#about 40k words of history

[sbeep]

hello ur indulgent skyrim oc content has inspired me to be that indulgent with my own skyrim ocs and s2g its literally all ive thought about the last 24 hours and i am rebuilding my worldstate from the ground up thank u

<3 Honestly whats it all for if we can't indulge ourselves?

#and TES just doesn't have those same community/fandom unspoken rules #we can do what we want here #go bananas #Especially feeling this because for so long i knew NO ONE who wanted to RP anything elder scrolls #and a couple of friends have written stuff with me over the years and i adore collab writing #though TES is just like... there in my brain all the time #someone can say Boo and ill say Boethiah??? #so i finally just went for it and wrote my own stuff again like I did when i was 13 and deciding what to spend my pocket money on #oh whats this game M O R R O W I N D on sale? lets give it a go #and the rest is history #about 40k words of history

[vexwerewolf]

why is it that we only have like two licenses from any mech producer that’s a good guy? For a game where like there are clear good and bad guys (even if who you play isn’t necessarily linked to that) it seems strange to me that the only loot and XP you get is… more benefits from the bad guys

I can tell you the answer, but to do so, we're gonna have to talk about a completely different TTRPG.

If you've read @makapatag's truly excellent Filipino martial arts TTRPG Gubat Banwa (and if you haven't, here it is), you may notice that every single character class description (with one notable exception) ends with one of these babies:

I am not Makapatag, and I cannot write with quite as much grace and eloquence as he can, but I will try:

If you choose to become a Lancer, ask yourself why you mock the name of peace with these weapons of war. You call yourself a saviour, but your steed was forged from the murder of a world. You stride across the sky in a colossus built in your own image, so why are you too cowardly to give it your face? Why do you believe these machines of death can preserve life?

It is important to note that the admonitions in Gubat Banwa are not just there to make you feel bad; they are there as legitimate questions. The Sword Isles have seen so much blood, death and tragedy. Wars are not glorious and killing is not a game. So, knowing all of that, why have you taken up this discipline - no matter how noble and virtuous it might claim to be - to shed more blood, to bring more death, to write more tragedy? What could possibly drive you to this? What need is so great that you must kill?

The thing with Gubat Banwa is that there are legitimate answers to these questions! There are bad people doing bad things, and some of them will not be stopped with words or kindness. Sometimes, as sorrowful as it is, killing is the correct choice to prevent greater suffering and deeper tragedy - but adding less misery and death to the world is still adding some amount of it. Even the most necessary wars will drench the ground in the blood of the innocent.

A sword is a tool meant to kill humans; while it can be used for other things, it is not well-suited to anything other than this. A mech is, in its most basic essence, just a very complicated sword: it's usually used on things larger than a person, but it's still a tool built to kill.

So why have you taken up this path? Humanity was saved from the brink of extinction and has created wondrous technologies like printers, cold fusion and mind-machine interface, and yet you use them to play soldier in a giant metal man. Why do you choose to take up this machine of death, built by the greedy and pitiless? Why do you think these machines can ever make things right?

Because sometimes, despite everything, they can.

Warhammer 40K shows an awful world full of monsters and monstrosity, and in the darkest moments of its history, Lancer's world looked just as bleak, but Lancer's world differs in one crucial way. Warhammer's world has long given up trying to be better, but Lancer's world never did. Lancer's world kept insisting a better world is possible, and it used what tools it had to make it so.

Sometimes the correct choice, no matter how bitter it may seem, is to kill someone. When you need to do this, a sword is a perfectly good choice for the job.

If you find yourself discomforted by the fact that all the people you can buy mechs from are corrupt and immoral - good! You have correctly engaged with the text. You have understood that the sort of people who would make giant walking death machines and sell them for profit are not good people. But you still have a job to do, and you need the correct tools, and those people have them.

Lancer is not a game about a perfect world - it is a game about a deeply flawed and imperfect one that does not let its imperfection stop it from trying. You have to try to make a better world, even with imperfect tools made by unpleasant people.

#lancer #lancer rpg #lancerrpg #lancer-rpg #gubat banwa #philosophy #ethics #ttrpg

[moodymisty]

Perhaps a 40k character of your choice and someone not very comfortable in their body? Shamelessly self inserting I guess. Thanks so much! ☺️

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author’s note: Decided to do Guilliman. You didn’t specify anything (which is fine!) so I kept it vague for you. Enjoy!

Relationship: Guilliman/Fem!Reader(no pronouns are used, but reader compares themself to Fulgrim's wives and also mentions wanting a dress so femcoded one could say)

Warnings: None really

You wonder how Macaggian history can be so, boring. These history tomes Guilliman had given you while interesting, have largely been unbearably dull; Filled with little more than debate and the trials of leadership.

You had far preferred what Russ had once told you about the history of Fenris when you asked, though you’d never dare speak that to your beloved Primarch aloud.

Said primarch returns to your shared room not moments after you think of him, raking a hand through his own short blonde hair.

It’s quite late, the moon is high in the sky and has been for awhile now, and you assume he hasn’t had any rest in multiple days given you’ve seen little of him these past few. He’s been even busier than usual, since visiting Terra. Even if he has his Commanders take over a good portion of his duties while away from Ultramar, his duties on Terra tend to overtake his time and then some.

With nary a hello, Guilliman climbs onto the bed you’ve been reading in and swiftly lays down on it. The bed groans under his weight despite having been made for someone of his size.

He much larger hands reach to grip you by the waist and pull your closer, laying his face on your stomach overtop of the fabric of your nightgown. Your legs go over his left shoulder, as his left arm curls around your bottom, hip, and up your side to hold you close.

“Guilliman?”

He sighs into your belly.

“Give me a moment, if you will. I’m at my limit with these men today.” You assume he means his fellow primarchs. “Let me enjoy you for a bit now that I’m free of them for the time being.”

You want him to be happy, but you can’t help but shift a bit under him, nervous as he speaks so overtly, and touches you with so little hesitation.

“Are you sure you’re comfortable?” You whisper, nervously twirling a piece of his blonde and ever so slightly grey hair around your fingertip.

“Yes. You are perfect,” He says, your eyes widening at the declaration. You're so offset by it your mind wanders and can’t help but mumble:

“I find that hard to believe…”

You feel him suddenly tense, and he lifts his head to look at you.

“You do not believe me?”

He almost seems insulted by it; Like you think he’s a liar. You shake your head as you look away from his furrowed brow. You hadn’t expected him to spear you to the wall so harshly for your self-deprecating comment.

“No I just…” You grunt in frustration at not finding the right words. The Macragge tome he'd given you lays at your side, and you push it away a bit more. “I sometimes just think there are people out there far more, physically suited to stand beside you than me.” He loses some of his insulted demeanor, but his brow stays furrowed as you pick up pace and begin rambling.

“I mean, look at some of Fulgrim’s wives they-“ He cuts you off with his stoic, firm voice.

“You know how Fulgrim is. You know why and how they look the way they do.” He sighs, the wrinkles around his nose and eyes exaggerating for a moment. “Forget all of that.” He points a finger at you.

“And don’t bring him up again, I’ve had quite enough of him and his comments for quite some time.”

You smile a bit, and he softens. He’s glad you find his aggravation amusing somehow. You do wonder what Fulgrim commented about however; Though you know he has a habit of sometimes treading a bit too far into Roboute’s personal life. Into everyone's personal life honestly, though Roboute having you has made him the prime target of Fulgrim's gossip and colloquies.

His hand squeezes you reassuringly, arm continuing to awkwardly cradle you. He raises his other hand to brush his thumb across your cheek for a moment.

“You are perfect to me. You don’t need all of those lavish things.” He adds on. “Unless you want them, of course. I won’t deny you anything I can give.” Your smile gets wider, and he feels your body relax against him.

“I don’t need any of it,” You pause. “But if a dress showed up one day I wouldn’t complain, per se.”

Thankfully Guilliman can tell you’re clearly joking, and rolls his eyes. You speak up again a bit more subtly.

“Or maybe something a bit more, delicate? You could pick it.”

Guilliman takes a moment to catch your meaning before he awkwardly coughs, looks at you gentle but expectant smile.

“I’ll, see what I can do.”

Guilliman swiftly ends the topic by returning his head to lay on your stomach, and rest his eyes for a moment to the feeling of you raking your fingers through his hair.

