Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Then whence comes the story breaking power?
I don’t understand how spamming that is quite so “game breaking”?
For her specialities like deception, sure, but otherwise?

 

Fanon

 

It's not story breaking as such - you can make a story about an exalt in Worm going around being superhumanly good at everything. People have done it before. But that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted something that focused on individual charms that did interesting things, and where power had to scraped and scavenged for. A single charm letting you solve all manner of problems by throwing more dice at them breaks that.


Unrelated, but remember how I mentioned that there were easter eggs that no one had found?

 

Haha, nice.

Didn't notice it until they were all stacked like that.

 

This must mean it was a Simurgh plot!

 

Is there a plan to reveal the easter eggs after some time? Or is it all up to us to find them?

 

Well, by revealing the one I feel like I provided a pretty big hint towards another...

 

So congratz on finishing. Now you can call yourself one of the 10 or so wormfic authors that finish their stories.

Second best thing. Put the URL of the first page here and get the epub of the threadmarks.

https://fichub.net/

ShayneT

Is an author that always finishes his stuff (has like 4-6 completed stories). However you can expect TINO in all of them. And them being mostly similar with a different flavor.

There can be a difference between the beliefs of an author and his work. I don't think Daniel is racist, the Author Track of the story would be different if he was. This story probably gave a scare because instead of showing a bunch of "in your face" racists. Showed the more insidious ones. Which are nowadays more common than the "in your face" racists. The community was showed pretty well too. Lots of people that get outside of these circles, claim that the reason they got in or didn't get out before, was because of the community.

I still maintain that a warning and statement of not having these beliefs, would have resulted in a lot less people bitching.

I also feel that the Empire arc became unnecessarily long just to spite this people.

Edit:
Some other completed works.

https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/that-sounds-like-work-au-crack-complete.641911/page-2


https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/i-worm-creepy-no-longer-complete.7465/
The author decdied to add to it years afterwards but you could say part 1 is complete and a self contained story.

 

The backlash wouldn't have been nearly as bad if Snuts didn't adamantly refuse to clarify that he doesn't support the Empire's views, or to, for example, educate his readers on why the things that 'proved' that the Empire was right to Taylor's perspective were horseshit. He didn't even need to do that in story, but he didn't do it out of story either.

It wasnt what he wrote that got the thread deleted. It was because he declared that he'd die on the hill of writing what was essentially a Nazi Chick Tract... And ended up metaphorically dying for it.

If he had instead took the opportunity to be more complete with the education on how Nazis end up recruiting people, noting in informational posts on the most egregious bits of bullshit... There still would have been people bitching because they didn't read those posts, but he would have had a leg to stand on and the mods would have backed him up...

Well, it would certainly have lasted longer before getting deleted at the very least. Depends on how thorough Snuts was with pointing out the specific pieces of bullshit he sprinkled in.

 

They weren't though? Unironically, they were a Simurgh plot. That false flag attack she read about in a news paper that people complained endlessly, the people that wandered into Empire territory against all reason, and the other bits like that? Seems pretty obvious after Ziz got bound, what with this bit

that the Simurgh had been playing the long game to get the Taylor she wanted. Sometimes that meant making Nazi shit that would be bullshit IRL, into actual stuff that happens in Bet. Other times it meant setting up everyone she cared about, except Aisha, to die.

In hindsight, the signs were all there after Ziz singled her out during the Endbringer fight.

 

I always had two chief concerns.

The first and most obvious one is that the Nazis are portrayed entirely sympathetically, especially the rank-and-file. You'd struggle to find even one example of the Nazis doing something objectively bad. The closest was Hookwolf's dogfighting, and oh look, that got shut down and the Nazis we saw were happy about it. As if that wasn't in the true spirit of fascism.

They were just a white pride community organization, not a violent criminal gang. If anything they were just an independent hero team with a heroic "a separate place for every race" stance.

The second (and far more insidious) was the direct comparison between known facts within Worm's setting and real-life Nazi propaganda.

