#I still feel a bit :( about only having 40K after so long

[moodymisty]

May I request a yandere primarch of your choice getting very jealous after seeing you laughing with one of his brothers at a party and then dragging you back to his room after to remind you who you belong to?

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: the community wanted Yandere Horus, so Yandere Horus you all shall have. I hope you enjoy, anon. I'm ok with this, but there's more I wanted to do. But at the end of the day I had to just bite the bullet and post it so I can take a break without this looming over me.

Summary: It's the first real outing since you've been officially named as Horus' beloved, and he realizes how much he dislikes how curious everyone is of you.

Relationships: Horus Lupercal/Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, Big Dick Lupercal, Takes place well before the Heresy, Yandere, Toxic relationship, That typical sort of yandere dubcon but not really dubcon kinda thing, Breeding kink if you squint, Size kink/Size difference, Getting absolutely obliterated by a ten foot tall man built like a truck, if you squinted hard you could take some dialogue as a bit sexist but it’s a stretch, Aftercare? lmao this is 40k

Word Count: 2714

Perhaps you aren't the foremost expert on parties, but the last you had thought, a party was supposed to be...

Fun.

And lacking in the drawl of military strategy and logistics. This seems more so like an ineffective way for the High lords of Terra and other high value persons of the Militarium to speak to the Primarchs and their captains, but with wine involved.

As the recently crowned Lady Lupercal, many of those high value persons are now eager to make friends with you, attempting to smile as wide as comfortably possible and earn any sort of good will they can. For many of them speaking to a Primarch, let alone making connections of a Legion would be hysterically rare; Though it seems many of them have the idea to do so through you.

Horus had warned you of it, so you suppose you shouldn't be so surprised.

Only just now have you managed to get away from them all, taking solace in a quiet corner of the palace. A Custodes on guard had given you an odd look- and by look you mean just a glance from the corner of his eyes- but he seems content to allow you somewhat near him as long as you remain quiet. Though you suppose you can't remain here for long. You have to be a part of all this, as much as you might dread it.

“Lady Lupercal?”

You turn the moment you hear the distinctive accent of Macragge-born Guilliman, who approaches you as you stand close to one of the palace's myriad of balconies. That title still feels odd to hear. He brushes just past you to stand on it, and waits until you join him. His head is tilted downward at an angle to make eye contact with you.

It's night now, and you can see the lights of hundreds of ships orbiting Terra up high above. It darkens his armor and the lights of the palace cast a harsh shadow on Guilliman's clean face.

"Had your fill of this evening?"

Normally Guilliman is quite forthright, so his small talk is a bit of a surprise. Everything has lead you to believe he was a very politely blunt sort. Though you've only spoken to the Primarch a handful of times, and very briefly.

Only just recently as Horus has made it known to everyone that you are his beloved, have you begun speaking to his legion; And his fellow Primarchs.

"A little bit. I just need a bit of air, and then I'll come back."

Guilliman crosses his arms over the delicate and expensive looking robes he currently wears, having shed his armor for the evening. It must be from his home world, judging by the interesting style and shape.

"I am a bit surprised he's thrown you to the wolves like this. Before, he was quite secretive about you." You doubt Horus would let you leave his sight unless it was extremely important, and it's not as if you can rely on him forever. Or demand him to stay.

"I assumed someone had managed to catch his attention enough for me to get lost." Guilliman shifts his weight slightly, and lets out a very quiet chuckle. It's sincerity makes you smile.

"Don't tell any of the others, but we've all gotten lost our fair share of times in this maze of a palace." He rubs his temple with two fingers. "It just keeps growing, it's like a Labyrinth. I've begun to wonder if Dorn will ever cease."

His genuine exasperation makes you laugh. It's such a human gesture, and such a human problem. It's quite easy to forget they are human, at times.

You hadn't realized you'd been smiling the whole time, but it grows when you see his disgruntled face. It goes away however when he realizes he amused you.

"If I figure it out before you, maybe I'll make us a map." Guilliman smiles.

"I will hold you to that, you know. If cartography isn't yet familiar to you, perhaps you should begin learning."

You were about to respond to him, a smile on your face, but Guilliman turns his head away towards the inside of the palace; Your own gaze follows shortly thereafter.

He must've heard Horus before he could see him, because not moments later you can see Horus walking towards the both of you; His pelt shifts on his shoulders as he does. He makes a straight line towards the balcony the both of you stand on and ignores anyone else along his path.

"Here you are," Horus smiles at you, but it's not his usual one. The one that's warm and casts the room and a pleasant atmosphere. "I see you've been chatting with one of my brothers." You nod with the smile Guilliman gave you still partly on your face, but before you can speak anything more- perhaps what the two of you were talking about- Horus does so for you.

"Perhaps we should take our leave for the evening. It is quite late, and it seems nothing or anyone worthwhile is going to make it's appearance."

He looks towards Guilliman and for a split second it almost seems like an argument is beginning to brew, with the way they're looking at each other; Guilliman is confused and defensive while Horus' jaw tenses. You can't understand how his mood has so suddenly changed, neither can Guilliman clearly, but it seems something has happened in your absence.

Now you stand literally and figuratively in the middle, before retreating your Primarch's side. He will always serve as your anchor, even when he's this turbulent.

Guilliman simply gives a curt hum in response, and seemingly decides to not uncover Horus' sudden change in disposition.

"Very well. I hope the rest of your evening fares you well," He looks down to you, though the pleasant aura he had has now returned to the cold and structured one he is known for. "And I enjoyed our chat."

Horus gives Guilliman no more than placeholder platitudes and farewells, of which the man takes with a short nod, before leaving with you in tow to return to his chambers.

That entire trip to return to them, is intense.

There is no chatter, and Horus doesn't even have the soft upturn of his lips he usually wears. Instead his face his firm, with something clearly boiling beneath the surface. You wonder if it's something from when he was gone that you could ask about, when he isn't in such a sensitive state.

Even as friendly and easygoing as Horus is, his fellow Primarchs are largely not the same apart from a few, and you wouldn't be surprised if one of them managed to- in a phrase not suited to describe a Primarch- pissed him off.

When you enter the deepest most room in Horus' wing of the palace, what serves as his bedroom, you suddenly feel his hand on your shoulder. You would've turned around even if he hadn't done it for you, as he takes a knee to get more on even height with you. But even with it, you still have to almost look slightly up at him.

Suddenly that hand on your shoulder moves to your face, gripping your jaw and forcing you to look at him. That firm, irritated face has been replaced with an angry, irritated expression. His nose slightly wrinkles at the top, brow furrowed.

He holds your jaw tight, but you’re not fooled into thinking it’s anywhere near him putting in effort.

“What is your title.”

You’re confused for a moment, frightened by the look in his eyes, as he adjusts his grip. You try to stay his name, but it just comes out as a confused stutter. He reiterates with more clarity.

“What is the title I gave you.”

You grasp his wrist tight and whimper out:

“L-Lady Lupercal.”

The noise that arises from him is somewhere between a hum and a growl.

“Did you forget it while you were busy being a little coquette in front of my brother?”

You hadn’t; It had been the focus of your short conversation with Guilliman. You’d tried your hardest to be nothing but polite to him, with the formality expected of speaking to a Primarch. But this is all new to you; Whatever Horus saw wasn’t there, and you’re desperate to prove as such.

"N-No, he just came up to me and I was trying to be polite, Guilli-"

He swallows the name of his fellow primarch with his lips, pressing them against your own. It's angry; Forceful. You can feel his hot breath on your skin as he takes in heavy breaths, and how tense he feels. You moan softly into his mouth but even the brief moment of pleasure is overcast by Horus’ fuming anger.

He pulls away from your lips with a soft pop, and still in a kneel begins undoing the broach of his cape. Once it falls to the floor his eyes meet yours and he states:

"Take it off."

His sentence is vague and you stand unsure in the gargantuan room, as he now removes his wristguards. Once they're off, he puts a hand on your waist and pushes upward, disturbing the fabric of your dress. You feel it pull and stretch against his hand, as if it’s little more than parchment. He could ruin it all in one fell tear.

"I am being patient with you."

It's hard to disobey a primarch, especially one staring at you with those eyes. The fabric of your dress falls to the floor moments later, undone and forgotten. You step out from the circle it makes at your feet.

You imagine the only reason he hadn't simply destroyed it was after having it made just for you, in the colors of the Sons of Horus and to his exact specifications- their legion mother needed to be in worthy attire he has said- his patience won out over the potential days of headache.

But it feels like a blink you go from standing to being nearly swallowed by his sea of a bed, blankets tussled around your naked form. You think you might’ve backed up until you fell onto it, but it’s all a blur.

"The Crusade has taken much of my time, and since I have introduced you to my brothers, perhaps you have forgotten your place,” He says as he undoes the fastening of his belt.

Even on pieces of furniture meant to handle a man of such size it still buckles and bows underneath his weight, shifting your body as he cages you underneath him. His hand grips your thigh, and the sheer size forces them apart. Your body tenses and squirms underneath him.

To think such a short conversation would've had him so fuming, as his hand presses against your cunt. It makes your lips purse and and words that you might’ve considered saying don’t even leave your lips. His fingers roughly press through your folds curl inside of you, an aching stretch that has you squirming underneath him.

Though it’s not as if you have any chance of moving, even the slightest bit of his strength has you completely at his mercy.

You can feel his anger in every motion, but your blood is pounding in your ears enough that you can barely hear him. You think you might've said his name, told him to slow down, but even if you had he doesn't listen in the slightest.

Pulling his hand away from between your thighs he’s quick to flip you onto your stomach, and you lay exposed before you suddenly feel him press again the back of your thighs.

In an odd, impossible to explain way, you at times almost forget that your beloved towers over you at near or over double your height. That he possesses neigh untenable strength.

Now is a moment you do, as he presses his hips against your ass and buries you in the plush material of the bed.

Your fingers grip the blanket like a lifeline as he buries himself as deep as he possibly can, staying for a moment for seemingly little other reason than to torture you. Even with only the slightest bit of his weight on you, you feel trapped and barely able to move.

It's taken time for you to get used to taking Horus without hours of preparation- and while it still does take time, you'll always feel like he's overtaken your entire stomach. It’s that teetering on the edge of pain that has you gasping, a body not made for him being forced to. Horus is normally exceedingly gentle, but less so tonight. He is at least gentle enough as to not break you.

Whatever he saw that wasn't there between you and Guilliman, he seems intent on teaching you a lesson on not doing.

“Horus, pl-“

His massive hand grips the blanket beside your head as he grunts overtop of you.

“You are the legion mother of my sons.”

Your back arches and lips purse as his cock brushes against places so deep that it almost has your eyes watering. You swallow the massive knot in your throat and try not let out enough noise that passersby could hear.

“You will be the mother of my blooded sons, one day.”

The implication has your heart race with fear and something else as the primarch holds you down. You barely have the time to think about it, it only sends a jolt of feeling right down your spine into your gut.

Given his size it’s so easy to push you around, that he often times has to press on your shoulder and hold you like some sort of toy. Even the softest thrust can push you forward and nearly off of him; You don't have the strength to hold strong against it.

Worn and tired your nerves spark from so much sensation, cunt tightening around him. Horus continues to thrust into you with little care and your teeth grind, toes curling.

It feels good, so good, but it teeters on the edge of dangerous. Especially knowing his mood. Then again, sometimes even the simplest things are dangerous, with someone like him.

The primarch curses and swears in both high and low gothic as he finally cums inside of you, the inhuman amount leaking from you when he pulls out.

