Extra-Strength Masquerade: Difference between revisions
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This is when a story has a [[Masquerade]] in place that, based on the events of the plot, should have been [[Broken Masquerade|broken]], but somehow [[Status Quo Is God|isn't]]. Maybe a dragon terrorized the populace of Manhattan. Maybe aliens landed in London and had [[Spot of Tea|tea with]] the Queen. Or maybe the Sphinx came to life and led a mummy army against Cairo. Whatever the specifics may be, it seems like the world of the story should have become [[The Unmasqued World|unmasqued]], yet the general public seems as ignorant as ever.
Normally this sort of thing gets a [[Hand Wave]] about the [[Ancient Conspiracy]] or [[The Men in Black|some other entity]] erasing everyone's memories of the event, passing the whole thing off as a hoax, or at least claiming people's [[Weirdness Censor
This has the additional benefit of lifting responsibility off the shoulders of the heroes; who now don't have to actively suppress anyone who knows the secret via methods above or passively promote ignorance by not warning [[Muggles]] about the supernatural beasties who want to control or kill them.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' had digital monsters terrorizing [[Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe|Japan]] and, later, the rest of the world, for approximately 3 days. People could look up in the sky and see another world going on. Yet not only does [[Digimon Adventure 02|the world return to normalcy within the next three years]], ''nobody'' remembers any details about the events. They seem to recall that the events happened, but nobody seems to know exactly what. Either that, or their [[Weirdness Censor
** [[Digimon Savers]] manages to get away with a ''lot'' because DATS has memory erasing technology and enough pull to spin the media. Where it gets ridiculous is when an army of Digimon invades Japan. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people see the army of giant monsters with their own eyes. The only mention it ever gets is that the city is seen rebuilding in later episodes.
* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' takes full advantage of this, especially during Mahorafest. CGI handwaves notwithstanding, you'd think someone would catch on, what with the teleportation bullets and 100-foot-tall demon mecha. Then again, this is a school where the robotics club makes a full size robot T-Rex and a [[World Tree]] dominates the center of campus, so anything goes I guess.
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*** Also noteworthy is that it doesn't seem to be just a trick of the mind, as even people that believe in the supernatural and have actively fought it can't always see through it. The 'partially aware' can see the supernatural, but the more out there it is, the more likly they need it pointed out to them first by a 'fully aware'. They can see the more relatively mundane things like a goblin or a zombie just fine, but a psychic squidman or a demon made out of a swarm of maggots? Not so much. It's worth noting that creatures of Shadow, even the unintelligent ones, seem to instinctively know just how 'aware' a person is.
**** In addition, when a creature of Shadow dies, its body dissolves, leaving behind no evidence.
* Noteworthy in the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'', especially ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' where rampaging and crazy [[Our Werewolves Are Different|wolfmen]] are just a fact of life. In most cases, this is
** The most clear example of
** Vampires'
** And notably averted in fan game ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'':
{{quote|While [[Muggles|mere mortals]] will screw up a [[Applied Phlebotinum|Wonder]] [[Stuff Blowing Up|something]] [[Turned Against Their Masters|fierce,]] there is no [[Weirdness Censor|cosmic principle]] or [[Ancient Conspiracy|conspiracy]] at work that relates to Wonders or [[Touched by Vorlons|Inspiration.]] There is nothing in a Wonder that "clouds men's minds" or that will cause them to grow confused. Wonders [[Invisible to Normals|show up fine on cameras and videos.]] There are no vast conspiracies to hide the truth from regular mortals. In fact, the vastest conspiracy out there, [[Path of Inspiration|Lemuria,]] [[They Called Me Mad|wants to make regular mortals aware of their brilliance.]]<br />
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** In the story at the beginning of ''[[Hunter: The Reckoning]]'', one of the characters tries to reveal himself to the world on Chicago's WGN News by creating a magic sword and destroying a chair with it. Unfortunately, the sword is invisible to the television cameras, and later on several illusionists go on the news showing how his "trick" was done.
** The [[New World of Darkness]] (of which ''Genius'' is part) has every supernatural race contain at least one subgroup with the job description "Hide the evidence". However, when the masquerade ''does'' slip... well, then you have the [[Hunter: The Vigil|Hunters]]. Network Zero, in particular, is devoted to ''breaking'' the masquerade.
*** Also keep in mind that, in the New World of Darkness, [[Muggles]] '''DO''' [[Broken Masquerade|start to believe in the supernatural]] when they see monsters come around their backyards. However, when those enlightened muggles try to make their discoveries public, they are viewed as cranks and [[Conspiracy Theorist|conspiracy theorists]] by the world at large. Add to that the fact that both the [[Government Conspiracy]] and the various non-human [[Masquerade
** Then there are the powers/side effects of said powers that automatically lead to an
* In the more technologically-advanced domains of ''[[Ravenloft]]'', many natives doubt the existence of supernatural threats that are readily acknowledged in distant backwater domains. Justified in that the Dark Powers create each domain to reflect its resident darklord's prejudices and biases, so if Lamordians don't believe in magic or Dementlieuse assume that sahuagin are just fishermen's tall tales, blame the local darklord's own skepticism.
* The Palladium Books game ''<s>Nightspawn</s> Nightbane'' for the most part is a normal [[The Masquerade|Masquerade]], but the event that started it all was literally seen by everyone on Earth. On March
* ''[[Cthulhu Tech]]'' has a [[Masquerade]] that, by all logic, should have been shattered into little pieces, but somehow the very ''existence'' of the Aeon War and the Eldritch Society side plot are kept secret from the people of the NEG-controlled Earth, thanks to [[Government Conspiracy|at least]] [[Ancient Conspiracy|three conspiracies]] working as [[The Men in Black]]. Attempting to bust things open will just get the entire NEG dropped on your head without actually breaking through the censorship.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* Whether or not there are any
* [[wikipedia:Tlatelolco Massacre|The Tlatelolco Massacre]]. Inverted, since back then the population never knew that 250 people were killed. Now everybody with internet access knows what happened (few people defend the then-president and then-secretary of State by calling the students communists).
* This is a popular theory about why uninvolved civilians in Germany and Nazi-occupied territory allowed the shoah/holocaust to take place. The theory goes that, given that hordes of people were being murdered, and that death and slave labour camps were all over the place, a lot of civilians must have known. They just pretended not to due to racism, the personal tragedies and stresses of being involved in war, how unbelievably horrific the atrocities were and how dangerous it would have been to look too deeply into the matter ( giving that they were living in a fascist dictatorship). If this was the case, then the holocaust was everybody's 'open secret".
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