djemsostylist

[djemsostylist]

I've been really offline this year, and it's due almost entirely to my work. I'm mostly just venting now, but this year has been the hardest I've had since Covid, and I fear a future where it doesn't get any better.

This year, I have not one, but TWO students who go off at nothing. And by go off I mean I have to evacuate my room and just hope they don't break anything or throw anything at me that I can't dodge. And this happens for no reason--a simple direction, passing out a piece of paper, giving a direction I've given 100 times could result in a tantrum that clears my classroom for over an hour as a bunch of adults stand around watching, because restraining a kid now requires at least five adults and a mountain of paperwork. So instead, I'm forced to watch as a 7 year old destroys my room and their mom tells me "at least it's not as bad as they were in kindergarten" or blames me for not calling them in the middle of class when they first started throwing things.

Beyond my two, I have another 4-6 who are simply obnoxious. I'm often loathe to call kids obnoxious, but these students are rude, inappropriate, refuse to follow basic directions, and generally make my every day horrible. They fight and bicker and argue and then get mad and rude when I ask them to please stay seated and follow basic directions.

The others aren't bad, but they laugh and encourage the bad behavior, talk incessantly, and basically need constant supervision and stimulation. Law now states I'm not allowed to discipline kids--no missing recess, no writing lines, no missing resource, no anything I used to be able to do to make an impact. Students are mandated to attend quarterly parties that we can't take away because every students has the right to attend.

I get no breaks during the day--I'm required to watch them at lunch because half of them are incapable of sitting still for a half an hour to eat food, and many of my resource class breaks (while the kids are at gym or art) are taken up with meetings.

And that doesn't even address staff shortages. Today a teacher on my hall called out, and there was no one to take her class, so we were all saddled with 4-5 extra kids. I ended my day with 27, and with no music teacher, I also had to watch them during resource, so I got no moment to myself between the hours of 9-4:30.

I've also had two teachers on my hall quit this year, which means I've been responsible for writing plans and grading papers for three classes, getting two long term subs set up in a classroom that has been left in a lurch, and also becoming a surrogate teacher for 46 extra students (on top of my 23).

I sit in on every IEP meeting for the grade level, which sometimes means 4+ a week.

I'm tired. In my bones, in my soul. I come home tired every day, and some days its all I can do to lay on my sofa and scroll through youtube or reddit. I don't even have the energy for tumblr, because liking something means the likes will pile up or I'll need to comment on something a mutual had posted and it feels overwhelming. I'm back playing Destiny because it's the sort of mindless thing I can do almost without thinking. The Horus Heresy is done but 40k feels lifeless by comparison so I'm sort of slow in getting into new things. Last weekend I painted a little, and that feels productive at least.

I just don't know if it's going to get better. This year, the students seem to not care, about school or about their behavior, and the parents know they're awful (I've had parents openly admit their child hurts them or their siblings at home) but yet seem to have little desire to make any changes to try and curtail the behavior.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say I guess. Just that I feel like we are genuinely raising a generation who doesn't understand consequences, that we are not allowed to discipline because parents refuse to allow their child to be held accountable for their actions.

I'm tired. And I genuinely don't know if it will get better.

#school #teaching #rants #personal

[djemsostylist]

Can you explain this gap in your blog history

#me from september to June #it's been particularly bad lately #but ill get there

[djemsostylist]

i can't even talk about Roboute right now bc if i do discuss the fact that they didn't even get to TALK TO ANYONE in the entire fucking series on terra i'll lose my goddamned mind im going to go rage into a pillow right now

#the horus heresy #the siege of terra #warhammer 30k

[djemsostylist]

Or like, what about Rogal Dorn huh? This man spent his entire life, his entire fucking life dedicated to this cause, he gave up everything to serve the Emperor because he believed, he believed in Him and he spent 7 years in agony destroying everything beautiful he had built to create something monstrous to make it survive, who cried when he said goodbye to the brother he loved and who had made it through hell to come and fight at his side and then literally spent an eternity in the wilderness alone holding on to the one thought that he would not give in, even when he didn't even know his own name and then he just walks into the room where his father is almost dead and his beloved brother IS dead and just like, pretty shrugs and is like, welp, pops his other brother's dead head in a grocery bag and keeps on keeping on WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DAN. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