An example: the discussion about the supposed genetic predisposition to violence and parahuman predisposition to violence. There was no reason rank-and-file Nazis would know about "cape brain" and yet they did, because they're redpilled and able to see through the actual conspiracy's attempts to hide the truth.

Another: the false flag hate crimes. Despite this actually being extremely rare it is presented as a legitimate and common avanue of attack against the innocent Nazis. As civiulas points out that was probably a Simurgh plot, but like, there was no indication during that part in the story. In fact we can't know if that interpretation is even correct!

And so we see facts within the setting used to justify both so-called scientific racism and Jewish conspiracy theories, which really read like actual legitimate Nazi propaganda to me.

Now the fact that the OP presents this work as "transgressive" hints that the actual goal was probably to piss people off, so in hindsight this was probably just artistic trolling. Making people mad was the point.

An actual Nazi wouldn't have killed off the Empire, or if they did they'd martyr them instead of just discard the entire subplot.

tl;dr OP is probably just a nihilist, not a fascist.

 

To be fair that probberbly would be the stance of an American neo-Nazi. Given they perceive them selves to be are the counter culture to the establish order. What kind of crimes would a neo-Nazi group even get up to while maintaining their self image of good and righteous? Drugs are out due to damaging their clients(whites) or having to deal with the 'lesser' races. Extortion is one but that is no different from what any government does. Rape is out too as doing it to whites would be unacceptable and any other race would be bestiality. Violence is there but mugging doesn't really put bread on the table in the age of the credit card. Actually how does the Empire turn a profit!? Maybe that's why cannon Kaiser wanted out of the empire with his assets intact.

 

SB was always a question of when, not if. I went there fully aware of that fact. I was contacted by a mod exactly once. He said "you're using 'nigger' too much, you have to censor that." Well, at the end of two paragraphs of "you are bad and you should feel bad, but you're not breaking any rules except-", he said that. I fear I rather disappointed him when I immediately complied without argument or complaint, because the thread was later deleted without a word, the moment they had enough hecklers for a veto.

What I wasn't sure about was how it would go on QQ. It's not a coincidence that I finally started putting it on AO3 right after a mod here sent me a message saying "you're not breaking any rules, but I'm concerned, friend."

Sorry I felt threatened by your friendly concern, friendly mod guy!

It's almost as if Hitler was a vegetarian animal rights implementer who was especially fond of dogs, or something. The dogfighting was a giant canonical sore thumb that had to be addressed. Namely, by showing the more devout among the rank and file chafing under their cape leadership.

Oh but you can: I can simply inform you that it's completely bonkers wrong.

I did not expect the uproar the library chapter caused. I was all "man, they think I'd have the balls to make something like that up if I couldn't rip it from the headlines?" The sad fact is that black children becoming collateral damage in gang shootings is a regular occurrence, yet the only time I ever recall such an incident gaining traction as news was a couple of years back when it was reported that a white guy did it. And then it promptly got buried again when it turned out that no, one didn't. A bit more thoroughly than I realized, clearly.

Like all governments (Mike explains, and you mentally translate), they use the monopoly on violence to extort protection money from their subjects (taxes).

Wait, did I get the parentheses the wrong way around there? There's also politically motivated foreign aid from people seeking to destabilize their enemies in the region (Gesellschaft) and Hookwolf's line of state-run casinos.

 

It all depends on who the crimes are being committed against. Rape has often been used as a form of violent humiliation in ethnic conflicts, and I suspect they'd also rape white women suspected of being leftists or lesbians or in a relationship with a Black man.

There would also certainly be assassinations and car bombings and other hate crimes/acts of terror. They also likely target minorities and perceived enemies for muggings and burglary, especially minority owned businesses. It's not like they'd actually stay in their territory either, so they'd often lash out into the surrounding city.

As for drugs, neonazis are often involved with drugs - just the "right" drugs like uppers and prescription shit.

Oh look, confirmation the Nazis did nothing wrong.

 

Jesus Christ. The very fact you're here swinging away at the little bit of dust left from this dead horse's decomposed corpse makes clear how much of a lie this is.