Horus looks over you, and it seems whatever you’d seen in him earlier is gone- for the time being. Even if you can't look directly at him, it's almost as if you can feel the emotion in the room change. More odd Primarch things, you assume. Not that it matters much in the end.

You lay tired, legs limp as your body aches.

Perhaps in the moment it may feel good, very much so, but oftentimes your body then reminds you that it isn’t made for a Primarch. Particularly one who decides not to be gentle with you.

There has time where no one sees even a hint of you for days, after he's done with you. He apologizes it for it, but you can always tell with that smile of his, he isn't actually apologetic.

He gently pushes you with a hand to that you roll on your back, and you look up at him worried, wondering if he's still angry.

“I am sorry, my love.” His words are sweet like wine, like they so often are, as his hand not gently holds your cheek. He isn't anymore, and you don't question it. You don't want to bring it back.

Though this isn't the first time he's become this way, though it is the first time he's done something physical in response.

“Now that my brothers know of you, I can’t help but feel as if they might take you from me, once they realize how perfect you are.”

There’s words you want to say, many of them, but you can’t manage it. Only a requited whisper of love is what you manage to say. Horus takes it well and his saccharine sweet smile always manages to pull you in and ignore the things behind it.

“I only wish for you to be mine. Always and forever.”

#horus lupercal x reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting #DOBBIE IS FREE!

[kit-williams]

Gift Giving

Male Lead: Palion Hiss Female Lead: Muse Universe/AU: Warhammer 40k/Yandere Space Marine Canon Status: Yes think of this as the prequal for Palion's part in I love you fluffuary fic

Note: I don't know if this dips into fluff still or leans more into Yandere? If you lot feel like this doesn't

Palion felt himself preen as his hands moved over the porcelain. The several masks all lined up looking absolutely perfect in form as they all were taken from what was left of his Muse's good half of her face to get the idea of what a beauty she once was... but he couldn't bring himself to fix her fully. Slaanesh could heal such things... the flesh shaping of the biomancer was top notch and he could but... Palion didn't want to ruin what his muse held.

What she held? His attention. Palion grabbed brushes, both for paint and makeup, makeup pallets with their soft shades of eyeshadows... blushes... lip paints... as well as the array of vibrant colors as well as ones with precious metals interlaced. Something that was increasingly finicky for his sycophants to hold recently. He was bored with everything that had caught his eyes for centuries had suddenly grown boring.

He looked to the various masks lined up as he tied his long white hair back into a bun as he just sat there looking at the mask in front of him. He was tempted to call his muse in to just sit and discuss with him as she was rightfully jumpy and nervous around him... thankful like a mortal should be for when a god ordains to give them attention... but still wary of a new hand feeding her.

He dipped a brush into the blush as he slowly brushed it over the high delicate cheeks. His fingers brushing the interior of the mask feeling the padding on one side to keep it from irritating her scars. Made of soft inoffensive material so she wouldn't be distracted by the sensation of it... her attention could be somewhere else. Like upon him.

He hummed softly as he painted the white mask's lips a deep color. As they looked at him with their soft inoffensive smile... a pleasant thing to greet his eyes. Oh how utterly boring such perfect little baubles had become to him but then his Muse came into his life. He brushes another calm color for the eye shadow as he starts to paint flourishes and designs along the side.

Would she like his gifts? He muses as he thinks about his muse as he decorates each mask only having to wipe one completely clean as he let his passions get the better of him. No... these were to make her feel special not to be a visual fantasy for him. She was already that for him. This wasn't for him... if anything he would put her in a small outfit letting everyone see her perfection! He puts down his brush as his fingers tingle with excitement at the thought of her not wanting to be in a heavy drab robe and always hiding her face!

But Palion felt the need to acquiesce to her desires. He's broken far too many muses before her... he's forced his will upon the unwilling. Or he's used his honey coated words to get them to push a bit further and further... he's ended up with far too many dead darlings. He sighs blowing a strand of hair that has fallen out of place, relishing in the fact that even after all this time of perfecting putting his hair back... strands still rebel against him.

He looks at the porcelain masks with a soft smile as there is one for several cycles and he is certain he will order some more to be made... for her for special occasions! Unholy days! Celebrations! Oh the thoughts flood his mind with creative thoughts! He taps the data slate taking a few pictures of the masks before sending it to a group chat of his brothers, and then to the one that made the masks as he requests more to be made.

He gets himself all cleaned up and ready.... a nice wine in hand and wraps up the gift in a delicate looking bag. He is certain she will show some appreciation for being so thoughtful. Getting her a nicer but still humble looking robe to cover her whole form and these masks. He is certain that he will at least get a smile out of her!

Fluffuary TagList: @bispecsual @the-californicationist @egrets-not-regrets @libraryshadow @bleedingichorhearts @liar-anubiass-blog

#warhammer 40k #yandere #yandere space marine #space marine #OC: Palion Hiss #space marine x reader #OC: Muse #x reader #fluffuary #fluffuary2024 #emperor's children #yandere emperor's children

[tagedeszorns]

Pre-Heresy Ahzek Ahriman.

For a long time I didn't really have the Thousand Sons in my focus of interest. On the one hand, because they remain quite pale in the Heresy books for the most part and I still have difficulties in assessing the power level of such focused psykers. Which makes them pretty much wild cards. I can't imagine that someone who can bend reality to create unquenchable fire or cook bodies in armour or completely destroy minds can be stopped by any "normal" warrior, no matter how good they are (I'll spare the joke about finding little mind to destroy with Lucius, though. Sorry, dearest Blorbo!). But the fact that it does happen (and quite possibly without the constant presence of Nul-Maidens) doesn't make the limitations of these abilities any more tangible to me, only more frustrating. The artificial limitations just feel to me like something that comes from the rules of the game rather than, say, the logic of the setting. So it's complicated, with me and the sorcerers.

And secondly, there are the most vocal fans of this Legion and especially its Primarch, which put me off a bit. Some of them are so vehement in their "Magnus never did anything wrong!" and in their very particular idea of the Legion that I didn't feel I could really dive in and make my own picture of the Thousand Sons.

On top of that, I don't really like the other poster boy of 40k Thousand Sons (yes, yes, I know, not anymore), Iskender Khayon. He's okay, but that's it for me. He's a pretty standard Dembski Bowden character and probably why he's only interesting to me as a vehicle for the Black Legion story. So again, no point of connection for the Fifteenth and its tragedy for me.

But now I'm lucky enough to be able to play with two very good Thousand Sons fans on my Fabius RP blog. Both have shown me independently that there is a lot of potential.

Which is why I looked for a reading order on the net and started following the 40k story of the Thousand Sons sorcerer I'm most interested in: the old Terran Ahzek Ahriman.

And, all I can say is: snagged by the monkeybrain from the first line! Chapeau, John French! I haven't read such a gripping 40k story since the Fabius novels. Books that you read late into the night "just one more chapter".

I'm still in the first of the three novels but already very, very enraptured.

Chaos is just my thing because Chaos Marines get to do a lot more than Loyalists. They're allowed to doubt, to falter, to dither and to fail. They are allowed to be small-minded and to be wrong in a big way. They can be mean. Petty. Bitchy. Very, very whiny. In other words: human. Exciting. Comprehensible.

I can imagine that writers with the right mindset (again, I'm crying hard after Josh Reynolds) find writing Chaos Marines a huge amount of fun and a release.

And as a reader, I notice that and enjoy it very much.

Of course, I also like books with Imperials. But it does seem to me that the Chaos books are more tailored to me and my tastes. More drama, more emotion, more pathos, more irony and sarcasm.

So here I am: having fun with Ahzek Ahriman.

Once again I follow the path of an outcast from his legion who feels the whole world is against him (he's right) and who, on the one hand, is plagued by doubts, on the other firmly convinced that he is doing the right thing and is on the right side.

Somehow I have it with the arrogant, self-righteous stubborn guys that nobody likes. No idea why.

It can't be me.

#warhammer #Thousand Sons #Chaos Space Marines #Chibi #Ahzek Ahriman #warhammer40k

[wkakadrac]

Crossposting some Night Lords musings

Some rambling in relation to 40K / 30K [Predominantly around the Night Lords Legion] below the cut-off.

Art from 3rd Edition Chaos Space Marines Codex / Index Astartes.

Something I have come to consider a disappointment of sorts is the missed potential when it comes to the Night Lords Legion.

On one hand, they fill a niche that is absolutely needed to drive home the horrors of the Imperium of Man. Even with the most generous interpretations of the Emperor and his Great Crusade, you have an unsightly blemish in the form of the Night Lords being a useful bunch of self-serving monsters that the Emperor tolerated / was willing to entertain a blindspot for as long as he could pretend Curze wasn't That Bad and they got results. And again that's with the most generous interpretations: The Emperor unintentionally making a Leopards Eating People's Faces While The People Are Still Alive Legion and and tolerating it out of pragmatism. The more common / neutral implication being that he absolutely knew what they were doing [wanted them doing it, no less!] and signed off on it because they shaved a couple years off the Crusade atrocities be damned. The worst that he didn't care whatsoever about it and the only reason the Night Lords were abnormal was that they merely didn't pretend to be what they aren't.

This is a vital niche to fill when it comes to displaying the fucked up society that is the IoM and how even in its "Golden Age" there was stinking shit beneath that veneer of gold. You just... don't get it, for most of the other Legions. Especially in newer lore. GW has spent a bunch of effort to try and make the other Legio more 'human' [despite them being post-human galactic conquerors]. Especially with GW reducing so many other baddies into "lol it was Chaos / possession / insanity". The IoM needs something to have been a terrible blemish that cannot be conveniently blamed on Chaos or One Bad Apple Spoiling The Rest [Curze, quite explicitly, hates his Legion, and in many cases the feeling's mutual outside a respect for his capacity to do and enabling of Horrible Things].

But on the other hand. On the other hand. It writes itself: Really? Really? We are supposed to take it at face value that Nostramans are just built different, pay no mind to the sheer coincidence the moment Curze ceded Nostramo to the Emperor's Great Crusade they slid immediately back into the same lopsided government he had overthrown, and that The Administratum Couldn't Do Anything About It the inequalities just rapidly reasserted themselves crime magically skyrocketed after the removal of one single person, and on top of this the Societal Undesirables just coincidentally kept filtering into the Legion?

You have a world - no, I apologize: Explicitly an entire system: Night Lord lore explicitly mentioned in the old Index Astartes how he found out from a system's prosperity soaring - that in the span of a singular generation had its inequalities removed by the removal of every single despot that Curze didn't think he could press his thumb down on hard enough to play nice in the new system, and with Curze's removal the Administratum... magically couldn't do the same job as one person to keep at least one star system from falling back into the same groups' hands? And for that matter practically everyone that system recruited after the first generation was a bunch of horrific baby-eating self-serving murdering societal rejects who had no concern for anyone beyond He Himself And Him?

While 40K absolutely needs somebody to show that the Great Crusade's shit stunk too, that it was an interstellar bunch of murderers and ne'erdowells draped in the legitimacy and glory of a gilded despot, there was just as much potential to use them as a stepping stone of "Gee. It sure is convenient that the Imperium Did Its Best but Some People Are Just So Bad that despite giving them everything they could have ever wanted they still bit the hand that fed them". Or, for that matter, to introduce Traitor Marines who are just. Like. People who grew up watching their star system abolish economic and social inequalities. Dared to buy into the hype of such spreading through the galaxy. And then watched everything crumble around them. With stark division between those whom this broke, those who in desperation [for better or worse] threw their lot in with the Chaotic Powers... and those who just keep the legend of the original Night Haunter alive. Astartes who prowl the edges of Imperial Space and just.... topple the Noble Houses. Convince planets to throw off the yoke of Imperial Rule, whether in good faith or even just to try and make ever more fires for the IoM to have to put out [and thus increasing the odds of something slipping through the cracks or the inadequacies of the system catching up with it].