#warhammer 30k #the siege of terra #the horus heresy #dan abnett #im not getting over this ever #just so you know #i will be on my deathbed #and ill be going WHAT THE FUCK DAN

[djemsostylist]

no but Garviel Loken was there the day Horus slew the emperor and refused the offer to go to Titan and put back on his Luna Wolf whites and for what???? For what Dan?? He sidestepped through time and space and fate literally opened the door to the Vengeful Spirit and for what?? For what?? and then Euphrati Keeler survived lighting the astonomican and for what??? For what????

So he could died alone and stabbed in the back by fucking Erebus of all people to birth Samus when literally his death should always have birthed Samus because whomst exactly was betraying Garvi in that moment, he hated that bitch Erebus from day 1???

Dan, what the fuck was that hot fucking garbage Dan. What the fuck was that. Answers Dan, I need fucking answers

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #the siege of terra #i will never be over this #what the fuck happened #in the 11th hour #i need to know

[djemsostylist]

shoutout to the fact that Dan Abnett, who once wrote a book that made me cry over superheavy tanks of all fucking things actually wrote the death of my most beloved child and the subsequent descent into madness of his most beloved children and i felt NOTHING and that is REMARKABLE dan what the fuck happened to you are you okay what was that fucking abomination of a book

#warhammer 30k #the siege of terra #dan abnett #the horus heresy #sanguinius died y'all #he died and his sons descended into a black rage and i felt nothing #literally not a tear was shed #a book ago i was crying over a load servitor doing good works #and then i was like #oh welp bc he wrote the worst fucking death devoid of all emotion ever #dan what the fuck dan

[djemsostylist]

still thinking about the absolute clusterfuck that was The End and the Death Part 3 and the fact that Dan "I was there the day Horus Slew the Emperor" Abnett went ahead and proved that absolutely no one knows how the fuck to end a series and he just really spent 300 pages on a fucking E:BBA/Horus fight and then just fucked off after he stabbed Garviel Loken in the back and left him to die alone and frankly it's unfuckingforgiveable and I will be salty about it until the end of my days

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #the siege of terra #dan abnett #this is a call out post dan bc what the actual fuck was all that fucking shit #im still so mad #ROGAL DORN DIDN'T GET TO MOURN ANYONE

[djemsostylist]

girls r like "but he's my comfort character" and then it's literally the most emotionally traumatized man you have ever seen ever

#i was gonna try and chose one #but then i realized #its all of them?? #all my giant fucked up children that i love with my whole heart and soul #like there is not one who is normal amongst them all and i love them even more for that #im talking about astartes #its space marines #im talking about space marines #okay and my primarchs too lbr

[djemsostylist]

Garviel Loken (The End and the Death, Part 3e)

“I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor.” The opening lines of the Horus Heresy. The very first words I had ever read. The beginning of a story that would take over 70 novels to tell. And how the Siege, how the Heresy should have ended. “I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor.” The words that he will tell the future generations of Space Marines to come.

And yet, he won’t. Despite all that he has been through, all that he has seen, and fought for, and lost, and done…he won’t because he’s dead because at the 59th second of the 11th hour…Erebus stabs him in the back and he dies alone surrounded by those who betrayed him.

It’s…strange. It feels weird, and wrong, and out of sync, like Abnett got to the end and hit the panic button. A get out of jail free card to avoid writing something that might have more meaning. If you will allow me to indulge myself in perhaps a bit of light fantasy…

Garviel Loken was a Luna Wolf. Captain of the Tenth Company, his entire life—all that he could remember, was being a Luna Wolf. He was good, great even, competent, controlled, effective, but he was also never in the top echelons of the Wolves. Even he admits it, early on—he had no idea he was being watched so closely by the leadership. When Garvi joins the Mournival, it is the first time he becomes close to Horus, and to his brothers. Tarik he has known, but Lil’ Horus and Ezekyle are virtual strangers, and in the course of his time with them—he doesn’t exactly get close. Garviel loved Horus, but Horus was never his father. And the betrayal, the fall, happens so swiftly that Garvi barely gets a chance to know Horus the man before he becomes Horus, Avatar of Chaos.

