Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

[GiantAnteater]

Odds of Parian dying not being random = *trollface* percent
Now I'm envisioning a timeline where Simurgh regularly torments PRT analysts by remotely substituting that emoji for quantitative estimations in their reports.

But the Truce is a sword that cuts both ways, miss Dallon. To undermine it for your own gain is to declare yourself the enemy of all humanity as surely as any S-class threat.

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Aaand either Piggot is oblivious to Armsmaster's backstabbing, or is a monumental hypocrite.

Hope that Taylor gets precog immunity along the way, then figuratively eats Cauldron alive. Simurgh, too.

 

[Requiem_Jeer]

The kill order seems like an extreme reaction. I mean, parahumans don't necessarily understand their own powers, so being unable to summon Fenrir again could easily be misconstrued to having 'lost' their powers.

I'm twisting the situation in my mind, but I'm not seeing where Piggot is getting 'taken advantage of the Endbringer Truce' from. How does it cut both ways?

 

[Prognostic Hannya]

Hmm, with Parian dead I think Taylor will be the one to seduce Flechette to the Darkside. (Or have someone she owns do so for her).

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Pretty sure the whole "Nazi" thing would preclude having lesbian sex with an asian immigrant lol

 

[ses]

Yeah the kill order thing is overblown. Kill orders are a big deal. A birdcage sentence would make more sense. Not to mention kill orders require more than just Piggot's stamp. They're hard to get and would attract Cauldron/Costa-Brown veto power.

Wooooo we're finally getting an Abyssal charm! I've been waiting so long for a single Abyssal charm to show up (Other than Ration's Nimble Perch a few chapters ago, which for some reason was using the wrong name.). There's a couple of Melee charms that might work but Taylor already has a soak-bypassing knife and a perfect dodge. She needs a ranged unsoakable. That leaves the question of whether Endbringer soakmonstering is "innate soak" or not, which I'm inclined to say no in this case as [Ghost Piercing Barb] perfectly describes a Flechette ranged attack (as well as Shadow Stalker's phased bolts).

EDIT: Rules question. Are Archery charms stuntable with Crack the Sky? Will Taylor be throwing Madison at 240 miles per hour at Leviathan's core? (Shadow Stalker doesn't get to escape her punishment that easily and I'm assuming Emma either already has or will have committed not alive by then. And Gallant already got got. We're short on nemeses right now.) There's Theo but unfortunately her minion is behaving and must be tolerated.

EDIT2: Shadow-Piercing Needle is the only Thrown charm I can find that gives soak-bypass. It has the advantage of being much less of a stretch to stunt with Crack the Sky. It has the disadvantage of being able to be parried. It doesn't get soaked by Stamina innate-soak though, so it's more of a proper soak-bypass than Ghost Piercing Barb as well. It's also Holy, which I think fits Sting. RIP Abyssalchads. And not RIP in the good way either.


Wasting time on "Maybe she eats people and we should comb through missing persons" is so dumb that I can't believe they manage to put on clothes without asphyxiating, but that's also accurate of canon worm. It makes absolutely zero sense to spend resources that way and it's completely unrealistic for a human being to think like that. But again, canon does that too. I don't think emulating canon in that regard is a virtue though. Wildbow was committing bad writing in a lot of those cases. The problem isn't them being dumb or dysfunctional, it's them being dumb in a way that makes no sense even for a dumb person.

I'm twisting the situation in my mind, but I'm not seeing where Piggot is getting 'taken advantage of the Endbringer Truce' from. How does it cut both ways?

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The rationale is that apparently the truce includes "Taylor Hebert identity gets a full pardon and allowed to retire from crime due to a crippling injury in an Endbringer fight". And that abusing that privilege is a kill-order worthy offense (Armsy and Skitter were both only in danger of Birdcage at worst). Kill orders are way more than just "capital sentencing" though, I recall there being a whole thing about it. Not to mention the obvious problem that taylor didn't actually ask for a pardon so going for the death penalty for getting one under false pretenses is... weird.

"Roughly Simurgh percent?" you suggest.

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That's "Roughly Joy percent" to you!

 

[Edifier]

I hope to see a wolf baby! Also, when the S9 getting here! And hooray for kill orders!

I really hope life keeps shitting on tay. 's the best.

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And if she ever summons so much as a puppy, she dies."

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Lol. Tay's days are numbered. Tehnially.