Adding onto this with some musings from other posts I fully understand that Curze's brutality was brought about by excessive and violent terror. Even the most benign interpretations of his rule over Nostramo pitch him as a murderous vigilante prone to violent fits. But that's fine! There's layers to how somebody like Curze could still call out the Emperor and other Great Crusade's architects / 'greatest' participants precisely and accurately. How Corax seemingly [in newer lore] likewise abandoned their revolutionary leans and within a matter of generations was actively reinforcing Deliverance's former system of exploitation, the two really being mirrors / foils for one another. Works have already established that Curze hates what he and his Legion have become [that the feeling is mutual] and that whatever noble intentions he might have had at any one point he's just as deserving of an executioner's blade well before the Heresy.

I guess I'm just disappointed that the Night Lords were reduced to a singular, unironic and straight-faced hat while every other Legion is given kiddy gloves to go "And that's why Chaos ruined everything". It diminishes the horrors of the Great Crusade, goes uncomfortable places with the idea of Some People Are Just Born Criminal And It Can Be Measurably Tracked In The Genome, and removes the potential for several thematic hooks.

#Night Lords #40K #30K #Warhammer 40000 #Great Crusade #Ave Dominus Nox

[two-reflections]

What is your take on the best reading order for Salamanders-stuff?

I starteed with the first half of the Heresy, jumped to Vulkan's Primarch-novel after Unremembered Empire, read the "let's bring him back"-arc of the Heresy, Read the 40k Omnibus, returned to the Heresy ... and that was NOT ideal!

So, what would you recommend? And, what aditional 40k-books besides the Omnibus do you think are esential?

TL;DR - I'm not the best person to ask because there's a lot I haven't read, but imo, if you're not invested in the Horus Heresy, go straight to Nick Kyme's series. Salamander Omnibus, or better, pick up the Lords of Nocturne set that includes Rebirth. (Coming out this Spring!) Alternatively, read Forge Master first and then go to Tome of Fire. If you are invested in the Horus Heresy already, maybe starting there is better, but again, I'm not the best person to ask about that.

Long answer below!

To be honest, I'm not sure I have a good answer for this because any time anyone discusses reading orders, I always think "Whatever order keeps you interested and reading is the best." 😅

Also, I know this is pretty much a crime, but I haven't finished the Salamander-focused Heresy-era books. I... Really struggle with the Heresy, tbh. I fell in love with 40k through a tabletop RPG set in the 41st millennium, and I still tend to think of the Heresy as a quasi-mythical thing that happened in the distant past. Currently, I use the Heresy-era books I have as reference material, but I recognize that not completing them leaves huge gaps in my knowledge. I plan to get through the Salamanders ones (and a few other 30k books, including Josh Reynolds’ ones!) this year.

I read the Tome of Fire series around 2019 and have gone back to various parts since, but I haven't fully reread it. I should do that. I've reread Rebirth a few times, including recently, because it hits juuust right for me. Also, I have a physical copy. 😅

I don't feel super qualified to answer because of all that, but I suppose my recommendation would depend on whether the reader jives with Nick Kyme's writing or not.

If they already like 40k and don't mind Nick Kyme's style, (like you and me, yay!) the available choices are either the 40k Salamanders books or the Horus Heresy. Unless a reader is already invested in the Heresy series, I'd say pick up the Lords of Nocturne collection that's coming out this April, as that will contain the whole of his Salamanders series, several short stories and Rebirth. (Finally! Maybe people will actually read my favourite Salamanders novel now.) Alternatively, the old Salamanders Omnibus has most of the same material, but without Rebirth.

After that, they have three choices: Dive into the Horus Heresy, go for David Annandale’s Primarch novel and/or his Space Marine Battles Book Forge Master, or follow me into the sad world of scrounging for snippets in codexes and White Dwarf. 😭

That being said, I honestly think the 8th Edition Codex: Salamanders is worth a look for readers, despite being game-focused. There are lots of fiction snippets in there. Would be fun to see fanfic authors expand some of them... FFG's Deathwatch RPG sourcebook also does a good job at setting the vibe, though it's older and a little out of date.

There are some solid short stories out there too. I love Burden of Angels, but the two by Graham NcNeill in Shattered Legions are pretty good. (Shattered Legions might be another good way in, hmm.) Artefacts was an interesting read, I really liked Vulkan's voice in it.

For people who struggle with Nick Kyme's style, reading David Annandale’s Vulkan: Lord of Drakes and/or Forge Master might be the best way in. Personally, I found Vulkan: Lord of Drakes a bit strange and didn't finish it, but although I've only just started Forge Master, I'm enjoying it so far. It's from the PoV of a techmarine and the first Chapter contains a description of Nihilan's forces besieging Heliosa. If someone read that book first and then moved onto the Tome of Fire, they might be a bit better primed to roll with the story. I think Overfiend also has a Salamander in it, but I haven't read that one yet. Also, Annandale’s debut The Death of Antagonis was Black Dragons-focused, but I haven't read that one either.

One more thing a reader could do is find media relevant to conflicts the Salamanders were involved in. For example, there isn't (as far as I'm aware) a Salamanders-focused novel set during the 3rd War for Armageddon. However, by reading about that conflict in general, a fan would come to understand a bit more of their favourite Chapter's history. (This is why I was asking for material related to the Talledus War recently!)

Sorry I couldn't give a better informed answer! Maybe I'll have a more fleshed out opinion later this year. 😊

#Salamanders 40k #Meta

[beyondspaceandstars]

Treacherous (17)

Relationship: Druig x Reader Warnings: angst, tiny bit of fluff Summary: Soulmate!AU - Soulmate tattoos are incredibly rare but you’ve never felt really proud to have one. Everyone else around you gushed over it while you found the whole thing ominous and a little inconvenient. Truthfully, you were never really convinced you’d find your other half… That is until a random camping trip leads you to a quaint village run by a dark and brooding man who just so happens to be your soulmate. Stuck in the forest with nothing else to lose, you agree to join his world, his little village, and see if there’s actually love behind the markings. A/N: wow! this chapter is a bit slow/kind of like a filler but when it comes to stories we must close every door we open lmao so i hope you still enjoy it. i promise it will start to pick back up again! also, can you believe I've written over 47k words for this fic?? my last full-fledge fic was just over 40k words so this one....this one has really spiraled out of control! thank you for taking this journey and actually caring -- especially this far into it!

‘Treacherous’ Masterlist | Main Masterlist

You stared at the composed post, and it stared right back at you. It was like your diary had puked on your screen. Everything was out at its full capacity. No summarizing for the authorities and no sugar-coating for the family. 

Were you really going to post this? It held everything and spanned longer than any entry you had ever seen on the forums. 

The "post" button taunted you relentlessly. 

You re-read your opening line for the umpteenth time: "Long time viewer, first time posting…finally." It was short and sweet but buckled the reader in for the ride. That was good, it could be catching. But, then again, what were you trying to do with this post? Were you truly just trying to share your story, or did you want to warn others? Could someone just please listen?

You stared at it for an ungodly amount of time. You wrote it to post it…right? So why were you just sitting there, staring at it like it was a bear about to bite you?

You read and re-read and re-re-read the first few lines over and over again. You skimmed your words, your heart hitching slightly when your eyes caught just a glance of your soulmate’s name. At the last second, you opted to not add too many identifying features, such as names or locations. You would no longer allow your story to be vague, but you also weren’t sure what legal lines you were walking on. 

When you were finished with the edits, you still weren’t sure how you were feeling. It was gone. It was good to go. And you were just procrastinating now. This was meant to be liberating — not tighten the locks. 

Your hand had a mind of its own as it reached for your laptop’s trackpad. Two clicks were all it took. The page refreshed and your now-published post stared back at you. Everything felt normal. Nothing had changed after creating the thread. You had vomited your story onto the web and that was that.  

When nothing immediately happened — no comments, no direct messages — you took a sigh of relief. Maybe no one would ever see it, you thought. It was just therapeutic and you could already feel yourself feel a little lighter. 

Recounting everything had certainly been a heavy task. Every thought and every memory tightens the bond. You hadn’t thought you would ever crave your soulmate, but that was the exact position you had found yourself in when you were deep into writing. You wanted nothing more than to turn back the hands of time. You would’ve had a better approach to it all. You would’ve been more compassionate, more understanding — more open to it all. You had been noticed and loved in a way you had never felt before. And now you could only hope and pray you would get it back. You wished you knew what he was out there doing. You could sense he was safe and alive. That was as good as it got for now.

Sighing, you closed the web browser and slammed your laptop shut.

One Week Later

One short, yet exhausting passed in such a slow but demanding way. Your post on the soulmate forums gained a little but reasonable amount of attention. It wasn’t exactly the top post or putting the soulmate horror stories to shame (even if some of the comments said they were greatly concerned about your story) but it had a following and was regularly featured on the front page. A decent amount of comments gathered and you answered them here and there, mostly trying to assure people you weren’t crazy or lying — a thing that was actually impossible as the forums did have its own simple but effective vetting process. 

Behind those who were either terrified or alarmed by your tale were the genuinely interested ones. The people who wanted to know more and could learn to celebrate the little victories in your soulmate journey. Those kinds of comments were comforting to some degree. Hopelessness and confusion were easy to get lost in, but the little cheers from strangers warmed you. Needless to say, though, it was a mixed bag. 

Besides being consumed in the little online space you had created, a lot of your attention went toward finding where you belong in the real world. You had, in some cheesy way, left the forest a different person. It was beyond silly to any outsider, you understood that, but on the surface, the only consistency was your unemployment status. So much had been lost and answered and finding your footing again was proving to be rough. 

Your parents tip-toed around you a lot and their gazes always avoided the tattoo on your wrist. For their sake, you began wearing a lot more sweaters, but you couldn’t ignore it. Out of sight, out of mind no longer worked on you. 

When you weren’t trying to dodge your parents’ concerned looks, you were spending a lot of time focusing on finding a job. It was the first thing you could think of to turn to as it would’ve been your priority anyway had your the camping trip gone as planned. The only major difference is your boyfriend would’ve been here to help you. He had always been more confident, more sure of everything. You just second-guessed your qualifications and stumbled through interviews. Little seemed to be working and you had to tell yourself to give it time. 

Time. The dangerous, fleeting thing. Time didn’t like when you ignored your soulmate tattoo. Time wasn’t too friendly. Time never lets you forget anything. But it seemed all you had was time. Time to waste away, to job hunt, to just lay in bed and contemplate whatever. 

And contemplating was exactly what you were doing with your time when your mother knocked on your bedroom door. It shocked you, but you faced her. She seemed a bit uneasy when you asked her if everything was okay. 

"Your boy—or, well, I guess ex-boyfriend, now, right?" Your mother sighed and didn’t wait for you to answer her either way. "He’s here. He asked to see you."

"Oh." It was the first word you could think off—and it wasn’t even really a word. It was just a sound. A defeated sound. "Yeah, okay. I’ll see him."

Your mother frowned. "Are you sure?"