#return of the queue #roboute Guilliman x reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

[allwaswell16]

A fic rec of One Direction fics with American football as part of the fic as requested in this ask. If you enjoy the fics, please leave kudos and comments for the writers. You can find my other fic recs here. Happy reading!

—Louis/Harry—

🏈 Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can't Lose by dolce_piccante / @haydolce

(M, 112k, uni) A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

🏈 Follow Your Arrow by Anonymous

(E, 78k, high school) It's senior year and everything is about to change.

🏈 Want you to want me by lorinhazuzu

(T, 62k, high school) Louis is the popular football player, there’s nothing he wants he can’t get. He wants Harry, but Harry is not impressed.

🏈 But I’m the Quarterback by 4ureyesonly28 / @evilovesyou

(E, 51k, conversion camp) At True Directions, Harry meets four other boys and five girls, all there to be cured of their homosexuality. He has to find a way out of this place as soon as possible—Christ, he isn’t even gay!

🏈 hush. by @wankerville

(T, 41k, high school) an au where small towns suck, louis is losing it, and harry’s just too perfect.

🏈 bloodsport by tofiveohfive

(E, 40k, exes to lovers) “This is the first time you’re talking to me in eight months, and it’s still about football.”

🏈 feels like home to me by tippytoetomlinstyles

(NR, 34k, high school) the one where Harry is the quarterback who wants to be a photographer, Louis is the piano prodigy who like being a wallflower, and it's a roller coaster of a life but they're along for the ride.

🏈 the boys of fall by @godgavemelou

(M, 21k, hate to love) an american football au where the boys play for the university of tennessee, and harry and louis quite hate each other.

🏈 make me your future history by treaclenectar / @guccistrawberries

(E, 20k, baking) Or an exes to lovers Valentine’s Day AU

🏈 Twist a Little Closer, Now by @fackinglouis

(T, 20k, dance) the one where Harry signs up for a dance class that Louis teaches. Incidentally, the class is for six year olds.

🏈 one more for the stars by imsosorry

(M, 16k, high school) Harry's the star quarterback and Louis is about to graduate. It's a heartbreak waiting to happen

🏈 Shut Up and Wink at Me by kikikryslee / @flamboyantommo

(T, 14k, roommates) the one where Louis wants to go away to college to get away from everything having to do with his hometown.

🏈 Before you go, can you read my mind? by anditsonlyforthebrave

(NR, 13k, mindreading) Harry can listen to whatever is going inside of Louis’ head and breaks up with him. Louis can never let it go.

🏈 So Much Left to Say by myownspark / @myownsparknow

(M, 7k, established relationship) Harry and Louis play for rival high school football teams, and when they play against each other in the Homecoming game, someone has to lose

🏈 Bad Move, Just Act Normal by @berzerkshires

(NR, 595 words, jersey swap) Quarterback Harry Styles wore rookie kicker Louis Tomlinson's jersey to a press conference.

—Rare Pairs—

🏈 fire for a heart by alnima

(M, 28k, Zayn/Louis)  the one where Louis is on the football team, Zayn is in yearbook, and they make it work.

🏈 I pledge my hands to larger service by yeah_alright / @uhoh-but-yeah-alright

(M, 4k, Harry/Tim Riggins) Harry hasn't seen his high school crush since he graduated over ten years ago. The last place he expected to run into him is in a dark hallway while he's sneaking out after a one-night stand.

#ficrec #1dficvillage #tracksintheam #trackinghappily #trackinghome #hltracks

[houseofsnarry]

💚 HoS Mods Recs ❤️

Cause, why not? photo source

Summer is coming to an end, and autumn will be here soon. Seasons change, years pass us by, but Snarry is here to stay. The following brought us some joy and hopefully it'll bring you guys some joy, too.

Art

🎨 @ofnightsndsongs - Spicy Polaroids Rated E

🎨 @flymetosnarryland - Muggle London Rated E

🎨 @ac1d6urn - The Bravest Man Rated T

🎨 @danipantsu - Tailormade Rated G

Podfic

🎙️Things We Wish For by @avioleta (AO3) Podfic by JocundaSykes Rated E, 2 hours

Harry blinks. Blinks again. It doesn’t make sense. It’s simply not possible. But yet… “Snape?” It’s not the Snape Harry knows or remembers. Not the Snape Harry grieved. But he would know that face, that profile, those eyes anywhere. “What happened?” he manages. “How are you here?”

🎙️ World Enough, and Time by @likelightinglass (AO3) - a Podfic Podfic by Cailynwrites Rated T, 40 minutes

Soulmate clocks start ticking when you first lock eyes, and count down until your time with them is over. Harry’s starts ticking on September 1st, 1991. He has only six years, eight months, and one day.

Fic + Art

🌸 The Curse of Anteros - @danpuff-ao3 (AO3) / @mrviran (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 53k

When Harry is cursed, he seeks out Severus Snape. They have a long history behind them, after all, and they've always had so much between them. Who else would he go to?

🌸 A Step into the Light - @givereadersahug (AO3) / @gullibert (AO3) / @dandelionstars (AO3) Rated NR, Word Count 10k

Severus Snape is now a free man. He fills his time travelling the world, collecting potion ingredients, and helping Luna with her business. The thing is, Severus has a gift. No, not potions or the Dark arts. He can see mushi, creatures that show up from time to time. Severus knows how to help them and the humans that come into contact with them. This time, their travels take them to an island off the coast of Japan, to a man sitting on a log, staring out into the ocean and waiting for his wife to return home. Inspired by the anime Mushishi. A retelling of Season 1, Episode 8. For the Snape Bang 2022.

🌸 The Ugliest Veela - Octroman Rated E, Word Count 60k

Snape is part-veela. It is interfering with his dating life. Post-war, Severus Snape finds himself in a life without purpose. In a desperate bid for the family he always wanted, he subjugates himself to a matchmaking service in hopes to find an acceptable partner. However, it is mandatory to disclose veela status in order to use the premiere matchmaker of the old family houses. Wrinkled, sallow, oily, big-nosed, and bony, Severus shows up for a string of horrific dates where potential partners expect him to be both gorgeous and enchanting. “I thought veelas were supposed to be beautiful!” Cue the jokes. How much humiliation can Severus stand? --------------------------------------- Illustrated chapter titles and crafted with love.

Fic

📚 A Series of Events - @babygray (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 67k

In January, the impossible occurred. It took Severus until April to realize just what that was, and to believe. Snarry Mpreg, takes place during Half-Blood Prince.

📚 A Trick of the Mind - @vulnerasanenturmyprince (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 40k

Ever since the horcrux in his head is gone, Legilimency comes easy to Harry. It’s nearly laughable how easy it is, considering how much he used to struggle with it back in his fifth year. But he reckons half of that had been Snape’s fault anyway. Who on earth would enjoy the nasty git invading their mind? But as life as Harry has known it changes, Harry’s opinion on the matter changes with it ― rather drastically so if he’s being perfectly honest.

📚 Blowing Smoke - DawnOfTomorrow Rated E, Word Count 231k

Harry doesn't care about Snape beyond having to sit detentions with the man despite being of age. He doesn't. He asks him out for a drink just to get out of detention. So what if it's... nice? So what if they become friends? So what if Snape *is* lonely? It's not Harry's problem - at least not until he realises he's accidentally befriended the man, and just how much he cares for Snape. Well, shit.

📚 Close Encounters - @bleedcolor (AO3) & @likelightinglass (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 35k

Years after the war, Harry Potter and Severus Snape meet and fall in lust, then love. Too bad they don’t know who they’ve fallen for.

📚 Curatio - @serenaew (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 12k

curatio, onis, f noun 1. healing/curing 2. object of care 3. treatment, surgical operation, medical care

At the foot of the Whomping Willow, there lay an injured kingfisher. Now with moodboard (chapter 2)!

📚 Date In A Dash - @silvereye5 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 16k

Harry and Severus accidentally attend the same speed dating event.

📚 Fuck, Marry, Kill - @titconao3 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 13.2k

After the war, Harry Potter and Severus Snape, er, fuck sometimes. You know, it just happens; it's one of these things. They're not in a relationship, right? They're not like that. ...Until they are, but only one of them can see it.

