the school but then gets catastrophically overthrown in the most ridiculous over-the-top of ways. After getting subjected to crude bullying and disgraceful treatment, these visitors always leave (with no one seemingly able to follow them out) … while the awful school continues to stand in its repugnant state, reverting to the previously mentioned status quo.
It’s like some kind of operation of Fate.
…
Now this is going to go on for some time. You need a survival plan. Here are some options:
1. Focus on gaining the fleeting, imperfect and limited protection from the teachers by trying hard at school, participating in class, praising them etc. Over several iterations, you’re skill at reading and manipulating these cynical instructors should get better and better (and by trying at school, you are “learning”), ensuring some increased protection rate from the gangs. The downside? Whenever this approach fails or produces cracks, the bullies might target you because they don’t like “suck ups” and/or are envious of your achievements.
2. Try to keep your head down as much as possible. Pay your dues (ex lunch money to the bullies if asked) and comply, don’t say anything controversial, don’t draw attention, don’t excel at anything, never make a scene, don’t help anyone. Master the art of invisibility.
3. Actively look for allies and fight back. Take on the whole school if need be. You’ll lose and get wrecked again and again and again but you don’t care. Since all damage is non lethal anyways, you’re going to keep fighting. Worst case scenario your reputation will be ruined for 4 years before it resets. You can take a lot of pain and ridicule, but you have to be true to yourself. Keep in mind though, that this approach will lend you in a lot of pain and you’ll probably be turned into a spectacle. Whenever the Witch Queen and others show up to try and occupy this universe in each iteration, you’ll collaborate or work with them on a limited scale because you hate this place.
4. Collaborate with the bullies and work for gang membership, actively pick on the weak. If you can’t beat em join em. A moral code isn’t worth that much in this hellscape when it’s rigged. Over time, you’ll get better and better at crushing others and impressing the random bullies so much so that you might be able to make a gang member in every 4 year time slot.
5. Develop useful skills (out of class learning) that you can trade with the bullies in each iteration in exchange for protection. Maybe you can do their homework and essays, pick locks, or help them with tech/computer stuff. Be creative. However, you don’t ACTUALLY want to bully people. You’ll try to maintain a certain distance and hope the bullies are okay with your in-between role.
6. Other (please explain)
Keep in mind that if you attend to skip school. You’ll get hunted down by the school’s ruthless truancy agents and their dogs.
Please justify your choice and explain. Please try to factor in your IRL personality.
