Sophie Goodwill

**Sophie Goodwill** (Bujanski: Софі Гудвіла, **Sōfi Gūdvila**) was Ljudmila's grandmother.

## Appearance

When she was younger, she had blonde hair.

## History

### Early life

She was born several years before the Bujanski Revolution, while the death gangs raged across central Bujan. Her family was brought from an alternate Earth by the Wannaenids, as more Americans like them fled their wartorn homeland for a new home. Unfortunately, those settlers felt cheated as they were forced to comply by the coercive rules of the Q Theocracy or the Tyrskan government, forming their own community.

The murders commited by the death gangs frightened her into being a member of the Serpents, a Terran militant group, and its speeches agitated her to hate the natives and celebrate killings of native civilians.

### Incident

She was also a huge fan of "Broken Plates", an old show, spending her adulthood drawing fanart of its characters. When some people called her out on her support for her group's proposed communist state, she blocked them or threatened to murder the users. Even asking a simple question angered her.

In the most notorious case of all, a Wonao man, Dramital, asked Sophie about her thoughts on his people. She angrily cursed him, called him "privileged scum", and blocked him.

Her name and incident were reported everywhere among the resistance, like other misbehaving netizens and fanatics. Eventually, her recent cartoons were spread throughout the resistance and among her supporters, who denounced their caricatures of Wonao people. This led to her friends condemning her for some racist comments directed not only at Wonaos, but also at Bujanski Slavs and Ontemazei slaves, comparing them to "savages". She angrily answered back that the Bujanski tried to kill her, so it was right for her to kill all Bujanski to ensure "no obstacles to stop the revolution". More of her friends blocked her back and reported her comments, resulting in her being banned for bigoted comments.

With her friends gone and her art made in several years lost in an instant, Sophie went mad with grief and rage. For several days she cursed those who left her, and was taken to a prison cell for several days. She noticed that she was not left alone, as they still visited her in prison. They paid the bail for her release and her un-cancelling, so after an apology, she was allowed to have her social media returned to her. However, many of her former friends still blocked her and wished for her demise; and her account was emptied of most of her posts and artwork as if it was just created.

One evening, a friend of hers asked her whether was she willing to kill Wonaos or not. Although she noticed that this friend was a Wonao woman whom she also blocked, Sophie answered that she no longer wanted to kill the Wonaos, but perhaps to allow them to be part of her movement. Sophie also apologised that she did racist things and threatened to murder people with slurs.

She went into hiding with several friends while the revolutionaries swept the Serpents and their Wannaenid rulers out of Bujan. One day, as she wondered how did everything go quiet, her small group of fighters were captured and brought to prison.

### Interrogation

See also: Sophie Goodwill's Answers

Although Sophie and her friends were Terrans, they were not killed immediately because they never killed a single person. It was also because the people whom they blocked wanted to know their motives and background.

In their prison cells, several guards asked the members various questions about their background and motives, before they were forced to apologise to various innocents they hurt, and to undergo penance.

She encountered Dramital and his girlfriend Tazurol, who asked her about her hatred of Wonao people. By that time, apologise to them and explained about why she blocked them, and more about her background and the circumstances that drove her to such a sorry state.

### Reflection

Her punishment for supporting the regime, racism, and blocking people without a valid reason was four months of prison, and one month of penance. In the laws of the independent kingdom, all online blocks *must* have a valid reason, such as being a threat, harrassment, or criminal activity. Her needless blocks caused her prison to be a "blocktown", where she was forced in her own cell to see her own crimes projected in holograms at almost every waking moment of her months.

Though it was a terrible time that broke her mind, Sophie's imprisonment at the blocktown made her look at her own actions in shame. She was, however, lucky: the people she blocked visited her as holograms of her favourite characters, helping her abandon her bigotry and fanaticism. Furthermore, she was also spared from the massacres that raged across Bujan on July, the first month of her imprisonment. Her imprisonment was also chosen because she and her friends had shown remorse, allowing them to regain the trust of society in order to live.

The couple visited her every month and every few weeks to see her and her friends if they were feeling better.

