"What Madness Is This?" Volume II: Prophecies in the Dark

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PobreCesar

Sunstone77 said:
And real life america cotinues to terrify me just as much as make-believe america
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I mean, I don't know much about those kids in particular, but religious Americans aren't all AFC members that have passed over into our world anymore than all leftists are Beutalists and Illumanists who snuck over to our universe.

I will also take this opportunity to add (since I didn't ramble about this post enough yet) that I appreciated Steele saying "even Papists". I've been studying anti-Catholicism in the Anglophone world this year and between that and WMIT it's a little odd to hear that there might be someone thought of as worse than the... the Papists.
 

John Spangler

Ha! The bastard got he deserved! Long live Steele!

(meanwhile, Ambrose Jansen's laughter echoes can be heard echoing throughuot Heaven)

Seriously, Napo, that was a horrifyingly wonderful chapter, one of the best so far!
 

Sunstone77

Napoleon53 said:
I really like how weirdly deep Steele's personality is becoming. On one hand, he clearly knows he's a bad guy doing bad things, hence using the legit Worm cult menace to excuse his own problems, but on the other he is becoming increasingly obsessed with religion and his dreams and nightmares. In 1.0 he was 100% a nonbeliever in anything. I like how this TL gives him a much more believable psychotic breakdown and deepening faith that God is using him as time goes on. As he draws nearer to his own death, he is thinking about everything. Me mentioning his mustache dye is showing him trying to hide his age. He knows time is ticking. Hell, the whole Manifest Climax is meant to be the climax of his career. He's trying to secure a place for himself in all time. It makes me him seem a lot more real to me and not just mustache twirling cad. Given time, he might totally start believing all of his own bullshit and think that he really is a warrior of heaven.
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Uncle Joe and Sergey Taboritsky really should meet up and discuss this ticking sound they keep hearing

PobreCesar said:
I mean, I don't know much about those kids in particular, but religious Americans aren't all AFC members that have passed over into our world anymore than all leftists are Beutalists and Illumanists who snuck over to our universe.
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True, but there's something about how many americans practice religion and trumpet their religious identity that scares the crap out of me on a very primal level. I'm Irish, a country where the church had a very strong stranglehold on society and our national identity for the longest time, so I'm probably institutionally afraid of seeing that kind of thing happening again.
Also my fathers side of the family is from Belfast so there's probably some hardcoded "PROTESTANT!!!" fear in there too :coldsweat:
(But lets not go any further in this topic as its too early to psychoanalyze me and I'd rather not incur the wrath of CalBear before lunch)
 
Napoleon53

Napoleon53

PobreCesar said:
I mean, I don't know much about those kids in particular, but religious Americans aren't all AFC members that have passed over into our world anymore than all leftists are Beutalists and Illumanists who snuck over to our universe.
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Yep! Once again, WMIT isn't intended to be anti religious or anti Christian in the slightest. I am a Christian, so that would be pretty odd. Lol It's anti (insert any form of groupthink or dehumanization). It's not a revolutionary topic, but I think TTL gives some interesting perspectives. Plus it's people, as was just said, pushed to their limits and going along with stupidity. Aside from his time in Nippon, Steele hasn't killed anyone, per se, that I recall. He doesn't even kill Patton. He hands the baton to Oswald and has him do it. As someone who has participated in cultic groupthink and even shunned my own mother for ten years, after a point you doubledown and go, "Okay, I just gotta keep doing crazy things because I'm in too deep to stop now. I'll have wasted all that time!"

I saw that with a family member who used to be into a certain batshit political conspiracy theory. They even admitted to me it was insane and stupid, but literally told me "It's so crazy that who would make it all up? It's gotta be true. When the blah blah happens, I'll be proud of myself." No discussion of you know what, please, as it's not my point, I just found it a glaring example of someone I think of as intelligent going wayyyyyyy into an insane rabbit hole and unwilling to admit it because they would look dumb if it never came true. So they doubled or nothinged themselves. They ended up just looking stupid anyway.

Another example, my ex gf was getting scammed into a pyramid scheme by an older "friend" of hers, and I told her over and over I knew a scheme when I saw it. It actually made her ANGRY, because her "friend would never do that and makes tons of money." And she doubled down and signed up for it. She later admitted she lost her shirt. --__--

Imagine you're a Yankee ITTL and you think the fucking end of the world is at hand and you're battling literal Satanic infiltrators. "Well of course I'm okay with them purging Mr. Nelson across the street. I don't know what he did, but they wouldn't come for him if he didn't deserve it. I'm in too deep now. My son just lost his leg in Colombia and my other son is shipping off tomorrow. I'm gonna put my blinders on and keep a stiff upper lip and hope the government knows what they're doing. Of course we're the good guys. President Steele would never do anything extreme just because he's a maniac. He's playing 4-D chess against the devil. Duh."