 

[Dakkah]

Pretty sure the whole "Nazi" thing would preclude having lesbian sex with an asian immigrant lol

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She pretty much defaults to a "There is very little I wouldn't do for a power like that" mentality whenever she comes across one that she likes.

Not to mention she isn't exactly someone that lives and breathes their ideals, what with the whole trying to fuck Grue, fucking BB, Fenrir, and sucking on Sophia's face etc.

Hell, didn't stop her from calling MM mommy and clinging to her.

 

[Vrenze]

What was the Simurgh's name bit? I'm not familiar with that saying/proverb/whatever

 

[ses]

What was the Simurgh's name bit? I'm not familiar with that saying/proverb/whatever

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Took me a bit despite googling the line giving the answer in the first result.

Spoiler

It's from Ode to Joy. The Simurgh's name is Joy.

Joy, beautiful spark of Divinity,
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, thy sanctuary!
Thy magic binds again
What custom strictly divided;*
All people become brothers,*
Where thy gentle wing abides.

Daughter of Elysium=Daughter of Eden

Does this mean I was wrong in my guess of Heuristic Logos Shintai, and that I need to be looking at the Serenity charmlist to guess Joy's charm? Between Predestined Delivery Shaping, Song of Spirit Persuasion, and Harmonic Completion... Yeah it's definitely Harmonic Completion assuming she doesn't get it from Canary instead. (Those two sharing a Charm is ouch)

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

The kill order seems like an extreme reaction. I mean, parahumans don't necessarily understand their own powers, so being unable to summon Fenrir again could easily be misconstrued to having 'lost' their powers.

I'm twisting the situation in my mind, but I'm not seeing where Piggot is getting 'taken advantage of the Endbringer Truce' from. How does it cut both ways?

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The rationale is that apparently the truce includes "Taylor Hebert identity gets a full pardon and allowed to retire from crime due to a crippling injury in an Endbringer fight". And that abusing that privilege is a kill-order worthy offense (Armsy and Skitter were both only in danger of Birdcage at worst). Kill orders are way more than just "capital sentencing" though, I recall there being a whole thing about it. Not to mention the obvious problem that taylor didn't actually ask for a pardon so going for the death penalty for getting one under false pretenses is... weird.

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Perhaps she's subtly threatening Panacea, reminding her to stay on the reservation. Piggot wouldn't even need a recording of Panacea's bedside nastiness to want to do that. Supposing she did have such a recording, Piggot's first concern would be protecting the image of the Truce as upheld by the Heroes, and her next concern would be about useful para-assets. Probably best to delete the recording before someone else reviews it and misinterprets what was obvious just a bit of teenage pettiness.

 

[ses]

Perhaps she's subtly threatening Panacea, reminding her to stay on the reservation. Piggot wouldn't even need a recording of Panacea's bedside nastiness to want to do that. Supposing she did have such a recording, Piggot's first concern would be protecting the image of the Truce as upheld by the Heroes, and her next concern would be about useful para-assets. Probably best to delete the recording before someone else reviews it and misinterprets what was obvious just a bit of teenage pettiness.

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Piggot isn't capable of that. Zero percent chance. It's also out of character in any case. Piggot would just threaten Panacea directly. There's zero need to be subtle and zero inclination.

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

Piggot isn't capable of that. Zero percent chance. It's also out of character in any case. Piggot would just threaten Panacea directly. There's zero need to be subtle and zero inclination.

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Piggot attempted deniable killings of villain capes with her bombing run during the S9 arc. I think she prefers open action but is capable of subtlety... and openly threatening Panacea is not within bounds for such a highly regarded para-asset.

Edit: The planned kill order, if real, probably has something to do with Taylor decapitating a Ward.

 

[Requiem_Jeer]

The rationale is that apparently the truce includes "Taylor Hebert identity gets a full pardon and allowed to retire from crime due to a crippling injury in an Endbringer fight". And that abusing that privilege is a kill-order worthy offense

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I guess I can see it, but even beyond the problems you outline there's the issue that if Taylor eventually regains the power to summon a new, different wolf, particularly if the new one is a puppy like Piggot suggested, she'd still be in a position of 'helpless due to a Endbringer injury', even if that injury is not permanent.

It's ludicrous to call that a violation of the truce.

 

[aguy]

"But we observe, and investigate. If we find evidence that they did prey on humans, she goes to jail. And if she ever summons so much as a puppy, she dies."