You searched for anything that told you no, but you came up empty. This moment felt almost inevitable. A part of you knew that day in the police station would not be the last time you faced him. At least it felt a lot less scary than you had initially anticipated. It was almost like your body, your soul, had given up on him. Like you were just about to let go of the rope.

"I’m sure," you replied. Your mother didn’t say more; just turned around and waltzed back down the hall. You followed obediently. 

You found your ex-boyfriend — you were finally going to start calling him that for your own sanity’s sake — was sitting very comfortably at the dining room table. At the head of the table, sipping on a glass of water. Your mother had very much welcomed him in and you didn’t understand why. You shot her a confused look but she just shrugged and departed toward the apartment balcony where you saw your father sitting. They were going to leave you alone with him. Your heart was suddenly in your throat. 

Your ex barely blinked at you as you took a seat across from him. 

"You’re back," he muttered.

"I’ve been back," you replied. "We had a nice reunion at the police station, remember?"

"Don’t be like that," he snapped. "Given the circumstances, I think I was allowed to be a little upset."

"You weren’t just upset, you were enraged."

Your ex barked out a laugh, making you jump. "Oh, forgive me for being upset about the fact my girlfriend ran away from me to fling herself in the arms of another man."

Your jaw was just about on the floor. "Another man? He isn’t just another man, Eric, he’s my soulmate." You viciously pulled up the sleeves of your sweatshirt. Your soulmate tattoo practically glowed. "Remember this? The little mark you were so eager to dismiss? The thing you swore we could overcome? It doesn’t work like that, and it never would have. It’s more than just a mark. It’s more than just lines on my skin and you know it." You shook your head and sighed. "I never left you on purpose. I—I wouldn’t do that. I never in a million years expected to find my soulmate in the middle of nowhere. It just happened, that’s all. It just happened."

Your ex reeled back at that. You saw a hint of defeat in his eyes, but it was fleeting. 

"You don’t see it from my standpoint," he insisted. "In my eyes, I saw my girlfriend, the woman I loved, run away in a goddamn forest no less, only to find her somehow being taken care of by someone else. And not just taken care of, but doing well."

"But I’m telling you that’s not the whole story—,"

"Yeah, yeah, soulmate, blah, blah, blah" he mumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. "Believe it or not, I am trying to wrap my head around that whole thing. I’ve been doing some research."

"Research?" You didn’t know why, but that admission made you feel some kind of uneasy. But he confirmed you had heard him right with one nod. 

"I found your post."

The absence of genuine worries in your heart suddenly switched at his dangerous but enticing words. "Excuse me?" How did he manage to do that? How deep had his research gone? 

"Don’t act so surprised. Your post has made a bit of buzz on the internet forums." He tapped his fingers on the table. "And it’s not like I didn’t recognize it immediately. You can leave out names but the story stays the same, doesn’t it?"

You weren’t sure why you felt so invaded by his comment. It wasn’t like you didn’t know your post had garnered some attention and you weren’t exactly writing in a diary. It was public and accessible. Anyone could view it, even though those without soulmates didn’t exactly spend time browsing forums. Still, to think your story could stay in its little bubble was foolish. 

You were the one to look away now. "Why are you researching soulmates?"

"Because I need to understand it, I need to understand you," he spat. "Did you leave me because I wasn’t good enough? Or was it really because of that damn mark on your wrist? I just don’t get it yet. I’m a man of faith, but not this kind of faith."

"I’m trying to explain…"

"Well, excuse me if I’m not eager to listen to you, the woman who left me in the dust."

You pulled at the sleeves of your sweatshirt, frustrated. "Why did you come here, Eric?"

He shifted in his seat. "I needed to see you," he replied. "I — We — needed closure."

"I agree." You paused and traced the lines running up and down your dining room table. "You really loved me, even with this mark?" Your brain flickered back to when Druig had made that off-handed observation that night under the stars. You had dismissed it, there was no rhyme or reason for someone to be in love with you, but there was an unmistakable hurt behind his anger.

"Of course I did," he breathed. "And I thought, at the time, you could eventually love me, too."

"I… Well, maybe I—,"

"No." He shook his head adamantly. "No, you didn’t. At least, not like you love him."

You jerked your head up at your ex’s words. "But—"

"It wasn’t a question. You certainly do," he replied. "Whether you meant to or not, your forum post was full of love, even in the most confusing, harrowing moments. That’s not nothing."

You don’t know how he saw it, but he wasn’t too out there in his analysis compared to the comments you had received. His optimistic look was jarring but interesting. 

"I’m sorry I put you through all of this." 

It was the least you could say, but it didn’t even begin to resemble a real apology. You had always been unfair, leading on someone and yourself when fate had been staring you dead in the eyes. The future had certainly seemed impossible, but the impossible happens every day. 

You got too comfortable and you paid the price. 

Your ex shrugged. "Yeah, well, I hope you’re actually happy with him. Where is he anyway? Do I get to come face-to-face with him again?"

You tapped your foot nervously. "He’s away right now."

Your ex let out a humorless laugh. "You turn everyone’s world upside down for some guy who ends up leaving you. Are you sure he’s your soulmate or have I been bamboozled?"

Your heart started pounding in your chest. Someone who had read your post still wasn’t getting it. How could anyone reduce anything to something so simple when everything had proven to be so much bigger?

You sighed, shaking your head. "He… He didn’t leave me. He had something to do, that’s all."

"When’s he coming back?"

You stood from your seat, letting your chair nearly tip over behind you. Your hands curled into fists on the table. You were beyond over the charades, the teasing, whatever this shit was.

"Are you done yet?" You spat. "Have you gotten the closure you wanted?"

Your ex rose from his chair calmly, cool and collected, like he hadn’t started a firestorm. Like he wasn’t the first one upset. To him, this was all on you apparently. You weren’t sure anymore how you had given this man the time of day. You’d had an entire relationship that now sat crumbled in some abyss and this was what lay in its ruins? Bitterness. Annoyance. Misunderstandings. He had never gotten you and never well and you had entertained it for long enough.

Despite the anger rumbling in you, all your ex replied with was: "Good luck, honey." He was gone nearly as fast as he appeared. 

The front door of the apartment slammed and almost as if on cue, your parents re-entered from the balcony. They stood in the living room, watching, observing.

"Were you guys eavesdropping that whole time?" You asked, breaking the uneasy silence before it truly began.

Your mother cleared her throat. "We just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Well, I’m fine," you muttered. "Everything's fine." You marched back to your bedroom before anyone could make any more protests, toss more questions your way, or — god forbid — throw accusations. 

You re-found your comfort in your bedroom. Door shut, world turned away. The only thing you could sense anymore was the bond. It hadn’t gone dormant, not since that night you swore you felt Druig. It came and went, but had yet to vanish. 

It pounded in your chest, in your gut, in your brain. As you worried about being apart, it did, too, and you hated it. All you needed was for whatever he and others needed to do, they did it fast, and for all of humanity to not vanish. Too much was unfinished here. It was nearly comical how you had craved normalcy and now found it punishing. 

Exhausted for the day, you crawled into bed, despite dusk just barely hitting the city. You turned toward the wall, a familiar, comforting position. That feeling in you began getting stronger, which wasn’t too odd when you relaxed your brain, but something about this was erratic. If you weren’t in your bedroom, you would’ve sworn Druig was standing beside you. Or maybe it was in the back of your brain. 

And that was when something muttered in your brain, ever so faintly through the chaotic noise. It was soft but recognizable. You heard it and didn’t hear it, it didn’t come to you as words simply would. But there was no room for mistaking it.

"I miss you."

#druig fanfiction #druig x female reader #druig x human!reader #druig x y/n #druig x reader #druig angst #druig fluff #druig fic #eternals fanfiction #eternals fic #eternals x you #marvel fanfiction #marvel fic #mcu fanfiction #mcu fic #soulmate au #writing*

[anneapocalypse]

Writing Wrap-up and 2024 Goals

It's a weird year to be doing a wrap-up, because I did not post a whole lot this year and I'm not sure I even set any goals last January thanks to having covid and being sick and exhausted for weeks, which still kind of feels like it threw off my whole year even though that sounds dramatic. Whatever. I've moped enough about it being a bad year for writing; now, I want to look forward.

2023 Wrap-Up

In case you'd like to read the one fic I did post this year, it's "Before You Go", a Loghain/Maric fic for Dragon Age (3022 words, rated E), which I am still quite happy with! And though it's not writing, I also made a podfic of RosellaWrites' gorgeous fic "let them not make me a stone (and let them not spill me)" (and if you're not interested in podfic you should still go read Rosella's fic, seriously, it's great).

While November 2022 was the last time I made substantial progress on A Hero Sleeps in Gwaren (my Briala/F!Tabris longfic for Dragon Age), I did make a few attempts to chip away at the draft this year. I didn't keep any records of what progress I made, but lucky for me Scrivener has a writing history feature that can at least give me a ballpark, and... it says I added 17,326 words to the draft this year (all in the first half of the year), which, not gonna lie, seems unreal to me. The first half of this year is mud in my head, so the fact that I did in fact get some writing done is really encouraging.

Over the summer, FFXIV started to really consume me as I had finished ARR by that point and my investment in the story was growing, and I also started taking a more active leadership role in my tiny free company, and so for the back half of the year I've mostly been writing little snippets about my Warrior of Light Ariane and her adventures and relationships, some of which may become part of actual fics later. This totals out to about 19,500 words at the moment.

So I only posted about 3000 words, but in total I wrote almost 40K this year. Is that a fantastic year, no... but honestly, it's a lot better than what my brain has been telling me I've accomplished this year, which is nothing. :P So I'm glad that I sat down to actually find the numbers!

Onward and upward.

So what's next?

2024 Goals

Fandom:

Finish one longfic.

Write and post a one-shot.

Do one exchange.

Original:

Outline an original novel.

Write a poem.

Send out one piece.

Tentatively my immediate plans are to get started outlining and then writing my Ariane/Haurchefant fic. I'm on the fence about February. On the one hand, it would be great to come back to my Briala/F!Tabris longfic for Femslash February, but on the other hand there's a high probability I'm going to be playing Endwalker by that point and I have no hope of keeping my head in Dragon Age during that time, so it's probably best not to commit to it. Dragon Age fic might be best saved for after I've caught up on MSQ when there are (hopefully) a few months still left to wait for Dawntrail and I can take a little break to let it marinate while I work on something else. My enthusiasm for the Briala/Tabris fic has not waned despite the long hiatus, and just yesterday I was reading bits of the draft and getting excited again, so I do hope to finish that this year and get to share it with you.

The alternate candidate for February is either keep working on the Haurchefant fic or in the case of a miracle in which I actually finish it this month (hah!), move forward with the next one I have planned, an Urianger/Moenbryda. That's unlikely but we'll see. I know I still have things to learn about Urianger in Endwalker, which I'm very excited for.

As for what exchange(s) I might do this year, I'm not sure yet! I haven't seen any announcements yet that Chocolate Box is running this year. Black Emporium and FemslashEx are both strong candidates for me. We'll see where I am when those roll around, or maybe something else will catch my eye!

Edited to add: Oh, yeah, also at some point we're supposed to get that final season of Red vs. Blue. I have a few outstanding projects in RvB but the main one that really matters to me is Radio Silence, my Carolina lost years fic. I'd love to use the series' send-off as a kick in the pants to finally finish that one, whenever that happens. We'll see!