📚 Gold Like Ichor, Gold Like Magic - @dandelionstars (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 26k

Seven years after Harry James Potter was left unceremoniously on the doorstep to Number Four, Privet Drive, Vernon Dursley was offered a promotion and the whole family had to move to Cokeworth, England. While Dudley is off terrorizing the local children, Harry spends his days in the school library and finds a fast friend in Ms. Eileen Prince. From Cokeworth to Hogwarts and back again, this is a story about the friendship, the magic, and the love that can be found in the unlikeliest of places, if only one bothers to look.

📚 Hawthorn Branches in Spring - zalil Rated T, Word Count 37.5k

Harry returns to Hogwarts to finish school properly and sit for his NEWTs. He doesn't expect Snape to be back teaching, nor their old animosity to resurface. When it is pointed out to him that he is responsible for it, he sets out to change their relationship for the better. The results have more of an impact on him than he expected.

📚 Little Monkeys - Lilian Rated T, Word Count 15.7k

"There might be a chance that maybe, perhaps, Severus went too far this whole ‘exile far away from the Wizarding World’ thing. Because however he tries to frame it, it comes down to this: after nine years of being completely alone, the first time he stays with another person, he’s plotting to steal said person’s children."

📚 Loose Ends - @arrisha-ao3 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 9.8k

I love you, Severus wants to say. But the timing is never right.

📚 Lovers Reunited - Now with a special buff! - @hereiamwithmyninjaclan (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 10k

MMORPGs are a fun way to pass the time and spend time with your friends- and hey, Harry might just find true love along the way. Beta'd by the lovely @silverdrip

📚 Not Giving In - @hippocrates460 (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 38.7k

Harry comes back from his holiday to a stack of memos on his desk that all say the same thing: "Severus Snape adopted Teddy Lupin." Snape. No one has seen him since the war trials ended, no one knows where he lives, no one knows why he took Teddy. And what happened to Andromeda? Harry is determined to be a good godfather and sort it all out. Even if it means dealing with Snape. Title from Better Son/Daughter, because Nanette.

📚 Professional Strippers - @coconutice22 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 6k

At Uncle Vernon’s funeral, Aunt Petunia asks Harry for a favour.

📚 Snowed in with Severus - @maraudersaffair (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 32.5k

In eighth year, Harry decides to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. He sets out to spend the time with Professor Snape, but after a magical accident, they find themselves stranded alone in a snowy cabin with no way out and only one bed.

📚 Sudden Light - @liladiurne (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 48k

Seven years after the war, in the dead of winter, Severus Snape meets a beautiful stranger on a train. Inevitably, he falls in love. Inspired by D.G. Rossetti and Paul Celan and based on the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

📚 The Beating of This Fragile Heart - @writcraft (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 33k

After the war, the last thing Severus Snape needs is the memory of a fleeting wartime kiss and a very persistent Harry Potter thwarting his plans to live a peaceful and solitary life. It’s only when Harry’s life is endangered that Severus is finally forced to confront his feelings head on.

📚 the Boy Who Lubed - @swoontodeath (AO3) Rated M, Word Count 7k

Desperate to pass his N.E.W.T. in Potions, Harry Potter joins a secretive Discord server run by a Potioneering expert known only as the Half-Blood Prince. What will happen when Severus Snape, full-time Potions Professor and part-time Discord mod, realises that the newest addition to his server is none other than his least favourite student?

📚 The Half-Blood and the Prince - @tax-onomic (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 6.5k

“It’s just a book, Harry.” “Okay. Thanks.” “But… you’ve got a crush on a book, mate. That’s a bit much. You need a girlfriend.” She tapped the name on the first page thoughtfully. “Or perhaps a boyfriend?”

📚 The Measure of a Man - @ac1d6urn (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 50k

Several years after defeating Voldemort, Junior Auror Harry Potter discovers himself and, at the risk of losing his childhood love, follows the truth. Through it all, Snape is an unexpected solace. Will he become more?

📚 The Want of You - @fleetingdesires (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 7.3k

On his night off, Severus unexpectedly realises that Harry has grown into quite an attractive man. He's just not going to think too hard about it. No, he's not going to think about him at all. It's fine. He's fine. Everything is fine.

📚 Thirteen and a half inches - @loneamaryllis (AO3) Rated E, Word Count 8.3k

The Marauder's Map shows a number above some people's head. Harrie investigates what it means.

📚 You Were Myth-Taken - @hokee101 (AO3) Rated T, Word Count 23.8k

When vampire attacks hit Hogsmeade, Severus Snape is the prime suspect. With Harry and Albus not taking these accusations seriously and the students threatening to expose him at every turn, this term was going to be just fangtastic.

Discord || Recs Lists

#house of snarry #snarry #snarry fanfiction #severus x harry #harry x severus #snarry fanfic #snarry fanart #pro snape #snarry rec list #snarry recs #snarry podfic #house of snarry rec lists #Severus snape #harry James potter

[erose-this-name]

Fantasy """races"""

We should stop calling fantasy races that. Normalize calling them "species" or "kinds" or "kin", or just anything other than "race".

A "race" is a matter of non-meaningful differences like skincolor and maybe average penis length. There is no evidence that different races are more intelligent etc which can't be explained by differences in opportunity or culture.

A """race""" is not living four times as long, and also they can read people's minds, and they are an anthropomorphic cat, and get +1 to DC saving throws against fire because why not, and have completely different origins to other """races""", also they're genetically predisposed to mindless lawful neutral rampages. That's something else.

High elves and dark elves and wood elves could probably be considered races of each other (if all any stat differences are due to culture or magic, not blood). But not in relation to humans.

I'm just saying; when Tolkien established the concept of fantasy races the word "race" meant something very different than it does now. Not to accuse Tolkien of anything, I have no idea what his stance on that matter was, but still.

Having an entire intelligent species that is inherently evil is one thing, but calling that a """race""", and especially if it gets used as a metaphor for actual races or racism, is another entirely.

The metaphor doesn't work because in real life all races are the same in ability (except for shit like +1 to cow juice digestion or -15 to not combusting in the sun like a vampire).

But racists don't know that or choose not to, they believe some races are better than others and there's a genocide-or-be-replaced situation when there just isn't. Racists often hurt their own race if it means hurting a different race because they believe it's that or their race will cease to exist, like how you might sacrifice a bunch of Gondorians to defeat Mordor, but since that isn't going to happen in real life they are actually just hurting themselves and others for no reason.

The irrationality of racism is crucial for all allegories of it because it's more likely to convince evil people to not be racist than the moral argument.

If in your setting """races""" are as different as they often are in fantasy, you have created a world where replacement theory can actually happen and where there could be some strictly practical arguments for racist policies like paternalism or even genocide which aren't completely imaginary.

Speciesism is also an interesting and valuable concept to explore, since unlike racism it may be practical but still unmoral (being distrusting of or genociding Tolkien or 40k orcs is still genocide but, like, they're orcs. Mindflayers even more so, they can literally only exist by parasitizing and torturing other intelligent species, it's the lesser of two evils). But sometimes speciesism might not be practical either. There is never a reason to discriminate against hobbits, they're just perfect little guys. They just wanna hang out and maybe sell cheap produce, without them the price of turnips will skyrocket! But speciesism should definitely be kept separate from race.

The words we use change how we think to some extent. Especially when in so many settings the "human" ""race"" is invariably Just White People™, then people will start thinking of all non-white races with the same brain pathways we use to conceptualize Orcs and Klingons. They become part of the same "other" as POC, which probably isn't going to improve the othering situation.

I've seen friends of mine (not racists) slip up and say "Humans" when they actually just mean "Europeans" in the context of talking about actual IRL history which is a mistake writers should probably stop priming our brains to make.