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Conversation was smart, but this is way too dumb for Piggot. They already established she could have brain damage (that Panacea won't elaborate on) or that it could be an integral part of the power. Not to mention possibility of it being psychologically induced (and I don't believe that the PRT hasn't dealt with power incontinence due to psychological issues - note the existence of the Asylum). Any of those are reasons why Loki/Taylor isn't cheating the Truce.

To pre-sign kill orders for anyone who seems crippled (and power loss definitely counts for capes) in Endbringer fights if they manage to recover would be the biggest shit-storm ever.

 

[OldSpartan]

To pre-sign kill orders for anyone who seems crippled (and power loss definitely counts for capes) in Endbringer fights if they manage to recover would be the biggest shit-storm ever.

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Yeah, that seems the simplest way to put it. She put her life on the line against an Endbringer, apparently lost her powers, and if she regains her powers, instead of asking her to participate in more Endbringer attacks, they want to kill her. Hope they eventually realize how stupid that is and they walk that back.

 

[Praetrunco]

Piggot attempted deniable killings of villain capes with her bombing run during the S9 arc. I think she prefers open action but is capable of subtlety... and openly threatening Panacea is not within bounds for such a highly regarded para-asset.

Edit: The planned kill order, if real, probably has something to do with Taylor decapitating a Ward.

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He got better.

He didn't even turn into a newt.

 

[AppleGrowth]

Huh. You know I honestly thought Lisa and Taylor's relationship would be fractured. It doesn't look like that's the case.

 

[tronax]

After such revelation, how the hell is Lisa so calm? She must really believe by that point that Taylor is legit ziz-bomb, she should freak out and completely lose her shit. Maybe run to a distant fishing village in Sudan. Just the thought of being involved in ziz plot must be insanely scary for any earth bet citizen...

 

[GiantAnteater]

After such revelation, how the hell is Lisa so calm? She must really believe by that point that Taylor is legit ziz-bomb, she should freak out and completely lose her shit. Maybe run to a distant fishing village in Sudan. Just the thought of being involved in ziz plot must be insanely scary for any earth bet citizen...

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There's nowhere to run, and panicking is useless. Because if Taylor's a Ziz bomb, so are the Triumvirate, and a great many capes that stayed near the Winged One for only a "safe" duration during the Endbringer fights.

 

[Aurora Raven]

A plot by the Chad mastermind?

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The only way Eidolon will ever be a Chad or a mastermind.

Roughly Simurgh percent?

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Stealing this if I ever have to describe a coincidence.

 

[Ruy]

There are actual mass murderers that don't have a kill order. There is honestly zero reason for her to have one.

 

[Zxzx24]

I'm gonna be honest here and say the Armsmaster POV was mostly wastefull. It simply confirms that Taylor will be left alone, as expected, while other things happen in the background. Regarding the pre arranged Kill Order... how is it gonna matter at all ? Given how fast she gets powers, actual stranger powers and her ability to literally shift to other dimensions the only way it would be relevant is if Panacea gets involved. Taylor simply has too many aces to be bothered by local PRT (frankly it would require active Cauldron involvment given how bad the standard thinker power is from that chat with Lisa). If this was a way to rack up the tension it failed in my opinion.

Now to see the next honeypot scheme Taylor is gonna hatch to get on Flechette's sight and power. A new ID maybe ? Either way I'm amused Taylor's age and lack of guardian was not addressed or used to determine how the PRT is gonna operate regarding her. Also Lisa's poor impulse control continues to land her in bad situations.

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Its important to show that unlike the Nazis. The PRT is dangerous, irrational, and just plain evil for no good reason.

 

[GiantAnteater]

Its important to show that unlike the Nazis. The PRT is dangerous, irrational, and just plain evil for no good reason.

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... you do realize that Piggot is basically about as racist towards all capes as the Empire higher ups are towards the minorities? She knows that PRT cannot work without using parahumans, so she tolerates them, but no more than that. Given two otherwise equal choices, she would always pick one that makes parahumans suffer more.

One of the big things about the canon PRT and American government that always made me hate them: oh yeah, we installed NEPEA-5 to undermine parahumans, but we're the good guys, honest! Oh yeah, we're coercing every parahuman, regardless of age, to be our pet soldier/clown for insultingly little pay, but we're the good guys, honest!
Parahumans are the people who both have emotional damage and ongoing problems in their life. These things tend to get expensive, fast. They also have extensive abilities, that, on average, vastly outmatch the capabilities of dosens of normal people. Usually they'd be able to leverage the latter to throw money at their problems, but nooo.
TL;DR - basic policy is to push parahumans into poverty and/or high-stress situations, which is, in fact, dangerous, irrational, and just plain evil for no good reason.