Finally, I am making a conscious effort to reclaim my writing time, which traditionally has been the morning between 9 and noon because that's when my mind is the sharpest, but over the past I basically let that slip entirely and be taken over by either housework or gaming, just writing on the fly when something came to me. I'm not morning gaming anymore unless it's for a good reason (timed event I need to catch, etc, which is rare, and finishing yesterday's roulettes is not a good enough reason because the queues are slower in the morning and it just ends up eating more time than it needs to, they happen every day, it's fine).

On to 2024. Looking forward to it.

#writing goals #writing 2024 #writing stuff

[seek--rest]

Seek, I love when you “talk shop” to us, so here’s my question this week: how do you feel about posting completed stories vs updating as you go? It seems to me that after following you for a while that you do a little bit of both, and I’d love to hear what you consider the pros and cons of the different updating styles!

There's nothing better than talking shop!!!!!!!!!! I always love talking shop i could talk shop all the time please always send me shop talk asks!!!

The pros of backlogging:

i know exactly where the story is going. the only surprises are whatever the characters can throw at me and for the most part, if it's 75% done then there's less of a chance of something extending unexpectedly.

the "work" is done. i've written nearly everything (cause it's very rare that something is ever 100% done when I start posting) so I'm free to work on other things.

The cons of backlogging:

if i write enough of something and it ends up not being as well-received as I would've liked, that's expectations innit. i've set myself up to really be invested in something that others aren't and while we write for ourselves, we post to share and i've written 40k of something that no one else wants to read,,, it might still be worth it but sometimes it's better to level expectations.

on the flip side, excitement. sometimes i'm writing something in chapter 8 that i can't wait to share but i haven't even posted chapter 1. assuming i post a chapter weekly, that's waiting two months to share exciting thing i just wrote. for most of my time in fandom, 90% of the time this was really worth it but nowadays, the fandom is so quiet and mostly dead that there's never any guarantee the same people who are reading chapter 1 will even still be in the fandom by the time chapter 8 comes around.

slightly related, if I have a really cool idea that I really want to write and others really want to read with me,,, but then I write and backlog and end up posting it a month later,,,, the moment has passed. it might still be worth it for /me/ but again, if i'm just screaming at the wall sometimes that's worth it and other times it's Not

The pros of writing as I go:

instant feedback loop. not in the sense that i'll write to the whims of others but more, "wow i wrote this. i can't wait for people to read it. aha! i've posted. now people can. serotonin please." excellent.

freshness. expediency! there's just some kind of buzz from being inspired to write something, writing it, posting it and then regardless of the feedback, knowing you did it! in these cases, the feedback is secondary. it could be none at all. just knowing that i was able to have the vision, make it reality, and then post it out into the world can be delicious all on its own.

the cons of writing as I go:

if i'm writing as I go, i may not have a plan and if i don't have a plan, the fic is almost DOA. every longstanding wip that hasn't been updated in the last 4 months is because i either don't have an outline or i don't have a strong one / didn't write a chapter or two before posting the next.

and that's related to: life. life happens! i'm busy! i like backlogging and writing other things as i post other things because life is busy and while i'm writing on the go, knowing i have some """"cushion"""" makes it easier but if i /don't/ then i become a bit more reticent in sharing what i have and if i flat out don't have the time to write,,,,, no updates at all

tl;dr I think both can work for different reasons and for different stories. if it's a long, meatier, more angsty/twisty story, then i can't imagine writing as i go. i'd need the time and plot and backlog so that regardless of the feedback, i know where the story is going. if it's something silly and fun and very low stakes, then writing as i go? works perfectly! it's easy and quick and i don't have to think.

#seek speaks #seek shop talk #<- possibly new fic talk ask tag? #for example: pov was originally very silly and had very little backlog #it is now over 80k #so. yeah.

[divineerdrick]

Warhammer Day 2023

EDIT: This is almost a full week late! This week has sucked for many reasons, but I still can't believe it took me that long to get one blog post done!

I know I'm late on this one, but I crashed right after watching it. I noted my reactions down, but I'm going to file this under "Not So Live Blog." My attempt to revive this blog is off to a fantastic start!

Which makes it only slight worse than this set of Warhammer Day reveals!

I won't bury the lead hear. GW put a lot of marketing and hype into the 40th Anniversary of Warhammer. But I feel they definitely overhyped this. It's not that there weren't any big reveals, but nothing on the scale of Leviathan. I wonder if they were originally intending to announce Leviathan at Warhammer Day, but then things got changed to keep their summer launch cycle. I've started having more than a few suspicions and question regarding that release.

One issue is with the need to make sure there are regular news and announcements. I feel things that maybe should have been a part of something like Warhammer Day ended up preempting it. Leviathan may be the obvious one, being delivered at Adepticon instead of a GW event, but both new seasons of WarCry and Underworlds were announced less than a month prior. As a result, there was really only one big reveal for this 40th Anniversary blowout and I feel like it's half missing.

And it sucks, because what was revealed was great!

But enough preamble, let's see what was unveiled!

WARHAMMER 40,000

With all the major news for 40K happening this past summer, we're now into our standard Codex and miniature release cycle. For Warhammer Day, it was Necrons and AdMech!

Necrons

The greatest military mind the galaxy has ever seen returns! Imotekh the Stormlord is back and free from Finecast resin! This new model looks fantastic! While Immotekh isn't currently a very potent model, there are plenty of ways that could change with Codex Necrons. Speaking of which, we got some teases as to what the new Detachments will be, including a Stratagem and Enhancement. In addition to a Canoptek detachment and a Destroyer Detachment, we got a direct reveal for the Hypercrypt Legion.

The Hypercrypt Legion is all about movement shenanigans, using teleportation and gate technology to get your legions into position. They demonstrated this with Hyperphasic recall, which lets you take a wounded Necron unit and move it to a Monolith. It's 2CP, but there are lots of evil things you can do with this. Your opponent always wants to make sure they destroy your units, and with some Necron bricks that can definitely take a few units worth of shooting. Removing a group of Necron warriors out of the line of fire, only to then Reanimate them could be a frustrating trick. It'll be even crueler if you have the tools to then send them back into the fight.

Next we have the Destroyer themed Eternal Madness. As long as this isn't too expensive, this is another winner. Fight on Death is a powerful ability. Just the threat that a Destroyer Lord could be taking a unit with him will make opponents think twice. All and all, some fun previews for the Undying Legions.

Adeptus Mechanicus

I'm just gonna start by putting this right here.

This model is so crazy and I am so here for it! Eddie with Warhammer Preview described it as being "a little bit Marmite." I'm sure a lot of people are going to think this goes too far, but I think it's perfect. The Sydonian Skatros will also be a cheap Lone Operative, so it will definitely be a useful addition to nearly any AdMech army. AdMech will of course also be getting some new Detachments with their Codex, which are much needed. In addition to Detachments themed around Tech-Priests and Cybernetica, we have the Skitarii Hunter Cohort.

Unfortunately, the second part of this Detachment rule will rarely matter in game. But the first part will increase the durability of your Skitarrii and Ironstriders, the first of whom have already gotten a nice durability buff. Providing the Stratagems and Enhancements are good, I'd probably always take this over the Rad-Cohort.

And speaking of Stratagems . . .

Binharic Offence is 2CP to give two of your Skitarii units an additional pip of AP against one chosen enemy unit. This is huge! AP is at a premium in 10th Edition, and anything that improves it is more than welcome. All and all a great start to the Hunter Cohort.

With that, we move away from mainline 40K. Though we're not quite done with important reveals for my favorite game just yet . . .

AGE OF SIGMAR

And again, I'm gonna just put this here.

Do I really need to say anything?

I never dived particularly deep into AoS. I've read the Daughters of Khaine Battle Tomes for 2nd and 3rd Edition, plus Morathi, and I've read the 3rd Edition book. I also used to follow Warhammer Weekly pretty faithfully, but haven't caught any episodes since shortly before the reveal of 10th. I like the game, though there are a few bug bears I have with it (one of which has snuck into 40K.) But the models are just amazing! The writers and artists for this game have just done fantastic work creating a familiar fantasy setting that is still very much its own beast.

Just amazing!

These miniatures are part of the ongoing narrative arc, Dawnbringers. And here is where I have to reveal some of my ignorance. How long has AoS had Armies of Renown? I know they have Warscroll Battalions, but are these new to the current campaign?

Regardless, I am here for both of these miniatures! Alarielle is still my favorite plastic miniature, possibly my favorite GW miniature period, and I'm going to eventually want Belthanos to go with her.

KILL TEAM

After teasing us before the reveal of Belthanos by accidentally starting the wrong video, we got the reveal of the next Kill Team season and our first two Kill Teams. There's two big pieces of news here, while not a lot of actual detail about the new season.

The big reveal is that the first new Kill Team set will include the new Striking Scorpions. I was just talking to a friend the other day about the fact that Aeldari still needs to finish their range refresh. There's no sign of Uncle K yet, but this is still great news.

The second big reveal is this season of Kill Team will not be sold with huge terrain sets. GW isn't giving up on Killzones, but they'll be available separately now for all of us that already have a huge assortment of Kill Team terrain. Hopefully, this means the Kill Team box sets will be much more affordable, especially for anyone that wants to get their hands on either the new Scouts or the new Striking Scorpions.

On a side note, I never blogged about how confusing the whole Scouts thing was. They removed Scouts to Legends, then released new ones. Why not just update the Datasheet in the Codex? I thought Scouts going to Legends was weird to begin with . . .

What was surprisingly missing from the reveal is anything regarding what this new Season is about. The Gallowdark has fallen to this ocean world and now various factions have pursued it there. That's about it. We know the first Killzone will be set on a derrick in the middle of a hostile ocean. They even mentioned that the waters with be deadly, with a joke about SPEHSS PAHRAHNAHS! But there was no real mention of any overarching story or theme for this season.

THE OLD WORLD

At last we come to it - what could be considered the big reveal of this Warhammer Day.

The Kingdom of Bretonia!

And if you've been following GW reveals, you know why that's a bit underwhelming. We already know Bretonia is coming for Old World and will be one of the first armies we get. Still, let's start with the good stuff.

Again, just looks at it! The new Lord on Pegasus looks amazing, as does the alternate kit for a Baron on Pegasus. There's a lot of incredible detail, personality, and life in this new miniature. And we can see that in all the new miniatures.

But that's where the cool stuff stops. The new Kingdom of Betonia set is bringing some new models, but the bulk of it looks to be returning models from classic Warhammer. And as you can see . . .

Some of them just don't hold up well next to the new miniatures. While it's great that you can still use your old miniatures to play, one of the pains of having a game shut down is the loss of new and updated sculpts. I know there are plenty of classic Warhammer fans that were hoping for more.

The next bugbear to tackle is the Forge World kits. For various reasons, GW often uses Forge World to support their "Boxed Games." Despite originally being a mainline game, I think we all suspected that when The Old World released it would be supplemented by Forge World. But it looks like it's going to be a lot of kits. Anything new not coming out in the launch box appears to be Forge World, including that Handmaiden above. My guess is that anything that was a pewter kit will also be Forge World, since that's one of the reason GW still uses resin. We already know the Field Trebuchet will be returning as a Forge World kit. All and all, there doesn't appear to be anywhere near the plastic support for The Old World that The Horus Heresy got.

Finally there's the fact we're still getting drip-fed the previews, even though it's Warhammer Day. I don't understand why they couldn't just give us some more substantial reveals. We know basically every kit we're getting for Bretonia in the launch box, but we don't have the reveal of the launch box. While we're pretty sure who their opponent will be, they haven't official revealed them, let alone new miniatures. Finally we know that The Old World will release in "early" 2024, but nothing more solid than that.