I would argue then, that what Garvi mourns is not his father. He mourns the Luna Wolves. He mourns what they were, what their legion meant to the galaxy, the brotherhood he thought he had, what they might have been. The Luna Wolves were always a thin veneer over a patch job, but that doesn’t mean what he felt for them wasn’t real. It doesn’t mean they couldn’t have been more. Garvi never again grows close to the men he works with, and you can hardly blame him. Istvvaan left it marks.

But Garvi also, long ago, came to terms with the loss of the Luna Wolves. Though Garvi is Cthonian, his first allegiance is the Emperor he served through his service with the Luna Wolves. He long ago made peace with the loss of his father, his brothers, his legion. He can preserve the memory of what they were, what they could have been. But he cannot go back.

Bringing Garvi in to make Horus pause was a good idea. It was a gamble, but it was a good one. Horus always thought more highly of Garvi than Garvi did of him—and Horus is the type of person to want the praise and affection of those he deems better than himself. So that is not a bad idea. To have Garvi stand witness at the end, to be there to protect the Emperor while he fights his son—it works.

Garvi’s death being the birth of Samus also makes sense. The cyclical nature of time, the inevitability of Chaos—there’s a sort of poetry and ritual that I think works, particularly when coupled with Garvi’s actions in the last book. But his death, there on the deck of the ship, alone, mourning a father he never really loved—it doesn’t work. Should he have stayed with Horus’ body? Maybe, though I think the reasoning given is flawed. He either stays because, in the end, nothing matters (The Emperor is lost, the Imperium in rags) or because he was a Luna Wolf, and he wants to honor that with the man who made them, for however short a time that was. But to stay for Horus, to honor him, as father, as leader, as worth witnessing into the afterlife—it just doesn’t match with anything we’ve seen previously.

And dying to Erebus. Erebus of all people, stabbed in the back and left to drop like so much chaf—its unconscionable. Again, I know this is the grim darkness of the future, but I feel like there should have been some light.

In my head, our story ends with Garvi, old and grey and speaking to recruits in his chapter (perhaps founded, however quietly, in the name of the Luna Wolves that were). “I was there the day Horus slew the Emperor” because he was, he was there, he bore witness to the End but it was not his Death, not even the Death of the Empire, but a rebirth, a continuation, however different it seems. And when Garvi, old and grey, finds his final peace on a field of battle, defending the defenseless, Samus is born. Because Samus is always born from his death, but his death need not be a betrayal.

It’s fanficy perhaps, overly indulgent maybe, but given the sheer loss and pain and suffering of so many, I feel as though I may be given one final allowance for my fancy. Garviel Loken lives. 

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #garviel loken #horus lupercal #the luna wolves #djem reads warhammer

[djemsostylist]

Needed More (+ weird things) (The End and the Death, Part 3d)

Needed More

Rogal Dorn: We have spent the past 7 novels watching Rogal defend Terra. He has spent the past 7 years defending Terra. We have seen him at his breaking point, losing brothers and sons and nephews, watching the world he has defended for so long becoming a graveyard. He’s watched the palace he helped to raise be turned into an ugly fortress from behind whose walls he was forced to watch the destruction of his brothers, sons, and nephews. We’ve watched him at the edge of despair, and we’ve seen his resolve. We spent the last book watching him be tempted for eternity and not lose the core of who he is—a man who doesn’t give in, who fights to the very last. We watched him go with his father and his brother, agree to leave the defense at the very last, and go with them to stand beside them at the end of all things. To choose not to be alone, to choose not to leave them alone, when the end was here. And then we get nothing. Not at his father’s death, or his brother’s death, not at the knowledge that he has, in the end, failed at the one thing he has spent the past 7 years preparing for—saving Terra, his father, and the brothers who remain to him. He loses everything and we are treated to nothing more than Malacador commenting that he sees tears in his eyes. We needed to see his pain. We needed to see his grief, his rage, his loss—I wanted Eomer running across Pellanor to drop to his knees to pull Eowyn into his arms, I wanted him to break his sword, to yell and scream, to cry—I wanted SOMETHING. The Siege has shown that Dorn is capable of great depth of feeling, and I wanted to feel it.