You even know it's bullshit because you admit as much here. In the end there's no satisfying your type, there's always something more needed to remove yourself from the badthink list of nogoodniks. By the time anyone got to the end of the list of changes expected there wouldn't be any story left, just a dry well researched thesis on why the Nazis are bad, jjust like dozens and dozens which had come before.

Sorry but unlike you, I enjoy reading stories. Fiction? You've heard of it right? This is why I'm glad Snuts ignored your and attempts by others to hijack his fictional story to try and turn it into a doctrinal thesis or some such-like.

 

I just came here because I heard a ton of people were coping hard(as in the copium just increases every chapter).

I want to know why.

 

Eh even with something your bad at an excellency makes you worlds class at a minimum. In things your good at it makes so ordinary mortals can not beat you at all. And remember a lot of charms key of your roll, so a boost to your roll, has a lot of knock on effects. Like Dragon's craft charm, it compressed over a year of work into a few 6+ hours; With an excellency that time would have been halved, while at the same time it would also unlock tons of stuff as the boost would allow you build stuff you could not before hand.

 

Because the neo-Nazis in the story are portrayed as reasonably evil to the point of being human, instead of cringe-worthy evil. For some reason, probberbly a knee-jerk reaction bough about by indoctrination, some people take offence to that.

That and the main character is also pretty messed up, but in a way that makes somewhat sense with shard mind-fuckery and possibly emulated solar curses.

 

Look man, the Nazis were never the problem. The problem was the white woman fucking her dog and trying to birth an abomination.

 

Can you name something evil they did in the story? I don't remember anything specific that couldn't be handwaved away as "well the government does it too" - aside from the dog fighting, which they didn't like because Hitler was vegetarian or whatever.

They extort people and collect protection money? That's just taxes.

They assault minorities in their territory? That's just border control.

They brutalize rival gangsters? That's just law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the hate crimes were faked by the (((mainstream media))) and they did shit like help domestic abuse victims.
The audience was mad because they were portrayed as a foil to the legitimate government, not as a gang. Maybe it was supposed to be a commentary about government legitimacy or crime being in the eye of the beholder, but they were not portrayed as evil at all.

 

They were potrayed as racist. Was that not enough? Do racists also need to be extra negatively portrayed? If we exit fiction and go to real life, racists are people too you know. They might not admit that in public due to the political climate, but they're all around us.

I have a guy at work who aced Oxford and he's normal bloke besides the racisim and obesity (tho that too is becoming normal unfortunately).

 

Badthink is not evil. Evil is something you do.

Real life neonazi gangs are not just groups of racist friends that share memes at the bar and help the community. They're literally gangsters; drug peddling, human trafficking, armed robbery, etc. Rather than compare the rank-and-file of the E88 with guys you know at work, you should be comparing them with guys in the Aryan Brotherhood.

Now take the Aryan Brotherhood and give them fucking super powers. Give them the backing of a major corporation and an international terrorist organization.

We don't see that in the story. What we see is an independent hero team with racist beliefs.

The E88 was just not the gang it should have been.

 

It was not the gang you wanted it to be.*

 

Hey don't be like that - they all died horribly so they were exactly the gang I wanted them to be in the long run lol

 

Your right, that was over the top on my part. Though I would have preferred they all ended up as cute Asian school girls, for reasons unsuited for this part of the forum. Am I more forgiving or is it a fate worse than death? According to Anime It might be the latter.

 

Pretty sure most of the E88 of this fic would transition smoothly to asian supremacy without even blinking or needing much shift in worldview. They just want their ethnostate ethnostate

 

The prison nazi is someone who ended up in prison, with all that says about characters traits and life choices. Prison tends to strip away all the little social lies and niceties we take for granted, and return things to a state of nature. In prison you either form up along ethnic lines or get your shit pushed in by those who do, possibly literally. The prison nazi thus decorates himself with friendship windmills, because he's not very imaginative and appreciates that white people taking their own side comes with a readymade iconography. But if you ask him "what's your favorite policy of the NSDAP?" he'll answer "the NSwhut?"