Though, to be fair, that last one is consistent with GW marketing and their seeming refusal to give us launch dates until they're almost on us. Doesn't anyone in their marketing team understand the concept of saving up for things?

All and all, this reveal is taking away from the impact a final Old World reveal could have. It's weird because GW can be so good at maintaining hype through previews and teasers. Maybe they're hoping that when they announce the second faction and drop its new miniatures, it will make up for it.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Like I said, I feel for the 40th Anniversary of Warhammer, this Warhammer Day preview is just lacking. It needed something to help make it a celebration of these great games and this great hobby. Hell! As I'm finishing this there have been more products added to the Warhammer Day celebration. The best one wasn't even revealed during this Preview - a reprint of the original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. I don't understand how they could build up so much hype and momentum for the 40th, only to let it hit so lightly.

The new miniatures are still awesome, especially for AOS, and I'm still glad to see The Old World returning. But as companies before them have learned the hard way, if you're going to build a ton of hype, you need to have a payoff for it.

#not so live blog #warhammer aos #warhammer age of sigmar #warhammer 40000 #warhammer 40k #warhammer day #wh40k #kill team #warhammer the old world #the old world #age of sigmar #necrons #adeptus mechanicus #admech #bretonia #aeldari #craftworld eldar #games workshop

[amourcheol]

before i reblog, i want to give you ALL the flowers in the world. i just finished reading the monster of a fic called the great war and YOU HAVE DONE IT AGAIN. there are no words that can amount to how much i adore this fic. i love lengthy word counts done right (god knows how much long fics i got excited over before them being disappointing or boring as a reader) and i, most importantly, love enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, historical aus done right !!

lets get this out of the way first GRRR WOOF WOOF WOOF BARK SNARK GRERR RAHH HOWL BARK BARK WOOF WOOF WOOF GENERAL SEUNGCHEOL VICTOR OF VENICE I NEED ABYSMALLY.

okay. now that i can safely get that out of my system, LOVE LOVE LOVEEE everything about this fic. theres something so sweet abt men being written unrealistically (aka respectful and honorable whattt??? out of this world tbh) im joking ,, but i did absolutely love how you made cheol so strongly standing for his wife. the slow burn that really did the tag justice (it BURNT), the ENEMIES TO LOVERS DONE RIGHT!?! LIKE YESSS !!! they actually did want to kill each other and the yelling and arguing leading up to the first kissing scene CHEFS KISS like that's literally the epitome of writing, like is it really an e2l if there isn't a intensely written argument before the first sign of intimacy!?!?

throughout reading this story, all i could think abt was how could i ever put into the words the justice you served. allowing reader to be a strong character yet so eloquently bringing to light the struggles she would still face from just being a woman, to seungcheol using his power to stand FOR her. an honorary mention of the "Careful." he would reply to the Councillor after the panicking scene from the Florence mention INCREDIBLE!! it gave everything and more!! the character development from both sides, venus and mars foreshadowing, the subtleties that only slow burn could provide. i genuinely wish i could give a way better review than this but unfortunately im still speechless due to how beautiful this story was so just pls take this dreary review and understand that im so so in love and i adore you so much for the amount of work you put out into this, from the visuals and the descriptions, the perfect build up, the amazing writing of e2l and reflections– just EVERYTHING. you created a masterpiece <3

brb literally pulling my hair out till I got scraps left .

IMNSORRY ):£3!3!3 IM GONAN SVREAM SHIT CRY ?:£3!3!3 THIS IS THE SWEETEST THING EVER ):&:!3! 😭😭😭😭😭 First of all UR SO RIGHT … I never find huge fics anywhere and if I do they’re just …: YAWN ‼️‼️ I’m so glad u love those tropes they’re my BIGGEST guilty pleasures 😭 tho I can’t even lie I don’t feel guilty at ALL for historical! Aus

FUCKCJFKDDJD STOP I SVREAMED can u tell that cheol as a military general haunts me at night … I fear I am able to write another 40k for him ..: but ur so right tho my biggest biggest swoon moments come from men dying and sacrificing themselves for their lovers and I just !!! Seungcheol would absolutely die for his wife and this information jumps me in my sleep paralysis FR .. I’m so so happy u agree w me about the hatred I NEED HATRED FOR E2L OR ITS NOT E2L !! and PLS another guilty pleasure is screaming in each others faces before eating each other up … i will not be held accountable …

STOP I COULD CRY ??? thank u for appreciating the little bits of the fic 😭😭💖 that scene was incredibly hard to write and I’m glad people like it so much !! PLEASE DONT WVEN APOLOGISE ??? This is more than I could ever ask for you are truly so kind 😞💖💖 thank you for taking the time to read and send this unbelievably sweet message may or may not be thinking about this for the next 700 business days 😍😍💖

#asks #hobistigma asks #the great war tings #u don’t even need to reblog after sending THIS . #thank u for this truly 😞💖💖 #nothing makes me happier than seeing people enjoy my fics #even more so when they felt something while reading my (horny) writings #also thank u again cheol u are the reason i got brainrot this Intense . #user hobistigma permission to kiss u thru the phone … #i Hope ur pillow is warm ur grades are sky high ur skin is clear #💖💖💖💖

[twilightarc-gm]

For the recent writing ask game, I'd love to know your thoughts about 10, 12, 13, 23, 30, 49! Or if that's too many feel free to just pick a couple, I'm not sure if there's supposed to be a limit per ask!

Hello my dear mutual and fellow Jiang Cheng enjoyer! 💜💜💜

Okay but seriously how funny would that be to get an ask and they're like "1-50 pls" on a lark? 😂

Thank you so much for playing, btw, very exciting! 🤗

10. How do you decide what to write?

As in, how do I decide what's going to be a WIP and what just stays a daydream: The more niche it is the more likely I will end up writing it because I write stories for me. So, Top Priority of getting me fed is to write the stories I want to see. I check the relevant tags on Ao3, see there's like... nothing for my idea, despair, then open LibreOffice.

As in how do I decide which WIP to work on? Literally I use the carl-bot /choose function on any Discord server that has it. 😂😂 As long as I am writing something, that's good enough.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

🤔 Hmm based on the fanlore.org site I think a trope I once was meh about that I have come to like is Genderbend. But then I tried writing a bit of it and decided I liked some things about it after all. 😅

13. Are there any tropes you used to like but don’t anymore?

😓 Oof yeah, you know, I used to be cool with hatesex/enemyslash tropes but somewhere along the line I got real boring, and decided I have way more fun if the characters actually like each other on an emotional level, even if they're hard pressed to admit it. Now it just squicks me out to see it, or any pairing where I can't conceive of a canon-verse way for it to happen that wouldn't just be hatesex/enemyslash.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

One day I will write a casefic! I don't even have a WIP for it but ONE DAY it will happen and it will be SHORT and FUN and I WILL NOT spend 40k+ on it. 😤😤😤

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

🙃 Haaaaa... well... my comfort zone is long format fic heavy in description, action, plot, world building. Outside of that is... snappy dialogue, humor, short fic. I think the closest I came to outside my comfort zone is my chengxuan fic at 9.2k words but the dialogue isn't that interesting. I also have my recently scrapped WIP "Cringe Fic" (referenced in question 12) that was me working through writing a bunch of tags/tropes I otherwise can't read, to see if I can write it in a way I would like to read.

Writing the chengxuan one-shot didn't really do anything for me besides get me started publishing for the MDZS fandom. It was a fluke, in my opinion.

Cringe Fic had the bonus of expanding the base of ideas I am willing to try and write for, e.g. genderbend.

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

🙄 Okay so don't laugh (you can laugh), but as it turns out, I am writing a genderbend that I actually intend to publish when it's done. I noticed that there are only 24 works for Female Mò Xuányǔ tag, 19 of which are wang/xian. None of which are chengxian. I always wanted to explore canon Wei Wuxian actually experiencing dysphoria in his new body and making Mo Xuanyu female I feel will heighten that further. I'm thinking I want him to ping-pong between feeling everything is too different but also finding joy in what he has now and settle somewhere in the genderfluid realm of dealing with his 2nd life.

And of course I want it to be chengxian because 🤤 oh wow the drama there...

It's still in the very rough draft stages but here's a part that's interesting to me.

Wèi Wúxiàn traces the trail of brighter crimson to his arms. One sleeve is a clean bright vermilion, the other is soaked nearly black. “Not good,” he croaks with a voice that isn’t his. It’s a higher pitch, even for how ragged and torn it sounds. “Fuck.” Immediately, his good hand comes up to his throat that’s not his throat, where his questing fingertips fail to catch the presence of a knot that should bob as he swallows air. The same hand he trails down slowly, dreadfully, between his collarbones to his sternum, where a narrow, soft, valley goes undisguised by the vermilion robes wrapped around him. He looks down to his chest. Not his chest. His foggy mind catches up and grades the new look. Modest but present. Then his thoughts race ahead and the pins and needles of sensation wash away in the heat of panic. Wèi Wúxiàn spreads his knees and his hand drops down, but he knows.

🧡🙌 This has been fun! See you on my Dash!🙏🧡

...Or even... in my DMs 😉

#wei wuxian #mo xuanyu #chengxian #asks answered #twi fics #i can't apologize for the cx brainrot #its par for the course on this blog #follower beware

[moodymisty]

Hello🌻I hope you are doing well✨ Do you write in Warhammer? I saw this in the list of fandoms, but if not, I apologize a thousand😅 So, Sanguinius/reader-eternal. A moment of rest. Suppose there was some kind of difficult battle, and returning to his chambers after a victorious battle, Sanguinius feels tired and empty, he is dirty from blood and dirt, his hair is tangled, his wings have also lost their whiteness. And so he enters his chambers and smells a pleasant, but unfamiliar smell. The reader, anticipating in what state he would return, prepared a bath and took out her personal bathroom things (gels, shampoos, salts, candles, perfumes - with such smells that no one in the Imperium had seen since the Dark Era) and even more valuable to her (let it be a gift from parents or something) some kind of music player. Well, the reader comforts Angel, turns on music from his youth (maybe Beethoven, Wagner, Tchaikovsky or whatever you like best)), bathes him, takes care of his hair, nails and all that. How you can make his wings comfortable, I can’t imagine🤔 but in general, the reader was able to wash them somehow) Tells stories of plants, fruits, and animals that no primarch could ever see. About your favorite music, some kind of warm memory. Well, something like that😅 sorry if this is too long. In general, you can change the conditions to suit your comfort❤

Author's Note: So I was actually thinking of something somewhat similar to write in my own time because I'm a lonely primarch/astartes fucker for Guilliman (or pre-heresy Lorgar but that's just my 'I can fix him' mental illness talking) So when you sent this in I just about ascended. Emperor save my heretical ass for making this way too fluffy for Warhammer.

Relationships: Sanguinius/Fem!Reader

Warnings: It's 40k lol so references to war and all sorts of violence but other than that, just fluff. Also the slightest hint at the BA astartes being a bit platonic yandere for their Primarch's beloved because it's my headcanon. Enjoy petting the pigeon primarch y'all

For someone as primped and perfect as Sanguinius- A beautiful angel with not a hair out of place or word said without the most careful of consideration, his personal quarters are an absolute mess.

Feathers of all sizes lay scattered across the floor and the giant bed that adorns the massive room, its blankets strewn about and slept in multiple times without being made up in-between. In all of it’s disheveled look, it looks comfortable to say the least.

It's not as if you actually mind the mess, it's not bad enough to even really call it one, but it's simply amusing to think of someone as borderline ethereal as Sanguinius sleeping in a messy, wrinkled bed adorned with his own down.