Could you imagine if all our crime media did the same thing and made people associate criminals with people of color??? oh wait

#writing #writeblr #fantasy #world building

[intermundia]

hello! my name is will :)

what to expect here: it’s like half aesthetic posts and half star wars, specifically obi-wan and anakin, aka the team, with romantic obikin. i also post about ancient greece a bit, and applied my classics degree pointing out some cultural history of obikin dynamics.

i made edits of obi-wan saying “anakin” and anakin saying “master” at each other and a combo. i love to read about star wars and talk about it, esp. the revenge of the sith novel. sometimes i write meta about it all. i also collect star wars books too (more than 300 so far!)

i've also officially published more than 50 obikin stories! if you are interested in checking out what i have written, here are links and short descriptions of all my works, from novels to PWPs. i'm really proud to have reached this milestone (750k words! whew). thank you guys for all your support along the way <3

Novel-length stories:

Lex Talionis: COMPLETE Plotty, smutty, Sith AU. It’s my take on how Obi-Wan and Anakin could fall to the dark side, weaving in as much lore as I can. Force dyad, Sith’ari, Zygerria, etc. Obi-Wan and Anakin go through.. character development.. and it is dramatized in the changing way they have sex. I poured in all of my theories about metaphysics and the Force, all my knowledge about Augustus and how a Republic dies, all of my opinions about consent and agency. It has rough sex in it and some uncomfortable power dynamics that get resolved, so it is not for everyone, just a heads up. It is complete, and yes, there is a happy ending lol. War Drums: IN PROGRESS Darth Vader dies at the end of Return of the Jedi full of regret and wakes up in his 10-yr-old body after the events of the Phantom Menace. Young Obi-Wan struggles to acclimate to the death of Qui-Gon and the discovery that the boy he swore to train grew up into a Sith. Vader tries to use his knowledge to fix the galaxy and Obi-Wan uses his training to make sure they do it the right way. Anakin underwent his rite and is now an adult, galaxy beware. Murder Puppy: IN PROGRESS Obi-Wan’s decision to do more than flirt with the enemy ends up accidentally acquiring a clingy Sith acolyte, and he is tasked with holding his leash while they work together to end the war. This will probably end up around 40k so a bit shorter than the other two, which are chunkier

Core Oneshots: (my argument for the ship, basically)

Symposium: The story that started it all for me haha. I put Plato's Symposium in a word document and transformed it into a scene where Obi-Wan is forced to reconsider his relationship with Anakin, while dosed with an aphrodisiac, which leads to lines being crossed back in their hotel room. It suggests the erastēs/erōmenos dynamic that appears in much of my work. Unwrap, Wrap: Obi-Wan needs emotional hurt/comfort. This story has him fall apart, and Anakin help put him back together, after a traumatic battle late in the clone wars. Dramatizes the way that the war has muddied their roles and how much their lives are entangled. Obi-Wan gets a handjob in the shower, also, if that is relevant.

Longer Canon AUs: (8k+ words, AUs that take place in the GFFA)

Nostos: Technically a sequel to Symposium. It explores would happen if you took the dynamic established in Symposium and then put the characters in the canon end of Attack of the Clones. How would their behavior be impacted? How would the Jedi react to their decisions? Suckerpunch: Set during the Clovis arc, after Anakin had his jealous fight. Obi-Wan checks on him, and learns about both his marriage and the Tuskens. He doesn't want to lose his apprentice to the dark side, or a Senator. Ready Stance: Anakin is bored during a hyperspace journey during the clone wars, so he asks Obi-Wan to spar. Obi-Wan watches him warm up, they spar, and things escalate. This fic explores more core facets of their relationship, like the legacy teaching dynamic. Found, Fixed: Post-Zygerria Obi-Wan hurt/comfort. It’s similar to Unwrap, Wrap, except it’s told from Anakin’s POV and is much more explicit. It’s one of my rare bottom!Obi-Wan fic, he gets taken care of and comforted from being whumped so hard by the show. Anakin Sucks: Anakin has an oral fixation and it drives Obi-Wan to distraction over the course of the Clone Wars, 5+1 crack taken very seriously lol Make War: show!era Obi-Wan after fighting Vader on Mapuzo shares a dream with him while suspended in bacta. Warning for noncon!! Now with a second chapter set after their near miss on Jabiim. Third chapter based on the kenobi show finale hopefully will be out soon!

A/B/O Stories: (AUs that have this squicky trope, all set in GFFA)

Warm Blood: A/B/O fic that people seem to enjoy. Features omega Anakin having a suppressant failure on the battlefield and going into heat. Alpha Obi-Wan has to fight his way to him, and then tries to resist his instincts—until Anakin confesses his true feelings. Run Away With Me: A/B/O sequel to Warm Blood, tells the story of what happened after the mating, how they left the Jedi and what they’ve been doing. Anakin is preparing to go into heat, and Obi-Wan is helping him nest. Set during Revenge of the Sith, though they don’t know what’s happening in their isolation. Temporary Like Achilles: A/B/O fic. Alpha Obi-Wan is drugged by Dathomirian Nightsisters into a feral state, omega Anakin finds and rescues him. It's a fuck or die with feelings and ultimately a happy ending. Heat Haze: A/B/O fic. Alpha Obi-Wan is living alone on Tatooine, 10yrs post Mustafar. Omega Anakin is about to go into his first heat, and is searching for his mother during the Attack of the Clones. The Force shifts Anakin into the future, bringing the two together in time for Anakin’s heat to begin. Heat Shimmer: A/B/O fic. Alpha Obi-Wan is on Geonosis during Attack of the Clones, investigating. Preheat omega Darth Vader is on Geonosis 13 years later, and the Force decides to move him back in time for his heat. They fight, but it's impossible to fight some insticts. Give Up, Give In: A/B/O fic. Qui-Gon lived AU. Omega Obi-Wan is dosed with a heat inducer during a mission. Alpha Anakin who has loved the older Knight forever doesn’t handle that very well. Ends with Service Top Anakin, a favorite of mine

Longer Modern AUs: (8k+ words, developed AUs that attempt to model the canon dynamic in everyday life)

My Anankē: Classics AU is built on the premise that Obi-Wan would never break the rules re: teacher/student fraternization. He would rather endure years of mutual pining than act inappropriately. Once Anakin’s graduated though, that’s a different story. These are oneshots telling the story of their relationship. It is not told in chronological order, so each one basically opens up another window into their lives. Soulbound: Obi-Wan is a bossy lawyer who plays World of Warcraft. Anakin is an insecure veteran who is in Obi-Wan’s guild and drives him insane. They meet randomly in a bar, and Obi-Wan realizes that Anakin acts the way he does because he likes to be bossed around—so he bosses him around. Zone of Truth: Obi-Wan basically helped raise Anakin through being his Big Brother mentor through a local gaming shop, eventually teaching him to drive and getting him an internship etc. Anakin graduates college and Obi-Wan turns into a ghost, for very good reasons, it turns out. Anakin’s betrayed him, and he’s betrayed himself.

Shorter Smutty AUs: (shorter stories, canon + AUs)

Snap, Crackle, Pop: Padawan Anakin gets braid tugging and spanking after behaving very badly during the Battle of Muunilinst early in the Clone Wars. Tilted: Anakin wakes up after Mortis in a female body and hides, struggling to come to terms with the change. Obi-Wan comes to check on him and reassure him, smut ensues. Make Your Siren’s Call: show!era Obi-Wan struggles to fall asleep in the cave from the photoshoot, and dreams about his old apprentice, full of guilt, angst, and smut Stress Relief: Sith-like/Dom!Obi-Wan is rough on eager!Anakin in their Temple apartment, plays on Master/Padawan dynamic. Unperishing Glory: Homeric AU, Anakin is Achilles-type Chosen One and Obi-Wan is his Patroclus-type mentor-friend, angsty sex Murder Puppy: Playful!Obi-Wan seduces raisedSith!Anakin during a duel, bringing him back to the light during sex. People seem to really like this one, it is one of the things I get the most asks about. I have plans for a short story to expand, it’s on the WIP list I promise. Unwelcome Guest: An AU where Obi-Wan couldn't strike Anakin down on Mustafar. Suitless!Vader comes to find him on Tatooine, and wants to be punished for mistakes, there is spanking involved. Rosetta Stone: Based on the Mummy, an AU where Obi-Wan is a librarian and Anakin is a former soldier, and they defeated a mummy together. Obi-Wan is oblivious and repressed, so Anakin has to be very forward. Safe as Houses: Based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Anakin is the slayer and Obi-Wan is his Giles-like librarian watcher. Anakin seeks Obi-Wan out in crisis and Obi-Wan takes care of him. The Outlander: Obi-Wan fell to the dark on Naboo AU, so Qui-Gon is Anakin’s Master instead. Anakin sneaks out of the Temple to a club to meet possessive Obi-Wan, there is smut against a wall outside, and Anakin falls to the dark side. Please, Daddy?: Daddy kink fic. Features a bratty Anakin, sex pheromones, spanking and just general daddy!filth. A New Hope: Anakin never left Tatooine AU. He becomes a Han Solo-type pilot who helps a rebel!Obi-Wan escape the Empire. He’s a touch starved, praise starved, virgin who’s insecure about his missing hand. Obi-Wan takes good care of him. Communication, What Communication: Organized Crime AU with collegeStudent!Anakin and accidentalSugarDaddy!Obi-Wan, gratitude kink haha. This fic has been picked up and turned into the phenomenal multichapter story Recoil and Ricochet by @wernnaa.