Constantin Valdor: His story ties closely with Rogal, because like Dorn, Constantin has spent the past 7 years defending his Lord and Terra. He, like Dorn, has had a singular purpose—to preserve the Emperor, and the work of his life. And, like Dorn, Constantin fails. He fails to join him in the journey, in the fight, fails to save his life, fails to prevent the loss of his sons. He fails, and like Dorn we get nothing. Deadened emotion and a bare acknowledgement of loss. Interestingly, Dorn and Constantin are thrown together in a journey to find the Emperor, to make it to his side to stand with him at the last, and rather than take the time for them to talk together, to reflect on what their work has wrought over 7 years, on the changing nature of their relationship from barely civil coworkers to, if not friends, than at the least respected comrades in arms, we are instead treated to a never-ending slaughter of yet more beasts, that do little more than prolong a walk that has long since ceased to have meaning. I wanted them to connect, I wanted their scenes to breathe—they are, after all, the two who have been at this the longest, and they have seen so much loss. To have the chance to reflect, and then to come too late—I think it could have made for a beautiful ending for both of them. Instead, we get nothing, and their stories trail off into a future defined in lexicanum paragraphs.  

The Ultramarines: look, I know they don’t come until it’s too late. I know Roboute comes too late to save his father, his brother, Terra, the Empire. I know. I also know that not having them, literally at all, interact with any of the fighters on Terra felt—weird. Off. Like there wasn’t enough room and the story had to roll on without them. Again, we need that emotional catharsis. They came too late. They fought and died and ran and rushed and doubted and believed and it was all for nothing. Sangiunius is dead, the Emperor is all but, and Terra is shattered. I needed to see at least a little of it. Something. Not…nothing.

Weird Things

The Astronomican: I feel like all the people who died screaming to light the Astronomican was…weird. It was weird. The people who died should have given their lives willingly, gone peacefully to oneness with the Light of the Emperor—not you know, died screaming in pain. And before everyone says “but is the GRIM DARKNESS” yeah I know but also like, there is some light in the darkness, and one lone candle is enough to hold it back (and love is more than a candle, love can ignite the stars), so maybe we lay off the grim grimness and perhaps like…let there be light.

The Centaurs: I know the whole Horus Sagittarius thing, but it was weird. Loken fighting centaurs was just weird. He needed to face his brothers. He needed to set Tarik’s soul free. Not fight Narnians.

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #warhammer 40k #rogal dorn #constantin valdor #djem reads warhammer

[djemsostylist]

Waste of Time or Too New (The End and the Death, Part 3c)

Basilio Fo: To be honest, even talking about this plotline makes me tired, because after every read of every time we were forced back, I asked myself “why”? Why was the point? (And perhaps some would argue that the future is the point, but as has been said—this wasn’t the time or the place.) The future is there, it’s waiting, this was the time for the end. In place of the Fo scenes, I would have gladly taken any number of Dorn/Valdor, Sindermann/anyone, Katsuhiro—literally anyone else that we had grown to love across the heresy whose story was at an end. Instead, we spend time watching Fo do Fo things, and then tricking us all into thinking he’s dead. Unless he brings Sanguinius back from the dead, I can’t help but wonder why on earth he’d need to be…anything.

Arihman: Again, the point? Why show up to play tarot with Sindermann and then leave? For what purpose? Precious time wasted on a card game we were already watching unfold somewhere else.