John Spangler said:
Ha! The bastard got he deserved! Long live Steele!

(meanwhile, Ambrose Jansen's laughter echoes can be heard echoing throughuot Heaven)

Seriously, Napo, that was a horrifyingly wonderful chapter, one of the best so far!
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Thank you! And I loved having Patton say he didn't want to be beaten to death, like he did to Jansen. "Just shoot me!"
 
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ZeroFrame

ZeroFrame

That was the most insane chapter in a while. The way Steele caught him was glorious though his death was way worse than I expected as being beaten to death seems preferable. Steele may be an evil bastard but he’s a genius with him rigging the game in his favor. From him taking power to that move on Patton he hasn’t lost a step,
 
Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Blue Sky said:
That was the most insane chapter in a while. The way Steele caught him was glorious though his death was way worse than I expected as being beaten to death seems preferable. Steele may be an evil bastard but he’s a genius with him rigging the game in his favor. From him taking power to that move on Patton he hasn’t lost a step,
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I know I probably sound like a broken record but I thoroughly enjoy this timeline's subversion of fascist tropes, from the ethnic pluralism, genuine commitment to social welfare for the less fortunate (...Betters), commitment to gender equality, and the coming permissiveness of the Oswald Reforms, but especially the sheer competence, with a situation where a team of rivals with competing power bases genuinely makes the RU more efficient.

The shift from an avowedly Anti-Federalist state directly to a totalitarian theocracy has been interesting, especially with the vestiges of decentralized power structures that have survived in the American ethic without undermining the ability of the government to function and provide for their loyal constituencies. Everybody's on the same page except for traitors and it's really compelling to see how this society is growing and changing as the system matures.
 
Napoleon53

Napoleon53

Quickie from work: The Sootstorms were classified but everyone in the general area knows they happened but were forbidden from discussion. Now that Steele can link it with "Satanic rituals" and say he had to keep it quiet or the Devil would undermine national unity. "We were in the middle of finding the men who were responsible. With corruption inside ORRA command, Steele had to personally root them out!"
 
Crazymachines

Crazymachines

Banned
Napoleon53 said:
Quickie from work: The Sootstorms were classified but everyone in the general area knows they happened but were forbidden from discussion. Now that Steele can link it with "Satanic rituals" and say he had to keep it quiet or the Devil would undermine national unity. "We were in the middle of finding the men who were responsible. With corruption inside ORRA command, Steele had to personally root them out!"
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Eastasia vibes in full swing I see
 
Napoleon53

Napoleon53

TedBacon12 said:
So whats the fate of the congo sea? Will it keep going under new management?
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We'll get a final Rising Tide chapter and that will show what really was going on the whole time, and the fates of the cast of characters involved. The Dam is definitely proceeding any which way it goes, as Steele puritans have no more hesitancy in sinking the Congo for electricity and resources than the Wormbois.

After that, we're gonna get one off updates on various world building elements, like the history of Golden Goblin Full Service Stations, and maybe a travel guide, as well as a story from the frontlines of South America. After that, we move on to the Krummhorn storyline, and that is going to be HUGE. It will cover the history of modern cinema along the way as Krummhorn founds his own studio, and is likely going to go well into the 1950s. I have felt suffocated for so long trying to cover every detail of this massive war, and it will be liberating to cover some goofy cultural stuff and crazy movie stories.
 

Twiggierjet

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-ORRA Chief Patton sends congratulations to his acolytes, unaware that they are double agents in the service of President Steele, circa 1940
 

Jedi Dragon

Napoleon53 said:
We'll get a final Rising Tide chapter and that will show what really was going on the whole time, and the fates of the cast of characters involved. The Dam is definitely proceeding any which way it goes, as Steele puritans have no more hesitancy in sinking the Congo for electricity and resources than the Wormbois.

After that, we're gonna get one off updates on various world building elements, like the history of Golden Goblin Full Service Stations, and maybe a travel guide, as well as a story from the frontlines of South America. After that, we move on to the Krummhorn storyline, and that is going to be HUGE. It will cover the history of modern cinema along the way as Krummhorn founds his own studio, and is likely going to go well into the 1950s. I have felt suffocated for so long trying to cover every detail of this massive war, and it will be liberating to cover some goofy cultural stuff and crazy movie stories.
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I can't wait to see the rise of Krummhorn, it sounds morbidly fascinating. That was a fantastic chapter, by the way. I knew Patton wouldn't succeed, but I didn't expect him to go out in such a brutal fashion.
 
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