When she and her friends were freed from prison, they were no longer hateful towards them. In fact, those Terran women even thanked the people whom they formerly blocked, for sharing them advice about their own personal problems and helping them stay sane.

### Penance

Sophie and her friends were released on the fourteenth day of October, as Dramital and his friends have gone to the police with a statement that they have forgiven those women. Their penance began with the usual reading of the Manusmriti's verses.

Her writings about life under penance were shown in several schools all over Bujan. She described that while there was almost no more violence in Bujan, people still resented and distrusted her because of her wrongdoings. Sophie was lucky that Dramital and Tazurol were also there to guide her and her friends, and they also taught her to understand the two languages of their country.

Like how she explained to her friends, she chose to live because she wanted to continue her art, and see her favourite characters. Unfortunately, she was not able to access any social media, and her friends also showed that her accounts were withheld until next month. Sophie expected that she might end up working in repairs or construction, when Dramital had decided to the judge that her task on penance was rather easy: complete one drawing per day, and report to Dramitai or Tazurol for any changes in her behaviour.

Her mandated time with the two were how they also taught her to speak in those languages. Even a simple sketch or a doodle drawn in frustration was enough to complete her penance task: those were the only way for people to see her art, which was hidden by the government to punish her blocks.

### Mirrors

Sophie had ended up in a dangerous time. Even though the ATA was no longer a visible threat, many people in Bujan did not hesitate killing anyone who behaved like a Terran.

Horrified by some incidents when people who yelled or used forbidden words were murdered, Dramital and his girlfriend constantly taught and advised her and her friends. Their advice helped the four women survive their penance as they learned the proper ways to live in Bujan.

Another factor accelerated her reformation: an old family book that she found while she renovated her home. Sophie found out from there that she was from one of the people she wished death upon: the very same people whom her bygone parents referred as "hocklies". As she studied more of its contents, she later learned that one of her problems was her own self-hatred: not only towards her origins, but also on her own failures, causing her to join militants to lash her own anger at other people.

Dramital helped Sophie abandon her shame, assuring her that in place of her bygone offenses, her changed ways and atonement for her victims, led her to become accepted by society. Over time, cold glares and muttered wishes for cruel demises gave way to apologies and warm welcomes. By the time her penance ended in November, she had hundreds of fans who loved her artwork. Sophie was also happy that her artist friends were also forgiven by their victims, having accepted the friends' work for penance.

In November, Sophie was invited by Tazurol to attend a protest, to show that as fans of Broken Plates, they were still loyal to Bujan and not against it.

### Present Day

Ljudmila, her granddaughter, was born to her son and his wife. She is half-Terran, half-Bujanski.

Radumo was inspired by Sophie's nightmares to create beautiful dresses. Seeing such horrors become something beautiful brought her back to the blocktown months, when her imaginary threats were the ones who freed her from her madness. She was very proud that Radumo did an excellent job in commemorating her oldest heroes.

## Personality

### Younger Sophie

As a young woman, Sophie was headstrong, proud, and confident. Her pride and paranoia in blocking innocent users led to a chauvinist and sadistic attitude, and eventually a racist attitude to support the Serpents' attempt to conquer and destroy Bujan.

Her hatred of Wonao people declined as she met actual Wonao people. Two of them were the people who were her former enemies, but later her greatest heroes in life.

Sophie's imprisonment forced her to confront her own inner demons: her hatred, her fanaticism, and her fears. Through the officers and her new friends, who projected themselves in the holograms of her favourite characters, she learned to let go of her hatred and accept her new life.

Since her release and penance, she learned that her struggle was within herself. No longer it was towards an external power that was her bogeyman, but her own fears and resentment, against a more forgiving society that even welcomed enemies who repented of their crimes.

## Relationships

She disliked her irresponsible mother and father, who neglected her, causing her to become a nasty person to spite her parents. She celebrated their deaths weeks before independence, but later visited their grave-tree to apologise for her various offenses. She even presented offerings of rich food and prayed like a Rodnover!

The friends who followed Sophie in and out of prison and penance were all women: Helia, Cicony ("Siconie"), Neptunia, and Laura.