The Long Companions: Look, don’t get me wrong. I loved the long companions. I did! I even loved the later additions to the LCs. But why, WHY did they exist? I cried when Graft died, but it doesn’t mean I understand what the fuck the point was. For Oll to hand the Emperor a stone dagger he needed to make a kill he didn’t need it for? The Emperor killed Horus because, in the end, Horus dropped Chaos for just long enough for a killing blow. Why was the knife even necessary by that point? And Oll dying so that the Emperor could fake dead for the 8th time in a row? Oll’s prevention of the Dark King was enough—anything more felt superfluous and purposeless in the end. And Grammaticus—was the entire point their journey? I don’t hate it, I guess, but I also sort of wonder…why?

Agathe and the Black Stone: why? For what purpose? Did anything come of this? A bunch of noctilith that won’t matter for another 10,000 years? So no? okay

Tarot: Listen, the tarot card thing was cool. Fascinating even, and I need to reread the Emperor and Horus’ Yu Gi Oh game more closely, but I also have to ask…since when? Tarot has only become a thing in the last three novels, and without it being sewn organically through the Heresy itself, it feels like a thing Abnett added to the story because it seemed cool. Which it is, but again…this is the end. I don’t know that it’s the time to suddenly add a wild card (haha) to the story that has deep lore implications that…hasn’t existed until a year ago. I get that apparently Tarot is a thing in 40k, but it wasn’t in 30k so…

Ditto Bloodlight: cool concept, as are the magical chakrams and the sigil magic, but it also sort of seems the sort of thing that may have, I dunno, come up before now. Symbols have meaning, have always had meaning, but they have never been used in this way. And while sure, we have never seen a fight on the level of Horus and the Emperor, I feel like also introducing 8 new kinds of magic makes it…a little too much?

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #warhammer 40k #djem reads warhammer

[djemsostylist]

Right Scene, Wrong Person (The End and the Death, Part 3b)

Leetu: He should have been a Blood Angel. Hear me out, but Leetu has no connection to either our characters or our story. He is a voyeur, an outsider looking in on the most intimate and personal moments of the entire heresy. Who is Sanguinius, to Leetu? Who is the Emperor, Horus? This man’s only real connections, his only real loyalties and bonds, are to Erda, and perhaps what remains of the Long Companions. If Leetu must survive, he should have stayed with John. He could have gone on a quest through the millennia, laying a path to the future. Defending Sanguinius’ body from scavengers, witnessing the intimacy of father vs son, prying the thorns from the Emperor’s body with his own hands and sword—those should have been the actions of someone who knew and loved. Whose life and loyalty were bound to the men in the room he had fought his life to save. Leetu feels sadness, certainly, over what he witnesses, but it is a distant sadness. It is sadness that one experiences for humanity as whole. Having a Blood Angel there, Dominion Zephon for example, would have given an emotional connection to the events unfolding. Walking into the chamber to see his father, his father, crucified. Having to take down his body, to look at his broken wings, his torn face, his empty eyes. To stand guard helplessly over his body while watching the Emperor, your father’s father, fight for a galaxy and a future you have spent your entire life preserving. To be unable to fight against Horus (which is somehow worse than Leetu, because Zephon would always wonder if he was whole and not crippled, not less than who we was, maybe he could have made a difference), to have the only thing you can do is defend your father’s body, to keep it safe… Zephon has also spent a considerable amount of time on Terra—he’s been a go between for his Legion and Terra for a long time. He has a deep connection to both, and we feel that. The intimacy of finally, at the end of it all, giving your life for those whom you have loved. Leetu is brave, certainly, for going to fight for people who he does not know or care about, but the Heresy, and the Siege in particular, has been about the intimate. Brother against brother, father against son, friend against friend. It was always personal, and the choice to not make it that way at the end feels…odd. (And if he is there to set up a future plotline—I’d argue this is neither the time nor the place to do so. This is the End and the Death, not The Setup.)