Potidaea, 432BC: Alcibiades!Anakin and his tutor Socrates!Obi-Wan fight together in the phalanx. Armor kink and period-accurate intercrural sex ensue lol. Minikin and Tiny-Wan: Fluff and crack based on the premise that there are tiny figurines of the Jedi that are alive (kind of like the little dragons in the goblet of fire). Obi-Wan and Anakin each get one, and their Tinys enjoy each other’s company, leading to an awkward but useful conversation. #BinGate: Great British Bake Off AU, Anakin is a contestant who lost his temper and destroyed his bake, Obi-Wan is a judge who enjoys scolding Anakin. Let Me, Master: Padawan Obi-Wan, shy demisexual Master Anakin, Obi-Wan throws caution to the wind and finally seduces his clueless Master, smut ensues with bottom Obi-Wan. Anakin, Duke of Vader, Prince of Coruscant: Anakin is a bratty, troubled prince and Obi-Wan is his unimpressed knight bodyguard. Anakin cries, showing true vulnerability, and Obi-Wan realizes he has a kink for that lmao Sic Transit Gloria Mundi: Sexually frustrated after sparring with his Master, Anakin decides to visit the glory hole in the locker room. Little does he know, he’s not the only one. Boy Toy: Obi-Wan is a fashion designer and Anakin is a first time model. They’ve just finished a boytoy themed photoshoot and get trapped together in an elevator Brotherhood: Anakin is a college student in a spiral after the death of his mother, and his father Qui-Gon left for a trip, leaving his much older step-brother Obi-Wan, who he doesn't know very well, in charge. Obi-Wan picks Anakin up from jail, and the argument goes places. Hard Racing: Anakin is a Formula 1 driver and Obi-Wan is his team principal. After an accident at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix where he ran into his teammate, he is sore, tired, and afraid of getting demoted from his spot. Obi-Wan comes to his hotel to reassure him of his value to him and the team. Beer and Paint: Obi-Wan and Anakin are both apprentices to famous artist Qui-Gon. Anakin has tattoos/piercings/blue streak in his hair, and Obi-Wan is obsessed. Sloppy art and drunk sex ensue.

Smutty +F fic AUs: (short fics that includes Padmé or Ventress)

Très Lecherous: Padmé and Obi-Wan agree to share subby!Anakin, this fic is all three together, and includes DP if that is your jam. Blue Shadow Virus: continuation of above AU, Padmé almost died on Naboo and Anakin doesn’t take it well. Obi-Wan and Padmé dom him into relaxing Post-Revenge: Set after the episode of TCW where Ventress rescues Obi-Wan from Maul and Savage. This is only Ventress/Obi-Wan, but Anakin is extremely present in the fact that Ventress uses Obi-Wan's secret feelings for Anakin to incite him into hate sex. Plus Anakin Makes 3: Sort of a sequel to the Post-Revenge fic, Anakin discovers Obi-Wan and Ventress having a tryst, decides to participate rather than freak out, so more DP haha.

Collaborations: (stories i co-authored with friends)

Apartment Story: Post-Deception arc reconciliation fic, where Obi-Wan is drunk and Anakin is angry. Feelings are revealed, and comfort, understanding and smut ensues. Written with my friend @whohatessandas a RP and adapted into a story. Satellite Mind: What would happen if Obi-Wan could hear Anakin’s thoughts? Spoiler: it does not go well. Set during the last few days of the clone wars, and tracks how their relationship combusted over Anakin’s secrets. Written with @theseptemberist.

#thanks for stopping by <3

[inimitablereel]

2023 Fic+Vid recs

A variety of things I liked this year, made this year. Once again, this got long, so fic recs and fandom-specific recs for dmbj are below the cut. But first a few miscellaneous vids

[vid] Cockroach Motherfuckers by eruthros, thingswithwings multifandom Immortal queer characters multi-vid! This is exactly as much fun and hopeful as it sounds. I've seen maybe 2 of the sources so you know, you don't have to have seen them all.

(We) Didn't Just Come Here to Dance [Fanvid] by FairestCat fandom: Newsies I haven't actually seen newsies, but I really liked this vid. Taking the (very dramatic) musical theater dancing and putting it to a Carly Rae Jepsen song works SUPER well, visually very fun time. Also, unions!

[Vid] Oceanographer's Choice by absternr fandom: Heroes (cdrama 2022) Bai Choufei, Su Mengzhen, and Lei Chun's fucked up relationship(s)/falling apart bad times. This vid is deeply upsetting, just a real exploration of sometimes caring a lot about each other makes everything worse. For maximum sad times, this goes well with absternr's other heroes vid, hey, I just met you, which is the meet-cutes that led to this whole mess.

[AMV] The Draw by Lovely Goblin fandom: Revolutionary Girl Utena Black Rose Arc! I've watched this vid so many times really good weird and creepy black rose arc vibes really good parallels between all the different duelists

Also blanket rec that if you've seen Everything Everywhere All at Once, consider looking for vids for it. There's a bunch on ao3 (which can be easier to navigate than youtube, though there are definitely more total vids on youtube) and they're pretty much all spectacular? I was going to include one or two in this rec post and couldn't decide

The wild phonemes of 40 Eridani Keid by astronicht Fandom: Star Trek (aos/tos mashup canon) relationship: Spirk ~10k words rated E You know if you'd told me a year ago I'd be reccing a spirk fic in 2023 I would have been a bit surprised. This is not particularly my fandom wheelhouse. But you know, they're always good, and this fic is really great. This is almost an episode-fic except that nothing really happens plot-wise. But instead of a plot we get a lot of musing about geology and diplomacy and clever references to current events as history in that very trek kind of way and Spock being bitchy just for fun.

fuori dal mondo by bladedweaponsandswishycoats fandom: Qi Ye relationship: Beiyuan/Wu Xi, Beiyuan/Zhou Zishu (more plot than ship focused) ~60k words rated E This is a retelling of Qi Ye except Beiyuan is... some kind of eldritch horror, part-time. It pretty much goes beat for beat through canon (which I appreciate, I loved that book and do not like any of the current tls enough to reread) but with the added layer of whatever is going on with this eldritch thing, which is very cool and tied into canon so don't let me spoil it for you.

We're Leaving Our Shadows Behind Us by lady_ragnell fandom: Tortall - Protector of the Small relationship: Kel/Neal/Yuki ~70k words rated T Canon retelling of Squire and Lady Knight but from Neal's POV. This fic really digs into Neal as a character and the details of the worldbuilding of Tortall, especially the chamber of the ordeal. Also somewhere along the way it sold me on this ship, which I wasn't exactly rooting for when I read the books the first time.

The Untamed/MDZS

a harmony between qin and se by Alaceron relationship: Wangxian ~60k words rated E This is a gender-bent (to make it a het romance) no magic historical drama au where Wei Wuxian is a woman who's arranged to marry Lan Wangji. Honestly this is pretty far from the untamed, especially in terms of themes, though some plot elements will be familiar, but mostly it's just a really great compellingly written historical drama, that happens to have main characters with some familiar characteristics.

Like a Game of Chess by countingcr0ws relationship: Wangxian ~40k words rated T Modern au: influencer Wei Wuxian runs into Lan Wangji on a trip to Taiwan and they travel around together. I love all the little details of their trip - it's like getting to see a new place without going anywhere. Also sometimes I forget that wangxian are very cute? They're a good ship brant

The Epic Highs and Lows of High School Zine Production by el_em_en_oh_pee relationship: Jin Ling & Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling & the mdzs juniors ~7k words rated G Modern au: High schooler Jin Ling has big feelings about a lot of things, including zines, gender, and family. One of those juniors-centric fics that makes me say oh they are Teens huh.