The Blood Angel guards posted in the hall had allowed you to pass into his quarters without fuss, one of many privileges that you're still getting used to. They nodded towards you and spoke with that Astartes specific rigid but technically polite prose; Seeped in a level of respect you don't feel entirely deserving of.

Sanguinius' angelic sons are, intense. Any other word you think of is too negative in it's definition, or doesn't accurately describe this feeling of heavy downward pressure on your body you get whenever you are close to them. They have a protective quality that has only seemed to intensify the closer you've gotten to their genefather, as you can feel eyes on your back until the door closes behind you and the guards only then return to their vigilant watch of the palace halls.

Sometimes, you swear they're following you.

A pondering for another time perhaps, as you look around the messy quarters holding your things in your hands.

Sanguinius is due to return to Terra at any moment now, and after so long with only vox messages and handwritten letters, you've decided to attempt to surprise him. You probably won't be able to do so, but you can at least prepare him something that will hopefully brighten up his spirits. You can tell from his slip ups in tone that some things have been grating on him like waves on a cliffside.

You'll do anything to make sure that the Angel, your Angel, never looses that glow that seems to follow him; And perhaps steal some of those rare snippets of time to have him just to yourself. Even if only for a moment.

In the separate room that serves as his private bath you begin to run hot water, billows of steam quickly rising to the ceiling and covering the metal adornments around the room with dew. It pours out the open door, as you sit your bag on the edge and pull out various different things. Some sourced from other planets, one from your father who all but fainted upon your asking of it for a Primarch, all being hard to obtain; Little bundles of rare luxury. You fully intend to make use of them all. They smell like flowers and sea salt, far better than the scent of the iron and filth-covered armor aboard the Red Tear.

Though your ears prick to the sound of heavy footsteps before you can fully finish setting up, and you lean up and away from the massive bath and leave the room only just as Sanguinius himself enters. In saying any moment, you seem to have been perfectly accurate.

The first thing you notice of him, besides your joy of seeing him, is he has primary feathers that are bent and sticking out away from the natural pattern of his wings, a few even cracked and torn. He's already gone though the necessary process to remove his armor, and now he's clad in the usual and more comfortable garb he would wear when originally on Baal.

While Sanguinius himself is unharmed, not a single wound and the blood dried on himself not his own, he still is disheveled and messy; Hair tangled from being blown in the wind and getting caught in the raised collar of his armor. You can see mud staining the tips of his wings where it splattered upward, unable to fully protect them from whatever muck he came in contact with.

"I know,"

He sees the look on your face, and his gentle stoicism parts ever so slightly as his lips part. His eyes show the glint of irritation through his long lashes as he looks slightly downward and to the side with a furrowed brow.

"I look a mess. there is no need to point it out. Believe me when I tell you someone else has already done so." He normally wouldn't be fond of something laughing at his current condition, but he supposes he can find the entertainment in it. It's an easier thing to swallow when it's his little beloved doing so. The sound of your quiet, breathily laugh is soothing more than aggravating, and he enjoys the look of sweet mirth plastered on your face. While it may be somewhat at his expense, he doesn't mind all too much considering.

"Well, then you might like the surprise I made up for you even more." His lips crook upward in the most gentle of smirks; Though he was more than likely instantly cued into your gift by the feeling of steam wafting from the other room into this one.

"If not just to get all the dirt from your wings."

At the mere mention of it you watch his wings stretch, shaking slightly as he attempts to right feathers stuck out of alignment. He reaches for the front of his robes as he walks towards the bath.

"I hope you didn't prepare all of this only for me to enjoy it alone. I'd find myself dreadfully bored without any company." You shake your head, following the angel into the bath while he quickly begins to slip into the hot water. You move in not long after, the water almost too hot on your skin, but the feeling of the steam on your face is pleasant.

He attempts to stretch his wings; Though not many rooms can handle his wings fully unfurled. The main room of his quarters when his bed resides can, but in here he finds the tips of his primary flight feathers brushing against the wall. When you attempt to move closer, he furls his wings back up to avoid you bumping them. It lets you reach close enough to his hair, where you wet it with the hot water and watch his eyes gently close. You watch as his hair slowly becomes clean even after so long, golden sheen returning as the soot washes away.

"I have been so besieged by the smell of crude oils and sweat as of late, I swear I'd forgotten what flowers smelled like..."

He smiles when the sound of your quiet, breathy laugh hits his ears, though you still continue treating him. He might have normally apposed to such obnoxious pampering, but you seem to enjoy it, and he’ll partake in a moment of selfishness.

“Let me enjoy this moment without your mockery, will you?” Your fingers weave into his golden hair, just a bit wavy even with the water weighing it down.

"Terribly sorry, Lord Primarch." How he hates that stuffy title; His nose wrinkles. When you notice his doing so, you laugh again.

"It's the title my father used when I told him I needed some of these things." His eyes open to watch you for a moment.

"They're made of flowers from my home planet; When I said they were for The Angel Sanguinius, I swear he choked on his own spit then and there. Thought I had finally killed him."

He listens to you mumble about their origin for a short while, if for nothing more than to fill the silence. The water is no longer running, so other than the occasional splash of water the room is near silent.

You feel the brush of his feathers against your bare skin as they adjust, the water turning color as the grime slips from them and they return to their pristine white color. After all this time he finally feels clean, such a luxury he's been unable to indulge in for quite some time. Perhaps he’s odd in that regard, hating it far more than some of his fellow Primarchs.

He feels you ever so gently brush along a feather to align it with the others, fingers gentle like touching the thinnest glass. His eyes are still closed while you do so. Your gentleness of it isn’t lost on him, as he feels lips against the corner of his mouth.

A rare moment of peace; He'll indulge in it while he has the chance.

#we romance primarchs here sir #primarch x reader #wh40kcrack #warhammer 40k x reader #sanguinius x reader #mywriting #reader insert

[luwupercal]

Abnett When He Put a reference of Emps possibly being Alexander the great probably thought is was a cool thing but I can't stop thinking of Hephaestion's death and Alexander's grief of it, because if we say Emps is Alexander that shows a lot of his old personality if he did change from Molech or time. It showed that he did care once and showed real emotions. And Oll story can still make sense since Alexander is a conquer and did sometimes call himself god I think. That and Alexander actually died about 8 months later after Hephaestion's, at about 32 it puts lots of thoughts of what the Emperor was during it. Sorry for this rambling but this is just really interesting to me. I'm kinda surprise no one is talking about it. Sorry again

NO THIS IS FASCINATING THIS IS FASCINATING I HADNT HEARD OF THIS. i hadnt ever considered the emperor as alexander the great but now that youve put the idea in my brain i kind of LOVE it. thats a very good historical figure to put the emperor as having Secretly Been tbh

in fact in a brilliant moment of serendipity one of my favourite historical factoids is that apparently (APPARENTLY. do not quote me on this. alleged statements & hearsay only no sources) to transport his body for burial they laid alexander the great to rest in like a tub full of honey bc it slows down rotting since honey doesnt rot at all + lemon demon has a song called Sweet Bod about a different practice involving burying corpses in honey (this time for pseudo medicinal purposes) that ive always strongly associated w the emperors corpse and the cult built around it lololol

also do not ever apologize for sending me asks, zero worries, I love to hear peoples thoughts on warhammer even if i disagree lololol. I like to see different perspectives!! It's enrichment to me. like a zoo animal given a hollowed out pumpkin full of hamburger

a lot of times im like ehhh... about the whole "emperor having had compassion once" thing but i do think him having been Alexander the great is actually really good for this. as far as I know this dude (which isnt very to be frank!) he was a guykissing boyking mass conqueror who was a historical figure when julius caesar was alive who died of twink death which ticks a lot of boxes for my thoughts on what the emperor couldve theoretically been while young (super long time ago, still a conqueror, immature in a way that makes a lot of sense with the ways the emperor remained immature to his sorta-death) with the bonus of making him a menliker 360 which as a fellow menliker series x i approve of very heartily. this might be how it works for me.

AND the whole hephaestion thing u say is SO FUN AND INTERESTING as a characterization thing... forget shipping the emperor with malcador or whatever the one person he considered his soulmate died before oily josh was a twinkle in marys grandmothers eye. which is i think so fucking true and real to him. + the like rage of being nearly allpowerful but you still cant bring back the person you loved most who died young slots really well into the emperor i think it gives him an achillean flair just a little bit of. you know when dads casually drop Lore about their life and its the most deranged shit youve heard in your life and hes just made it such a normal part of his life he never really thought to bring up his Backstory. i feel like this is the vibe by 30k. im imagining the custodes furiously sharing memes in their custodes only discord server about every completely bananas Emperor Lore Drop

the questions im mostly bubbling with rn about all of this are stuff like. at what points the historical record was lied to. like in 40ks version of history was alexander the great adopted or did the emperor do a kill and replace w the original alexander (Erebus/Marneus Calgar style) or was the backstory completely different and if so, what were the historical ramifications...... i obviously dk a lot about alexander the great but I just Think it Works™️. It Works Great

thank u Very much for the ask this is cool as hell to think about o7

#lolipop1920 #ask #headcanons

[5sosfanfictioncatalogue]

Cashton Smut Masterlist

Chevy Malibu (ao3) - Lostideas M, 4k

Summary: Ashton’s name pops up from the top of his screen, a whatsapp message reading ‘outside’. Calum gets up, walks to his windows and peeks through the curtains. He can see Ashton’s chevy a bit further down the street, headlights turned off.

Calum carries his docs in his left hand as he sneaks out of his room.

or; Ashton picks Calum up in his car late at night sometimes. They scream into the void and love each other.

chips of glass (ao3) - asymmetric E, 40k

Summary: A month before 5 Seconds of Summer’s first gig, Calum puts up an ad on craigslist.

Ashton is the one who answers.

close enough to you (ao3) - irwah E, 5k

Summary: “But can’t we, like, just for tonight?”

Calum eyes Ashton warily, realising just how many drinks he must have had. It’s so unlike the boy to go against his own words, his own morals.

“I just, I really want you, Cal.”

Coy Fish - @daydadahlias​ (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) E, 19k

Summary: “Please don’t fuck our yoga instructor.” Michael massages his forehead, eyes squinting shut. “We’ll lose our discount.”

But that certainly won’t keep Calum from trying.

Dancing With The Radio Off (ao3) - fourdrunksluts E, 24k

Summary: After a particularly bad break up, Calum enacts a new rule for dating - no sex for ten dates. It’d be a lot easier if Ashton Irwin weren’t the one taking him out.

Empty Gut - @daydadahlias (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) E, 11k

Summary: Cowboys and horses and long, lonely nights in the wilderness.

fueling the fire until we combust (ao3) - nothingliketherain (39_killer_queen) E, 24k

Summary: Or things escalate one day when Ashton takes some pictures of Calum, unable to focus on anything but his lips.

give you what you need (ao3) - lourrygum E, 3k

Summary: “You know what you need?” Calum murmurs, pressing a kiss to Ashton’s collarbone, then another wetter, open-mouthed one. He presses his hips closer, right against Ashton’s in case he hadn’t got what Calum was trying to suggest.

“Cal,” Ashton says, voice thicker but commanding. Calum sighs again, in defeat this time, bottom lip jutting out although Ashton can’t see it. “We haven’t got the time.“

or, ashton is stressed and calum is worried

Grabby Hands (ao3) - antisocialhood N/R, 7k

Summary: Ashton likes wearing big sweaters, curling up with his daddy and sucking him off while they watch TV, and sometimes Calum likes to treat his princess to something special.