The ideological nazi is a thoughtful guy who didn't pay proper attention in critical thinking class. He heard the "using critical thinking to draw your own conclusions is important", but missed the "-because it's high status. Here's a list of conclusions critical thinkers come to, if you can replicate them you'll be high status too." He was too busy thinking about questions like "if it's a democracy, why does it consistently do the opposite of the will of the people?", and a bit later "so they found six million bodies, right?" If you ask him "what's your favorite policy of the NSDAP?" he'll be delighted, and possibly refer you to one of several essays he's written.

"What if parahuman proliferation allowed type B to seize a sliver of power?" is a much more interesting question than "type A + capeshit?"

Which is not to say that there are no prison nazis in the Empire, but they're the born again types who had a come to Jesus Adolf moment and gave up the nose candy.

 

Completely agreed about TypeB and parahuman shennanigans being much much more interesting, now that you mention it.

Just out of completely unrelated idly curiosity, now that the story's all written and posted and Aisha possibly-erased by intercepting a high-five; out of all those various policies held by the NSDAP over their history, are there any that particularly stand out as favorites?

 

Would it be so strange for a Nazi-themed gang in the Worm universe to be right, though?

One of the conceits of the setting is that there are a truly huge number of dimensions, we're talking "drops of water in the sea" huge. Another fact is that Earth Bet was chosen by the entities through precognition as the optimal target among them all. For Earth Bet to be the world where the powers will be churned and tested the most strongly suggests the people of Earth Bet are bad at life.

It is easy for anyone committed to radical change in this setting to be right, especially those with a penchant for reactionary traditionalism, because the world has gotten into a really bad state, one of grinding conflict and ruin. One of the sources of conflict in the world is persistent ethnic strife, and parts of the empire Empire are keen to solve that problem.

 

To be honest I never understood what all the fuss was about.

As far as I could tell the E88 in the story were clearly bad guys. They bribed, stole, smuggled, assaulted the police, attacked prisons and transports, and engaged in animal cruelty. They had little regard for due process, by which I mean not only the law of the land but even insofar as inventing their own.For example, a patrol in their territory could serve as judge, jury, and even executioner, and that wasn't seen as a big issue. At a surface level, it could be argued that this was primarily for blacks, and asians, and jews, and... but I doubt that there was really anyone who they would overly mind categorizing as "other" and then doing it to. So, in a very real sense, there was no justice in their territory, not even some kind of Nazi justice. IIRC (I could be misremembering) Taylor implied she murdered a black person as an excuse, and Rune's response was "lol nice."

And this is just what we see literally shoved in our faces in the fic. If we use basic common sense, we know OOC and IC Kaiser doesn't give a shit about anything, and Night and Fog are there, so they're undoubtedly still in bed with Gesellschaft. Who are explicitly, canonically really fucking bad. To quote dear Purity "“I’m more concerned that they’d help the Slaughterhouse Nine if it meant killing a thousand Americans." Not "undesireables" but "Americans", period. And we all know how they made Night and Fog, and Kaiser and by extension E88 is participating in that process by utilizing them. Working with guys who hollow people (the right sort, too!) out and turn them into obedient slaves with no personality isn't "evil enough" I guess.

And there's absolutely nothing in the fic to suggest that the E88 aren't doing any of the things we'd expect them to be doing as a gang or from canon like that. Nothing but the fact that an exposition fairy didn't leap onto the screen and say "by the way Taylor they're using mindfucked slaves and stealing and murdering people and stuff, just making sure you know!" (And we already know as readers that if one did, Taylor would have given zero shits anyway.)

But no, if they don't grab Taylor by the back of her head and rub her face in a fat pile of super evil (for super evil's sake!), they're not really Nazi's, they're unrealistic, no, sympathetic and whitewashed.

All I can say is I dearly hope that most people do not actually depend on people being blatantly worse than this to identify bad guys IRL. If we do, no wonder there are so many problems.