DMBJ

A Little Hole in the Wall by MountainRose gen, Liu Sang centric ~8k words rated G Honestly I would rec this fic even to people who know nothing about tomb shows. One thing that really draws me to a book is descriptions of food (I have read multiple food memoirs this year), and this restaurant au has AMAZING food (and food prep) in it. Not too plotty, mostly just descriptions of delicious things and characterization via cooking.

green with an attitude by ilgaksu relationship: heihua ~8k words rated T If you are in the English language dmbj fandom and you care at all about heihua you probably have already checked out ilgaksu's fic, which has basically defined heihua for the English language fandom. My favorite heihua moments are when other people show up and give you that foil to realize how weird they are, and this fic has that both via Xiuxiu and Wu Xie. Also, a fic about dancing!

making anything last, keeping anything safe by A (mumblemutter) relationship: Wu Xie/Xiao Bai (background pingxie) ~8k words rated M Post canon Xiao Bai takes Wu Xie to explore a tomb that should be perfectly safe... (They set off a sex pollen trap.) I don't particularly ship this, but this fic was extremely well done and kind of sold me on the ship. Fun tomb, really fun characterization for everyone involved.

A World Made Over, Fresh and New by Thimblerig gen, iron triangle, Wu Xie & Li Cu ~1k words rated G If you've ever gotten specific dmbj fic recs from me, it's probably included something by Thimblerig, they're amazing at pulling in very specific canon snippets in under 5k words and I'd generally recommend going through their work by tags if you're looking for fic with underloved side characters or fic set during a part of canon that isn't UN or post-canon, which are generally easier to find. That said, this particular fic is in fact the fandom staple of post-reboot let's go look at a tomb and pulling in a big ensemble cast including some reboot folks. But it's a staple because it's a good vibe, and this is a really well done sliver of friendship and relationship building and perhaps even a tomb trap?

[Vid] Still Into You by absternr iron triangle ot3 This vid is a bop! Multi-tomb show iron triangle being in love, through the years! I've got this bookmark tagged as "joyful"

[vid] When He Died by teyla Wu Sanxing-centric This vid really leans into the weird tomb nonsense and conspiracies and builds to something quite odd, meant in the best possible way. A concentrated version of what tomb shows want to be at their best, from a horror/strange spooky things perspective. Mind the tags.

[Vid] Before I Do by absternr Xiuxiu character study A vid all about Xiuxiu being a badass - she's so clever and cunning and she will figure out and surpass her family history.

#reclist #last year's version of this I had a nif section and I was a little surprised I didn't have ANY this year #but the nif exchange is a little later this year and also tbh I have more or less just reread nif fics so my rec would be... #reread that ruthless love (or check it out if you haven't already) #once again if you have been thinking about making a rec post please do I would like to have recs #tumblr really wanted this to be formatted with big font hopefully I caught all of it :/

[40kfanworkexchange]

40K Summer Fest Exchange 2023

Summer is coming and the future is grimdark!

But even on the battlefield, love can bloom... or hijinks can happen, friendships be made or broken, the most unlikely people meet from across 10,000 years of war-torn history...!

This summer exchange is a low-pressure Warhammer 40,000-themed fic and art exchange, running from mid-May to August 5, 2023, and welcomes all character- and relationship-driven fanfiction and fanart featuring characters from Warhammer 40,000 and the Horus Heresy series.

Participants who sign up agree to write a story of no less than 500 words, or to create a piece of fan art that is at minimum clean, finished line art on unlined paper that can stand as a completed work, in exchange for receiving one story or one piece of fan art.

Nominate your favourite characters and pairings May 12-28! Sign up for the exchange May 18-28! Assignment due July 30.

Schedule:

May 12 - May 28: Nominations and sign-ups May 29: Matching and assignments go out July 21: Early default deadline July 30 11:59 PM EST: Assignments due, pinch hits go out August 4 11:59 PM EST: Pinch hits due August 5 11:59 PM: Works go live August 12 11:59 AM: Creators are revealed

We're trying something different this year: opening nominations and sign-ups simultaneously. If you sign up early, please revisit the exchange before the end of the nomination/sign-up period to check that your offers are matchable with requests.

Rules and requirements

Nomination Requirements:

Allowed: Characters from the Warhammer 40,000 franchise and the Horus Heresy series, including the tabletop codices and rpg rulebooks, Black Library novels, short stories and anthologies, computer games, Warhammer TV animated films, and fan-created content such as TTS.

Not allowed: Characters from other fandoms.

Sign-Up Requirements

You must be 18+ and have an AO3 account to participate.

You will be able to request between 3 and 10 characters/relationships from the tag set. Please only request characters for whom you’d like to receive content. You must request three at the minimum. If no offers match your request, you will be contacted by the mod to see if you’d like to add requests to make you matchable.

You will be able to offer between 3 and 10 characters/relationships from the tag set. Please only offer characters and relationships for which you are willing to create fic or art. If nothing you offer matches any requests made, the mod will contact you to see if you can add offers to your sign-up.

There will be a section in sign-up for optional details and letters (off-site blog posts, character art, etc.) if you have them. It is very helpful to give creators an idea of what you like.

Anything you Do Not Want (DNW) to receive in your gift must be included in the AO3 sign-up; DNWs listed in external letters but not on AO3 may slip through.

Assignments

You are only guaranteed to match on one character or relationship.

Please be judicious about where you chat about your assignment; your recipient may be sharing that space with you and this is an anonymous exchange for the first week. No spoilers please!

If your assignment doesn’t match your sign-up, please contact the mod as soon as possible.

Gift Requirements

Gift works must respect the recipients’ DNWs. If a DNW is included, the creator’s work will not be published and the creator will be removed from the exchange.

Completed assignments must be a fic of at least 500 words or a fanart of clean, finished line art on unlined paper created specifically for the recipient and must include at least one of their requested characters and/or relationships.

Posting

Fanworks must be posted on AO3 in the 40K Summer Fest Exchange collection.

Fic entries with excessive spelling and grammar errors or art entries drawn on lined paper/badly scanned will be rejected. Contact the mods if you need help and they will put the word out.

Obviously, as this is an anon exchange, please don’t post your work (including snippets) elsewhere before reveals.

Pinch Hits

Pinch hits will be posted here.

If you’d like to claim a pinch hit, message the mod with your AO3 name.

Treats

Treats are welcome, but should fill a stated request for the recipient.

Treats must also respect any Do Not Wants.

There are no minimum requirements for treats (e.g. a fic of 300 words is acceptable).

Treats may go into the main collection.

Code of Behavior

Please acknowledge (ideally with a comment) your gift – even if you defaulted.

Default early if you know you will be unable to complete your assignment. The mod then doesn’t have to scramble for last minute pinch hitters.

If Shit Happens last minute, PM the mod asap or shoot an e-mail to [email protected]

This is supposed to be a fun low-key celebration of Warhammer 40,000 as a whole. This is not a place for kinkshaming, ship wars, militant moral policing, or general assholery. Thank you.

#warhammer 40k #wh40k #warhammer fanart #warhammer fanfic

[asamiscuddlepillow]

Why Ciaphas Cain is the only good Imperial Character; Or How I Got High And Wrote Words

Alright, so, last week there were a couple discussion on the Imperium. One about how people are being real weird about the imperial "PURGE THE HERETIC AND XENOS" memes, and one about how people are too big on the Imperium characters everywhere and not enough on the non-human factions. In the former, pretty much everyone agreed that the Satire of the Imperium was being lost, and I posited (mostly to agreements) that the fault was partially on GW for playing into the facist glorification of Space Marines and Imperium characters. In the later I said "Ciaphas Cain is the only good human character" and that one people did *not* agree with.

Well hang onto your butts, 'cause I'mma explain why the latter is true, and it's because of the former.

Part Alpharius: The Imperium isn't funny

I have a challenge for you. Find me something that is a joke about the Ultramarines, who are the flagship and front-and-center advertisement for the setting. Find me something that is an obvious satirical joke about them, that a person who's never touched the tabletop or the novels knows. Find me a joke about them that a regular person knows that doesn't come from Emperor's Text-to-Speech.