Two of the people she formerly blocked, Dramital Tohonda and Tazurol Könetariwe, are Wonaos. Dramital and Tazurol are in a relationship.

She immediately reconciled with the two for those reasons: they were inspired by her (both her art and her actions against them) to make more art and be better people, and they helped her overcome her own guilt and poor self-esteem while she was in prison. It was merely gratefulness that made her want to be friends with her former "enemies".

## Trivia

* Sophie was inspired by several fans of a show by Rooster Teeth, "Camp Camp", who blocked him over reasons considered absurd by the author, such as paranoia and asking one of them about Ukraine.
* For that, the author also associated Sophie with Ukraine with several references that "haunted" her, to mock the blocker's hatred of that country. Eventually, the author decided that Sophie herself is an ethnic Ukrainian who learned to love herself.
	+ Many far-left users during the Russian invasion of Ukraine followed Putin's messages simply out of hatred against America, including believing his claims that "Ukrainians are Nazis" and supporting a Russian takeover.
	+ The date of Sophie's release from prison is October 14, the day of the Intercession of Mary in the Orthodox Church. It has become a traditional festival of the Zaporizhian Cossacks, and later the Cossacks of Ukraine.
	+ The names of her friends are allusions to the country's cultural symbols and traditions: "Helia" is from the Helianthus flower, "Cicony" is from the name of the stork, "Neptunia" refers to a Roman god who uses a trident, and "Laura" represents the vinok wreath.
	+ She once had recurring nightmares of becoming a "hockle", a bogeyman from stereotypical people from that country. An old family book left behind from her parents was known as the "Hockle Book", forbidden from discovery. She was originally supposed to burn the book, but she opened it after her penance, when she learned that its secret was that she was actually a "hockle" herself, descended from a family that supported independence. Therefore, all those wishes for "hocklies" to die, were technically curses against herself because she *is* a "hockle"!

* Her name, "Sophie", means "Wisdom".
	+ Her friends pointed out that her reckless decisions and racist attitude made her name rather ironic, even though she understood several languages and some history.
	+ Before her arrest, she once tried to Russianise her own name into "Sofija Gudvilova" or "Sofija Khroshljeva". The latter part of her name was from "khorosho" (хорошо) and "volja" (воля), meaning "good" and "willpower". Unfortunately for her, the Tyrskans hated what they saw as a desecration of their Soviet heritage, which became part of their own religion, so they accused her of blasphemy.
	+ In Ukrainian, her name would be Софія Ґудовіла - or, in earlier forms, Софія Доброволянко. As she improved her attitude and won more friends, she was also given a beautiful name in Bujanski, Dobrovolja, for her choice to be better than before.
* Sophie can understand - in addition to English - Spanish and Russian. She thought that the Bujanski language was a distortion of Russian, and used to angrily beat up people who spoke to her in the Bujanski language, accusing them of fascism for their refusal to become more "Soviet".
	+ She initially mistook Rukanian with Russian due to its similar vocabulary. Due to her hatred of the country of Ukraine, after her release from prison, some people spoke to her in Rukanian because to them Ukrainian sounded like Rukanian.
	+ Whenever she said "khokh-", someone quickly shut her mouth. She later learned that she would have uttered a forbidden word that was punishable by death in Bujan, as a Tyrskan slur that was later applied to Bujanski Slavs. That word, to Bujanski, supposedly meant "you slave!" or "pagan scum!"
	+ "Hockle", the Serpentian descendant of that accursed word, was not well known in most of Bujan. It sounded too different and unrecognisable.
	+ Sophie also learned, from her family records, that her family was originally from a city that she could not easily pronounce: "Ker-Mail-Nets". This was when she later learned that she *is* a Ukrainian, the very same people whom she hated in her past obsession with Russia!
* Sophie's favourite colour is green.
* The author imagined that Dramital, the Wonao man whom she blocked, looked like Marshall Lee from "Fionna and Cake".
* When asked about the Konudar shooter or the Phone Boy, two former artists who resorted to violence out of anger over their online blocks, Sophie searched about the two criminals online, using the same dome that was her main source of entertainment in prison. She answered to the holograms that she condemned their actions and found them to be disgusting.