 

[Zxzx24]

... you do realize that Piggot is basically about as racist towards all capes as the Empire higher ups are towards the minorities? She knows that PRT cannot work without using parahumans, so she tolerates them, but no more than that. Given two otherwise equal choices, she would always pick one that makes parahumans suffer more.

One of the big things about the canon PRT and American government that always made me hate them: oh yeah, we installed NEPEA-5 to undermine parahumans, but we're the good guys, honest! Oh yeah, we're coercing every parahuman, regardless of age, to be our pet soldier/clown for insultingly little pay, but we're the good guys, honest!
Parahumans are the people who both have emotional damage and ongoing problems in their life. These things tend to get expensive, fast. They also have extensive abilities, that, on average, vastly outmatch the capabilities of dosens of normal people. Usually they'd be able to leverage the latter to throw money at their problems, but nooo.
TL;DR - basic policy is to push parahumans into poverty and/or high-stress situations, which is, in fact, dangerous, irrational, and just plain evil for no good reason.

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So you agree its to show that? Yes?

Its in line with canon. Let alone the wildly outrageous things that have happened in this story.

 

[tronax]

One of the big things about the canon PRT and American government that always made me hate them: oh yeah, we installed NEPEA-5 to undermine parahumans, but we're the good guys, honest! Oh yeah, we're coercing every parahuman, regardless of age, to be our pet soldier/clown for insultingly little pay, but we're the good guys, honest!

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People of their earth have real stories of how parahumans hurt them, their family or friends. And the ones who got damaged most badly, who now want to protect others from the same fate? They are denied the option to take arms and shoot the bastards. Best they can do is join the PRT. Is it any surprise that organisation is actively sabotaging their own parahumans, given its members have legit reasons to hate them? It's irrational, they do more harm that way, but people are not rational, and mostly not too smart.

To us NEPEA-5 sounds like Nazism, to people like this, but with power to do a bit more than just joining the PRT? It's not even just about money, it's more in line of shortsighted way of preserving humanity. And it's tame compared to what would be done without Cauldron interference. Without them, it would probably be like in China. Brainwashed puppets, who safeguard society from others of their kind.

To us, parahumans are heroes of a cool story. To those poor sods who got to live on same planet with the fuckers? They are menace. Yes, over the years eventually most are brainwashed to not understand it. Taylor Hebert is one fine example. But people with power are older, and usually much more aware than those they represent.

 

[Daniel Snuts]

I'm gonna be honest here and say the Armsmaster POV was mostly wastefull. It simply confirms that Taylor will be left alone, as expected, while other things happen in the background.

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That's funny, because from an outside perspective I considered the idea of 'powers-lost-to-injury' to be weird and practically unprecedented and, as the kids say, extremely sus. Hell, from an inside perspective we know it's 100% bullshit and Taylor is the least power-less person in the city. Something that very much could use an answer to the question 'are the heroes gonna swallow this shit?' (with the answer being 'provisionally, BUT'), because if I was a reader rather than the writer I would have seen such an outcome as mildly surprising.

Either way I'm amused Taylor's age and lack of guardian was not addressed or used to determine how the PRT is gonna operate regarding her.

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Taylor does have a guardian, though? They haven't seen each other in a while, but on paper...

Not to mention kill orders require more than just Piggot's stamp.

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Thus the 'put through the system and' part.

As for the kill order itself, all I can say is that this is a calm and happy Piggot that was shot by Shadow Stalker and forced to accept parahuman healing by Costa-Brown.

Wasting time on "Maybe she eats people and we should comb through missing persons" is so dumb that I can't believe they manage to put on clothes without asphyxiating, but that's also accurate of canon worm.

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Wait, are you saying that when the chief says "You're a loose cannon, Ralph! You're off the case!" and Ralph goes and looks through old cases and missing persons reports and finds that there totally is a pattern and then they catch the serial killer in the end, that's not how it happens in real life? Only in fiction?

That's "Roughly Joy percent" to you!

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A man of culture, I see.

(possibly the first time that phrase has been used unironically on these boards?)