Caecaltus Dusk: This then, brings me to our next “who?”. Dusk is a Custodian that we meet for the first time literally half a book before the events of EaTD3. And while his custodianness lends a natural sort of connection to the Emperor, the fact is, we’ve never seen it. He’s a brand-new character, and there are plenty of Custodians we have seen, and known, and loved that, like Leetu, it seems odd to put a stranger in a place of such intimacy and emotion. I’m not suggesting Constantin, but Amon would have been an obvious choice. We’ve spent time with him, grown to know him as a person, and to see his love and devotion for the Emperor. Having him die defying Horus in defense of the man we have watched him protect time and time again would be emotionally fitting. Dusk’s death is sad—any loyalist death is really, but its not heart wrenching. It’s more “bummer” and less grief than it might be. It feels like another miss, a get out of jail free card to losing a character that may be missed later.

Shiban Khan: At the end of the novel, in the only slightest bit of downtime we get before the abrupt closing, we see a White Scar watching his brothers fly over head and realizing the war is over. Why wasn’t it Shiban? Why some random man with whom we have not spent the Heresy, let alone the Siege? Again, in moments of necessary connection and emotional catharsis, it’s taken from us for a literal “who?”.

Az and Fafnir: this is, perhaps, a minor complaint, but Az and Fafnir have no history. A more poignant Blood Angel/brother match up would have been, perhaps, Amit and the Space Wolf. Considering Amit’s history (you know, of eating Space Wolves) and the Wolves own sketchy history with beastliness, it, like the ones above, would have lended a emotional weight to the moment besides just horror or shock.

Keeler and Loken: I’ll address Loken more fully in a separate post, but the Keeler scene at the end with Sigismund was weird. He should have knelt to pray with her, rather than standing awkwardly behind her, but I’d argue that, despite their connection, her final moments of the Heresy should have been with Garviel. She started the series with him, their journey began together, in the Whisperheads, with the death and rise of Jubal, and it should have ended with them together, at the end, in the city of the Emperor. Garvi remembering again, to a remembrancer. Again, emotional catharsis.

Kataryna Moriana: Look, I liked her okay? I did. Cyrene who became Actae who became Kat—I liked her, a lot. She was a fascinating character and an interesting addition to the LCs, and I’d love to see her in the future. I also think it was weird that she was the one who had to inspire Keeler to inspire the others. Keeler has not ever needed inspiring. Why now? If anything, I would have loved for Sindermann maybe, or even a talk with Sigismund himself. Not a woman she has never met speaking from across the wastes. (And while I’m here, I do feel like it was weird that that was apparently what Dorn meant by gather everyone who is left. Just flash my badge at a few people like Docotr Who with psychic paper and away we go? Idk, I felt like maybe it was supposed to mean more?)

This book is rife with examples—Marshall Agathe should have been Ilya Ravallion, Katsuhiro should probably have taken Oll’s place at the end, but I think the point is made. The scenes and moments themselves aren’t the issue, but without that right character in each scene, we lack the emotional weight that they deserve.

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #warhammer 40k #djem reads warhammer

[djemsostylist]

Sanguinius (End and the Death, Part 3a)

For the uninitiated, Sanguinius has been my favorite from the beginning. An obvious and perhaps simple choice, but I’ve loved him and waited in pain through 8 Siege novels to watch what I have long assumed to be his end.

When he died at the end of 2, I’ll admit to thinking “okay, there’s something more.” After all the book had spent the entirety of the novel stressing the fact that time had stopped—there was no today or tomorrow, just an endless now. Sanguinius meets and speaks with the ghost of his brother—Ferrus Manus, the shade or essence or soul of him, still exists. This has remarkable implications for the future of all lost primarchs, but in particular, a primarch who is about to die in sacrifice. Sanguinius’ death is heavy with allusion—wounded in his side, bleeding a crown, crucified—Abnett even goes so far as to literally describe his head hanging to the left. It’s impossible to read all the heavy allusion and not assume that something more is coming. That his death at the end of 2 isn’t just a death. After all, he didn’t even die for anything. Horus’ armor was not cracked. Hell, Russ had more of an impact on Horus during their duel than Sanguinius did. 