Find me a joke about them that doesn't have the slurs from Emperor's Text-to-Speech original first episode.

Odds are you cannot. There isn't a joke, or a satire, present in how they are sold to people. In games, and videos, and comics, and even the majority of the novels the Space Marines in general are just sold straight up as stolid warrior monks who are the only defense of the imperium against the ravening dark. They are flawed, sure, in various ways. But those flaws are simply something that these epic warriors need to overcome and struggle with to show how cool and awesome and powerful they are, and how the rightness of their cause must truly be just to allow them the strength of will to carry on in this grimdark universe of eternal war.

This extends further to the greater Imperium as a whole. It's a giant and plodding bureaucratic nightmare, sure. But that is presented not as the Kafkesque joke it needs to be most of the time, but simply the byproduct of having such a huge and sprawling galactic empire without real FTL. Once again, a flaw that the stolid and heroic characters need to overcome to be able to defend humanity from the crawling hordes of destruction. It isn't a joke, it just is.

"Sure it's terrible," the thought is, "but it's the only way to keep humanity alive and that's worth it in the end."

This isn't funny. This isn't a joke. And that's a problem because it makes it tremendously easier for people to just accept it straight up.

But random internet stranger, satire doesn't always have to be funny!

This is, in a way, true. Satire does not, in fact, need to be a comedy. But I think it does need to be *funny*. It needs to have a joke, an implicit contradiction and paradox that you look at, internalise, and then go "Oh, heh, yeah that's kind of funny". Satire is meant to be a mirror you hold up that reflects a real societal issue, and expanded to an absurd degree to show the inherent wrongness of it, the cruelty or idiocy or straight up idiocy of something. It is absolutely essential, or else you fall into that trap the t-shirt talks about.

This is part of why having the Imperium as the cover boys for the game is a bad idea. Because anything that might be considered satirical about it only works when you dig deeply into lore and history and setting, or when you compare it to, say, the Orks. Orks are, after all, THE joke of 40k. Which is why they're A joke, but that's beside the point.

However, even then, that point gets diluted very easily. See, for example, Helsreach. Here we have one of the most stolid and squarejawed Chapters of space marines possible set against a neverending tide of Orks. And all of it is played as a straight up war story, epic and dramatic and... Not satirical. And Helsreach is going to be an entry point for people into the setting, thanks to the fan-animation movie on Youtube, along with the Astartes shorts. This is a problem.

But the boo-

We fans who read books and game books and know lore and dig into shit aren't the people I'm addressing. Hell, most everyone in this sub is someone who understands the core satirical idea of Warhammer 40k and is able to play with it or around it, depending on mood.

I'm talking about the General Public here. The people who only know 40k from, say, the video games. Or the memes. Where does the core satire and joke of the setting come off for them? Name me one game that has come in the 40k setting that does so (Maybe Darktide, I dunno, I haven't played it, maybe some of the dialogue is funny? But that kind of gets lost as well in the rest of everything because the biggest reaction I've seen about Darktide is "I feel so awesome and cool shooting the bolter"). The only time it kind of comes close is with the Orks, but that hardly counts because, again, Orks are THE joke of 40k (which is why they are a joke) and it very easily is played off as "Cool badass awesome space marine smashes through the silly stupid joke race in between doing awesome things to protect the imperium".

This is a problem.

Enter: Ciaphas Cain.

Ciaphas Cain is the only good Imperium character. Both good, morally as a person, and good as in well done and fitting with the original goals and themes of the setting.

He's a fop. An idiot. A coddled man-child who wants to live the easy life and coast on his laurels. A lazy coward who's only still alive because the actual cool hero of the story, Jurgen, is at his shoulder with a Meltagun constantly and a super-special-secret-superpower to protect him from everything else. Tyranids? It's fine Jurgen is there to disrupt their mindlinks. Chaos? It's fine Jurgen is there to counter the sorcery and melta people. Eldar? Same. Daemons? Same. On and on it goes. Cain is literally a bumbling swashbuckling rogue from a pirate movie but set into a Lovecraftian universe of horror and madness and death.

And that's kind of funny.

Everytime Cain tries to get out of a dangerous situation, he just makes it worse for himself. He wants to be a lazy asshole and get drunk? Whooops genestealer cult he has to dismantle. He wants to take some RR away from the front? Whoops Slaneeshi cult he has to deal with. Every time he tries to pass off his duties and his responsibilities, he's forced to do them but worse to even get out alive, and every time he does everyone around him thinks he's a big damn superhero who's braver than any Primarch and a true scion of the imperium. Which means if he wants to keep having the easy posh lazy life full of booze, he needs to play into it. Which just puts him into dangerous situations. Which he tries to get out of but then ends up in worse situations and has to get out of them. Which makes people around him think he's cool. You get the point. And through this foppish laziness he coasts through the Imperial ranks, a useless bastard who is important because he's important, a lynchpin of Imperial Propaganda and Morale that doesn't want to be there, hates being there, and every time he tries to squirm out of it just becomes even more important, we see the brainless bureaucracy of the imperium in action. That he's been listed as KIA and come back so often that the Imperial record keepers got mad and passed a law saying he is never to be listed as anything but MIA even after being burried in fully military honours on Terra is canon.

And that's pretty funny.

He is besties and lovers with an Inquisitor. An Inquisitor who is editing his memoirs and, despite the fact they are restricted and basically no one will ever read them, she still puts a lot of work into organising them, putting in little footnotes and explanation texts, finding volumes written by other people about the same thing to fill in the blanks than Cain's narcissism ignores, and has a runny commentary on everything happening in the books. That conceit of how the novels are presented are amazing, because you get macro-and-micro stuff happening, and you're able to have the satire present without distracting from the narrative. I have had the satirical nature of the Imperium presented to me better through these footnotes and asides than in basically any other product about the setting, ever. The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic nursery rhyme anyone? And it does this in a way that is, literally, canon.

And thats damn funny.

Cain has been present for a lot of the major conflicts against every major enemy of the Imperium. He's met Tau and Chaos and Dark Eldar and Tyrannids and Necrons (oh my). Hell, I learned more about the Kroot and the Tau from his first book than anywhere else. He's been a minor lynchpin in many important events in the setting, but in a way he's always off to the side. Never *the* major hero, but *a* hero. I remember reading some stuff on the 13th Black Crusade and having that Voice guy who can turn people to his side just by talking. And I went "Hey is that the guy Caine killed in that one book?" No it's not. It's another guy with the same powers but who isn't as major that Caine just happened to be involved with killing. That's the joke. And it's not a bad one.

(But this part isn't so much about the joke as it is about how Caine is the perfect introduction to the setting for a newbie. Because he's met basically *all* parts of the setting, he's a great way to get people into it. The 40k show should be a Caphias Caine series and I will die on this hill.)

But you said he was the only morally good person and you keep going on about how he's a useless foppish asshole jerk

There's this thing, from way back in the days of being a baby progressive online, that said "Intent is not fucking magic". It was used to counter the whole "Well I didn't INTEND to offend you or say something hurtful therefore I didn't do anything wrong". No, intend isn't fucking magic, you may not have intended harm but you did harm.

That swings both ways. Caine does not intend to be a caring, just, protective, encouraging, and wonderful commanding officer. He is trying to be a selfish lazy asshole that doesn't do any work. Why doesn't he summarily execute troopers when, *even in the current day and age he would be fully in the right to do so to some of them with our own military*? Because the paperwork sucks, and if he does it too much he might get shot in the back by his own men when no one is looking. Absolutely pragmatic and selfish, almost dangerously so.

But the result is that, at the end of the day, he takes care of the troops around him. People are encouraged by Caine being around because they know that, when the going gets tough, Caine is the kind of man you want at your side, and you'll watch his back because he watches yours. That he's a brave and selfless person, who respects the life of his troops, and wants to see them come home again alive and unhurt. Caine is one of the only people in the entire setting of 40k who makes the lives and service of probably the *only* truly innocent and blameless people in the entire imperium, the regular guard trooper, better. He intends to save his own neck and make his life easier. His entire career has been a rejection of the Imperial Way of Life because that way is hard and requires work, so he doesn't do it.