I guess I can see it, but even beyond the problems you outline there's the issue that if Taylor eventually regains the power to summon a new, different wolf, particularly if the new one is a puppy like Piggot suggested, she'd still be in a position of 'helpless due to a Endbringer injury', even if that injury is not permanent.

It's ludicrous to call that a violation of the truce.

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The puppy thing was a figure of speech to communicate her seriousness. If Taylor actually started conjuring a puppy-sized wolf that gradually grew over weeks or months that would be evidence that she wasn't lying, that she has an actual injury that is gradually getting better.

After such revelation, how the hell is Lisa so calm? She must really believe by that point that Taylor is legit ziz-bomb, she should freak out and completely lose her shit. Maybe run to a distant fishing village in Sudan. Just the thought of being involved in ziz plot must be insanely scary for any earth bet citizen...

Click to shrink...

There's nowhere to run, and panicking is useless. Because if Taylor's a Ziz bomb, so are the Triumvirate, and a great many capes that stayed near the Winged One for only a "safe" duration during the Endbringer fights.

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Yeah, Taylor and Lisa deal with their knowledge about Ziz the same way you deal with the knowledge that in less than a hundred years you'll be dead, and in another hundred no one will know that you ever existed at all. Human brains come with preinstalled hardware to prevent that sort of thing from impacting your reproductive fitness too much.

 

[ses]

Yeah, that seems the simplest way to put it. She put her life on the line against an Endbringer, apparently lost her powers, and if she regains her powers, instead of asking her to participate in more Endbringer attacks, they want to kill her. Hope they eventually realize how stupid that is and they walk that back.

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Yeah, also Panacea was in that meeting and she literally saw Taylor promise to fight Leviathan next time and backed it up by polygraph. Dunno where that information went.

 

[raisins]

"But we observe, and investigate. If we find evidence that they did prey on humans, she goes to jail. And if she ever summons so much as a puppy, she dies."

"She what!?" Panacea exclaims.

"I will put a kill order through the system and keep it on my desk, ready to be signed at a moment's notice. If she truly was crippled I will let her retire in peace, her crimes pardoned and forgotten under he auspices of the Endbringer Truce. But the Truce is a sword that cuts both ways, miss Dallon. To undermine it for your own gain is to declare yourself the enemy of all humanity as surely as any S-class threat."

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This doesn't make sense in a worm-thematic way, concerning authority in general and Piggot in particular, but it's just a bit too far into nonsense.

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

Yeah, also Panacea was in that meeting and she literally saw Taylor promise to fight Leviathan next time and backed it up by polygraph. Dunno where that information went.

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I think it was filed under "Taylor is a Nazi bitch who hurt Vicky". I've speculated that the conversation could have (should have?) been recorded, but that's just speculation.

As for the kill order itself, all I can say is that this is a calm and happy Piggot that was shot by Shadow Stalker and forced to accept parahuman healing by Costa-Brown.

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She pauses, frowning. "No, if you create an entire animal from scratch you could have it display whatever markers you wanted? But there's no reason..."

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Heh, and the little fleshbender won't stop reminding her why it was such a bad idea, either.

 

[space turtle]

I just want to see PR try to spin
"we carried out a kill order on a girl whose power is to summon a puppy"
In any way that doesn't involve immediately retiring.

nazi, no one cares
lied about powers, no one cares
actually the worse little sister of the fairy queen who un ironically is the new banner carrier for the Simurgh, literally non one cares.

Just going after the girl with a tiny puppy eared projection* (as far as anyone else is concerned) would be suicide for whichever agency decided on that path

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

I just want to see PR try to spin
"we carried out a kill order on a girl whose power is to summon a puppy"
In any way that doesn't involve immediately retiring.

nazi, no one cares
lied about powers, no one cares
actually the worse little sister of the fairy queen who un ironically is the new banner carrier for the Simurgh, literally non one cares.

Just going after the girl with a tiny puppy eared projection* (as far as anyone else is concerned) would be suicide for whichever agency decided on that path

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I would too, but let's be honest: Bonesaw is gonna dive on that shit like a ten-year old biotinker discovering her first godborn puppy-girl fetus. Little Ilsa will be super lucky if she goes in the cloning vats.

Which is a shame, because it feels like we're about due for a BITN chapter. Alec making Sophia do pregnant girl things with Taylor, when they have matching baby bumps? Maximum kek.