And then nothing happens. Nothing. His sons succumb to the Black Rage, which is shown to us from a distance, observed by others but not seen or felt really from the actual men to whom it is happening. We don’t even get Zephon’s POV when he is the only one not falling to the rage. Instead, we see their rage and their destruction, and then, just like that, the rage is over with the fall of Horus, his sons are sheepishly apologetic, they take his body and that’s it. Done, over, finished. The most emotion we get from his death is from Constantin Valdor of all people—the Emperor is humanityless, Leetu doesn’t know him, Dusk doesn’t care, and Garvi and Dorn react with the sort of removed sadness you’d expect from a distant friend. We had more emotion from Dorn at the parting by the throne than we do confronted with his brother’s body. Sanguinus is the sort of person who inspires feeling in everyone, and for his death to be felt so little felt wrong. It felt empty and flat, not the emotional center of the series.

I think the other thing that seemed odd about his death was how utterly devoid of ritual it was. The entire thing was set up as ritual—his journey there, his talk with Ferrus Manus, the wounds he receives while fighting, the way his body is displayed—it all reeks of ritual and purpose. If his death had, perhaps, been somehow tied to Meros, a plotline dropped far too long ago, and brought around to be a cause of the Black Rage, the reason that it persists into the future, I think perhaps at least that would have made sense. His death would have been meaningless, but it would have been a means to an end for Horus. And certainly it would have made more sense than the Black Rage being caused by his death, because what then, would cause it to still exist in a time where not a single of his sons have even known him while he was living?

Sanguinius’ death deserved, I think, a center stage. It deserved to breathe. It deserved to have meaning. So many deaths are meaningless, and perhaps that is a point to be made, but his death, so long foreshadowed, is nothing BUT meaning. But purpose. The deaths of our other heroes of the series have always come with deep thought and meaning and connection, and the hollowness of his is one I can’t quite countenance.  

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #sanguinius #blood angels #warhammer 40k #djem reads warhammer

[djemsostylist]

The End and the Death: Part 3

The story begins 6 years ago when I was bothering my little brother one night. I had spent the night at my parents’ house over the summer (he was home from college) and he was just trying to get some play time in Warframe. In an effort to get rid of me, and he told me to read Horus Rising, and to only come back if I got bored.

I did not. In fact, that night I read the entirety of the first book and spent the next morning begging for the next. I’ve written extensively over the years about my experience with Warhammer (if you click the tag “Djem reads Warhammer” you can track my rollercoaster over the years) but the thing that I have been waiting for since I first started was the end. The End - and the Death.

You see, I am a unicorn. I have, despite my years both on the internet and in nerd fandom, not actually ever encountered details of 40k. Part of this is because Games Workshop, and Black Library by extension, are both utterly terrible at marketing. They seem to approach Warhammer with a “if you know, you know, if you don’t, may God be with you” approach that means that unless you actively go hunting for information (and if you are careful to avoid fandom circles and not read the afterwords of novels) it’s actually remarkably easy to spend the last 6 or so years having absolutely no clue what the hell happened at the Siege of Terra—or after it. (For context, I have both played the Space Marine game and owned the Roboute Returned model for basically the past 6 years and I neither knew Roboute was dead or that he had come back, because neither mentions either. Yeah, I know.)

Before 3 days ago, I knew the following information only:

1.       The Imperium survived

2.       The Emperor, if not alive, was at least known and venerated as a god

3.       Space Marines were still a thing, albeit organized differently

4.       The Primarchs, at least the loyal ones, were known in the future (if not still physically present)

5.       Xenos and man still fought

6.       Chaos still had a grip on the galaxy

7.       Horus lost

And that was about it. I didn’t know what happened to the primarchs after Horus was defeated (who survived, who died etc). I didn’t know what happened to the Emperor. I didn’t know how the Imperium came to be reorganized (although I did possess enough ability to discern, via context clues, that Roboute was at least responsible for the Codex and probably the reorganization of Legions into Chapters). I didn’t know what happened to many of the characters I had come to love and hate after the war was over. I knew virtually nothing. I didn’t even know if certain dead characters were actually dead.