Heart's Citizen (ao3) - lookingforhope E, 10k

Summary: Calum sat next to the skirt, his fingers still on the fabric, and murmured, “Ash, I-“

“Are you about to apologise?“ Ashton cut him off. “It seems to me that you are. You think you’ve done something wrong? Or want something wrong? Do you feel like you have to explain yourself over this?” he gestured to the skirt. “ ‘Cause you fucking don’t!”

Or

Being truth to yourself might be scary. Being truth to yourself in front of the world might be even scarier. Ashton helps Calum to do both things.

home is where the heart is (ao3) - vlossoms E, 5k

Summary: Ashton sighs and closes his eyes, trying to quickly fall asleep only to hear the sound of the door opening and someone shuffling quietly in. He tries to ignore the other person, he really does, but when he hears them coming closer, Ashton can’t help but groan quietly. He lifts his head and, whoa, the boy is gorgeous. Ashton has known he was gay for years, his mom is okay with it and so it he, and he can't help wishing this boy was his soulmate.

See, the thing is, the boy is stunning. Beautiful tan skin, a few shades darker than Ashton's, with soft-looking fluffy brown hair, and those eyes. Those eyes look like they hold the secrets to the universe, with a beautiful chocolate brown color that never stop sparkling.

Howdy, Partner - @daydadahlias​ (cornflowerblue (daydadahlias)) E, 7k

Summary: When Ashton slipped on that tasseled jacket and those boots, he fucking knew what he was doing.

When he strolled into the party with a bright dimpled grin, put two long fingers on the brim of his hat and tipped it to Calum with a gruff, “Howdy, partner,” he’d known full fucking well what he was doing.

if there’s one thing i know it’s that we’re good together (ao3) - irwah E, 3k

Summary: “It isn’t that weird, really, if you think about it. Ashton is just one guy, a guy who spends a lot of time working out. And he’s admiring his best friend working out, his technique, his breathing pattern - totally normal things he observes in other people when he’s at the gym.

Except it is weird. Because he’s not admiring Calum’s technique, he’s admiring Calum’s abs, the way the sweat is pooling in the dips between muscles, the way his shoulder muscles clench with the force it takes him to do a sit up. He’s not admiring Calum’s technique so much as admiring his body.”

or: Cashton fuck in a gym

Magnet Souls (ao3) - jbhmalum E, 42k

Summary: Ashton loves sex a whole lot, Calum hates the thought of it. They’re soulmates. Alternatively, a story about self-respect and compromise in the name of love.

photo (ao3) - orphan_account N/R, 3k

Summary: calum and ashton add a pretty little photo to their collection of casual sex pictures.

So Much Better (ao3) - cashcakeplz N/R, 84k

Summary: This is good, good for Ashton. He works so hard, always taking care of the boys, he deserves someone who will take his mind off of things, even for a couple of hours to get coffee. Maybe it’ll make him better, and by extension, the band better. Maybe Bryana is a good thing for everyone. Yet, even now, as Calum tries to think of how great Bryana could be for Ashton, he can’t help but think that he would be so much better.

Or the one where Calum and Ashton have been Friends With Benefits for years, and Calum thought his feelings for Ashton were simply sexual until Bryana came into the picture.

studying is(n't) hard (ao3) - sunshineashton M, 1k

Summary: Ashton thinks of a different way to make Calum study for his bio exam.

Taking Turns (ao3) - sonofneverland M, 1k

Summary: Boyfriend's Ashton and Calum try switching things up in the bedroom.

#5sosfanfictioncatalogue #5sos fanfic #calum hood #ashton irwin #cashton #cashton smut #sex tw #smut #masterlists

[jakey-beefed-it]

For kind of a long time (a few years, at the minimum, probably about five) I’ve had this backburner idea to collect some imperial guard/astra militarum and convert and paint them up to be Ultramar Defense Auxilia.

I don’t want to clutter up anyone’s dash, so the rest of this very self-indulgent post goes under the cut.

There have been a few impediments to this project. First was my indecision about what, exactly, the UDA is. Is it more like guardspeople, or tempestus scions? Following the latter idea for a bit, I made some Necromunda enforcers a while back.

And I like them, they’re neat, but they definitely feel too elite to be regular guardsmans, and they don’t especially feel very... Ultramar, aside from the paint job and the transfers. Plus it’s hard to get a bunch of rifles for them to make them work as either guardsmans OR scions. And finally they are, fundamentally, too obviously militarized cops. And, you know, ACAB. 

Before you start in, yes, any Imperial army is going to be bastards to one degree or another. Any guardsman is going to be, at best, a shell-shocked veteran who no longer buys the propaganda but keeps their mouth shut on pain of being shot. Hence me going for what I consider to be the minimally bastardly Imperial soldiers- the Defense auxilia of Ultramar. They’re not generally following the Ultramarines into combat in this or that war zone across the galaxy, they’re just taking up arms to defend their own goddamn planets from the ‘nids or the Death Guard or whatever else GW wants to rain down upon the 500 worlds. Which, yeah, are fundamentally Imperial in a very Roman sense. And the Romans were very much Bad People who have no place in any sort of ‘best practices’ government advice, but like. Arguably not as bad as a lot of the other influences on 40k, and a lot more time has passed making it a lot less sus (though god knows there are still lots of right-wing weirdos into Rome) to dig the aesthetic.

Ok. Other points of inspiration? The Plague Wars, some of the only 40k books I’ve actually bothered to read. Transfers: I have a fuckload of Ultramarine transfers I will never get through even though I already play Ultramarines. Music: Sabaton in general, but especially Attack of the Dead Men and Fields of Verdun. So... a Space Roman World War One aesthetic???

Ok. So, justifications and vague aesthetic in mind, I pondered how to go about this. For a while I poked around 3rd party bits sites, taking note of things that grabbed me. After a while, I had a vague idea what I wanted:

A greatcoat, because greatcoats are cool as hell and make a good place for all that Macragge Blue

A breastplate of some kind- single-piece is fine, though lorica segmentata would be ideal

Pauldrons of some kind; again, lorica segmentata style would be best

An enclosed helmet with or without gas mask; these guys would have to be capable of fighting/having fought in the Plague Wars, and if we have learned nothing else from the current pandemic, please let’s have at least learned you don’t want to be breathing in Nurgle-tainted air. Roman theming on the helmet would be ideal, but I can find literally no such thing in guard-scale. A few for marines, which would’ve been keen to know about before painting my hundreds of Ultramarines, but so it goes.

A las-rifle that looked a bit more ‘historical’, somewhere between late renaissance flintlocks and bolt-action. 

A proper trencher’s haversack. Bedrolls and entrenching tools preferred.

They came out with the death korps of krieg guys in plastic a year or so ago, and they ticked a bunch of these boxes- the greatcoats, the gas masks, the vaguely WW1 looking las-rifles. But the helmets were a bit too close to the stalhelm. Scions helmets instead? But no, they’ve got the pikelhaube spike which is very much a Death Guard thing in 40k, and otherwise look a bit too modern. And no cuirass at all, and their feet aren’t armored at all which simply will not do when greaves were one of the pieces of armor Romans actually did wear.

No greaves?

Then, recently, I found these guys. They’re not as crisp of sculpts as the new death korps or the new cadian guys; more on par with the old Cadian kits, but they have greatcoats, cuirasses, and armored shins. The guns and heads are my least favorite part of the kit, but frankly, I’ve got so many goddamn bitz I can probably replace them with something. And you get 24 of them for less than the price of 10 GW guardsmen. And the idea began to take shape.

For helmets, I’m actually thinking sisters of battle helmets. God knows I still have piles and piles of them. They have a vaguely medieval feel to them, and if you threw a crest on the sergeants and a transverse crest on the officers, they’d read pretty credibly as roman-inspired at least. If I’m feeling sassy, I might even greenstuff up some cheek flap things to add to that impression.

For arms/guns, my ideal would be skitarii pauldrons on death korps arms with skitarii galvanic rifles and death korps bayonets. But that’s not happening because the whole point is to get a kill team’s worth of guys with optional swaps for less than GW price, and even buying just the bits would put this well over budget. So. I think the death korps guns are good enough, the arms are perfect, the bayonets are perfect, I just have to either accept that the pauldrons won’t be perfect or, again if I’m feeling saucy, I can maybe sculpt up a little curved top piece to give a more Roman silhouette. 

I think it’s a plan. I have a project in mind for the new year, one that won’t add heaps of models to my pile or put me back all that much money. 

Watch this space for further developments, if you’ve read this far and give a shit about wee space mans.

#Jake plays Warhammer 40k

[evax3]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💖

Thanks for the ask, what a sweet idea! and also thanks at @st-clements-steps and @feed-me-a-penny for sending this my way too, I appreciate it very much, guys ❤️

The Wolves of Winterfell 50k | E | Theon x Robb, Jon x Dany, Arya x Gendry | Modern

The new session has barely started and up in Winterfell things already get way too complicated.

Gendry and Arya have a hard time keeping their relationship a secret, especially while living together with not one brother but two and the biggest prattler of the whole damn campus. Theon and Robb are only one beer pong game away from not jumping their girlfriends but each other. And besides struggling with their exams, Dany and Jon have to face the fact that hate and love do sometimes come just hand in hand.

Love Needs No Holidays (collab with @salty-wench) 20k | M | Theon x Robb, Jon x Dany | Modern

Jon can't get over his breakup no matter how hard he tries. Overwhelmed with his family's seasonal cheer, he decides to get away for the holidays.

Meanwhile, Theon's just done with all the couples around him and Christmas in general. When he sees Jon's ad for a house swap in the North, he doesn't think twice before responding.

Two love stories in one fic set over the holidays, with lots of smiles and copious amounts of glitter.

Remember Your Name 8k | M | Theon x Robb | Canon

When Ramsay tells him about Robb's death before it happens and not after, it stirs something inside Reek that cannot be held back.

— where Theon is not only a victim and Robb is not the hero.

then we take berlin 40k | M | Theon x Robb, Arya x Gendry | Canon/Modern

After Petyr Baelish tragically suffocated on a gigot before he was able to poison Jon Arryn, Westeros fought in united strength against the White Walkers and built up a diplomatic relationship with Queen Daenerys in Meereen after the victory.

So, the land was at peace, the winter was over and 2 years later Theon, Robb and Arya sat together in Winterfell, bored to fucking death.

Fortunately, distraction seemed within reach, as Theon discovered a book in Maester Luwin’s library, maybe solving their problem. Promising the opportunity to travel back in time and experience one of the big battles again, they’d fought in the past.

But mixing the ingredients, something went wrong and instead of arriving back on the field of the second Battle of the Dawn, they found themselves in Berlin of the 21st century, still wearing their thick furs and understanding not a single word.

Putting their hopes in a certain dark-haired goldsmith from California, who kindly takes them in, they tried their best to somehow find their way back home and find a lot more in the process.

Unfortunate 60k | E | Jon x Dany | Modern/WIP

Jon likes Dany and Dany likes Jon. She does for a long time and even the fact that he's such a mess (his words not hers) can't diminish these feelings.

But still nothing can come of it. Because he's Ygritte's ex. And in no world is it okay to start something with the ex of your best friend. Not even if he might be the love of your life. Which is, of course, a bit unfortunate.

#gendrya #jonerys #throbb #arya x gendry #jon x dany #theon x robb #fic recs #the ot6 #asks and answers