As of 3:00 pm on Saturday, following the completion of EaTD3, I knew the following:

1.       The Imperium survived

2.       The Emperor “lived” to be venerated as a god

3.       Space Marines were still a thing, albeit organized differently

4.       The Primarchs, at least the loyal ones, were known in the future (if not still physically present)

5.       Xenos and man still fought

6.       Chaos still had a grip on the galaxy

7.       Horus lost

If you are noticing a particular sameness to the lists, it’s because End and the Death volume 3 told us nothing. In fact, it told us less than nothing, because at least nothing would be something. But EaTD3 was 400 pages of walking and a fight, and it ended so abruptly I didn’t even have time to realize it was over.

I realize, to many, that because, other than lore implications, EaTD3 had to only serve to answer canon questions which have been evolving for the past 30 years, the novel simply ending when Horus died is hardly an issue. Most people know what happens next, they’ve been immersed in the lore, they may have even already read what happens to most of the characters. I realize that I am a unicorn. But regardless of knowing or not knowing, this book was a book. It wasn’t a lore guide or a codex. It was a novel, and it was a novel that was the capstone of, if not the entire Heresy, then at the very least the Siege. The fact that it was written by the man who started the series, the man who made me fall in love with Warhammer, meant that, perhaps, I expected something more. I expected a novel, an ending to the characters and stories that I had loved for the past 6 years, not an abrupt closing to a story that remains unfinished. This is the end of the Heresy, and while for most characters the story doesn’t end here, we needed closure. Catharsis. We needed a denouement.

The fundamental approach I think was flawed. The story should have been written as though no one knew what was happening, as the ending of a story, not a list of lore points that wrap up one era to introduce a new one. We needed to look at characters that mattered, if not in the Heresy as a whole, at least in the Siege, and we needed to end their stories. We needed to look at characters who have been important since the beginning, and make sure that their stories continued to matter until the end.

EaTD3 gave us none of that. Oh, it was beautifully written of course. Dan Abnett is nothing if not a wordsmith, and as usual his books are a pleasure to read. His grasp of language and his ability to turn a phrase or coin a term are second to none, but this book, for perhaps the first time, left me wanting more.

EaTD2 was an emotional rollercoaster. I think I cried at least every two chapters—even recounting certain moments later had me tearing up with the grief and loss and sacrifice and heroism. But it ended as abruptly as this one dead—Sanguinius dead on the floor.

I think that is what got me most about this book—the lack of feeling. For a man who can make me tear up over the emergence of a tank from the mists on Calth, I was expecting a deep wellspring of emotion regarding, well, almost everything, but instead, I was left feeling hollow. Dorn retrieves the skull of Ferrus Manus, and we don’t even see it. He just pops it into a grocery bag and hands it off to a random Blood Angel and that’s it. The Emperor’s near death is mostly ignored, with the focus less on the man himself and more on figuring out how to rig up a makeshift pallet. Sanguinius’ body is an afterthought left to his sons, and Garviel Loken is killed in a GOT style death that makes you wonder if Abnett had simply run out of steam. This novel was, in short, a couple of fun easter eggs on a series of lore points long known and oft debated, and was, in the end, nothing more.

What follows is a list of my particular issues, not in any particular order: (hyperlinked bc tumblr gets mad at me when I write too much)

Sanguinius

Right Scene, Wrong Person

Waste of Time or Too New?

Needed More (+ weird things)

Garviel Loken

#warhammer 30k #the horus heresy #warhammer 40k #horus lupercal #sanguinius #djem reads warhammer #i am at LONG LAST #free to follow all the warhammer blogs #bc nothing is a secret anymore! #so yay me

[djemsostylist]

James Clark Ross and Ann Coulman Ross, the explorer and his lady

#dang bro #find you a man who #even after you die #loves you this much #this gives me tolkien feels #but idk if that is just because i am in tolkien mood #i love this for beren and luthien #meanwhile idril is all DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

[djemsostylist]

good riddance live

#it was so easy to do

[djemsostylist]

Ed Perkins-Instagram

#this reminds me of luthien #the stars and the blue and the hair #i love it #queue-t