But intent is not fucking magic and Caine is in fact a force of unmittigated good in the setting. He makes peoples lives better in a horrible world of monsters and madness.

And that's fucking hillarious.

But what about these other characters

Look I'm sure you can find a bunch of people in the lore that also care about civilians and Guardmen. Gaunt is probably one of them, from what I understand. The problem with them is that they play it straight. It isn't a joke. It isn't satirical. It is serious people being serious in a serious world and fighting against all odds and coming out the other side heroic. They intend to protect their troops and civilians for the troops and civilians sake. And this not only isn't funny, but intent is not fucking magic. Because they are serious and treat it all seriously, and the result is that... They continue to uphold the Imperium. They do not try to reject it, they play into it. It isn't a joke that elevates them, it is a serious and tragic flaw they combat to make their heroism more epic.

And that isn't funny.

In Conclusion

Orks should be the major cover boys of 40k. That would sell it better as a satirical setting. And Ciaphans Caine is the only good human character.

Addendum

are you saying the caine books are good?

No they're fucking garbage. Absolute trash. Pretty much everything is, from every setting. Even the works of art you think are masterpieces contain something you find insufferable, I'm willing to bet. The only thing that isn't garbage is the thing you are in the current process of writing this moment. And if you put it down and come back to it later and re-read it, you'll go "What fucking idiot fuck wrote this fucking garbage" Everything is garbage, but people appreciates part of the garbage that is less garbage. The cream of the garbage, if you will.

They are a lot of fun though. Addendum the second: Bringing Satire back to Space Marines

Lets give this a shot. Shouldn't be too hard, right? I'll start.

Ultramarines: Requirement to fill out forms in triplicate before any combat drop. Once the expected ammunition is expended during combat, they have to hunker down and call back to base and fill out a new logistical analysis of the combat theater and update their forms. When an enemy fleet enters Ultramar space, they send out several forms of censure and demands to please quit the space or there shall be a full meeting of the Ultramar Emergency Response Council, with an estimate time for response to be a decade give or take three years. When Guilliman is asked about the horror of the modern imperium he shrugs his pauldrons and says "Well they filled out the proper documentation so there is nothing I can do, but I have put in a petition with the High Lords requesting a meeting to discuss opening a dialogue about drawing up a study group to examine the possibility of analysing the current status of Imperial doctrins for further evaluation by-" and then people just leave and he rambles for three hours.

Blood Angels: They all talk like dracula. When they land on a planet they keep making remarks about peoples delicious looking necks. When exposed to mirrors or direct sunlight they cringe and throw up their arms and hiss for a while. When asked about this they go balistic and slaughter an entire planet for implying they are Night Lords.

Space Wolves: The space wolves book already make them a joke, but make it more of a joke. It's not a land speeder, it's a land wolfer. They don't have adeptus astartes, they are all adeptus theriomorphus. Change their emblem to be three wolves howling at the moon. Logan Grimnar is spotted staring off into space, gently sighing as in every way except physical, he is a wolf. Their rune priests make most of their income to maintain the chapter by opening up comissions on furaffinity.

Addendum the second PS A lot of people have told me, when I originally posted this, that this isn’t “Satire” as much as it is memes. In response to those people, who will never see this; The first goal is to make space marines not cool. To make them stupid, silly, and dumb. To take away the aura of badass space monks battling against impossible odds, to remove the patina of fascist worship that enshrines them. Once that is done, we can worry about making them “Properly Satirical” Also and further; making them stupid idiots is satire, because they are the avenging angels of the imperium the scions of the emperors flesh himself, and they are stupid idiots.

#warhamemr 40k #warhammer 40000 #ciaphas cain #jurgen is the only reason cain is alive #even amberly is only around him because of jurgen #meltas solve everything #warhammer 40k #a reddit repost where I just coppied the raw text #also its my own post so its legal

[moodymisty]

Alright I gotta represent for us in the Rogal Dorn Simp Nation, Misty! This idea fell directly on my head from my old history nerd childhood, we’ve got stories of queens holding down the fort and being badass while the king is away so why not let the lady of the House of Dorn and the Imperial Fists kick some ass??? Dorn’s off doing y’know crusade shit etc etc and gets a frantic vox hail from Inwit (or whatever fortress world she was on) that they’re under attack. Luckily he’s done with whatever his assignment was or has somebody he can trust and leave it to so he can flip Phalanx in reverse and hop back to make sure nothing goes wrong. Only to find his beloved commanding the standing force of guardsmen and marines, not just holding it down but WINNING. On the outside he’s his usual stoic self like “psh yes of course I wasn’t worried, I never worry, this is something I expect her to be able to handle. I am proud tho” but internally he’s like “oh no this is hot” XD. Indomitable warrior queen decked out in armor he probably commissioned for her (always gotta be prepared) making battle plans and laying the verbal smack down on any captains or commissars who are questioning the competency of somebody ROGAL GODDAMN DORN chose to be with. Yeah I think that’d do a whole lot for him 😂

Having soft moments of reflection on his humanity matched against his beloved’s is delicious of course but so is meeting him where HE’S at, seeing how loving him and learning about him would change somebody. And getting to commit some grand old grimdark 40k VIOLENCE is always fun lol

[ 𝕸𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖞𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖞'𝖘 𝕸𝖆𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 | 𝕬𝖔3 ]

Author's Note: We are on the front lines for Wall Husband I will go down with this ship. Boring this bland that fuck everyone else we're right I'm stacking bricks around them

Summary: Stuck in a violent snowstorm on an Imperial Fist controlled planet being sieged, you take command for the first time while waiting for Dorn.

Relationships: Rogal Dorn/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Dorn is your future husband and Alexis Polux is your battle husband it's like a work husband but much more violent, Mentions of battle and death, Typical 40kness, I think I blacked out while writing this I'm sorry

Word Count: 2566

You had known from the very beginning of your courtship that Dorn had wished for you to be a link in his chain of command.

What you hadn't expected, was for your first time in leadership to be completely alone, surrounded by no less than fifty Astartes waiting for orders, and five hundred or more Guardsmen half frozen due to the horrid weather; With a multitude of tech priests working on the various machinery and equipment.

This sun up makes it a week since the siege had began, the distant sounds of bolter fire constant. Sometimes the ground shakes from explosions, pulling dust off the cracks in the brick walls.

Walking down the east hall, you step into the large room that has been made into a sort of 'central command' to coordinate the current forces, stuffed tight with a massive holotable and various tech priests scattered around it. Some are working on fixing any malfunctioning machinery, such as the vox equipment that has had trouble maintaining a signal even on-planet through the storm.

You look around to see if anything drastic has changed in your absence. In the moment, you notice a familiar face; A commissar from the beginning of this week. He has the most command over the Guardsmen under you, having been their only superior before the invasion. Any captains or other commissars had been made to report to him, up until now. His closest in rank subordinate had been killed in an explosion on the first day, and in a morose thought, you wonder if they had been any more palatable than he is.

"Any progress hailing the Phalanx?"

He gives you a curt shake of his head, looking over the shoulder of the tech priest operating the vox equipment. Another harsh whip of wind batters against the walls, howling and shaking the glass windows. It rattles them almost just as bad as the distant explosions do.

"Nothing more than a few seconds at a time. But it should be enough of a message for them to understand the planet is under siege." The Commissar speaks short and stiff, face frozen in a neutral, stoic gaze underneath his uniform and few day old facial scruff. You cross your arms.

He's on his best behavior now, considering his disrespect shortly after you'd taken command had nearly gotten his head rent from his shoulders. He hadn't realized he was speaking to the Lady of the Imperial Fists, but the Astartes that had been in your company to deliver the news of your ascension in duty hadn't given him the leeway he might've thought he deserved. He acquiesced command of his guardsmen to you quite quickly, after that. There has been nary a squeal from him since, nor any of his fellow commissars or guard captains.

"Good. Then we will hopefully have aid soon. For now we need to push them back from the storage buildings before my men run out of bolter ammo."

Not that they can't work with just their chainswords, but long range options remain vital considering the hostile terrain you're all working with.

You hear the sound of heavy footsteps approaching.

Alexis Polux, a veritable giant of a man, is nearly unable to get through even a doorway meant for fellow Astartes; Though not of his size. His armor is packed with snow at the seams, pauldrons slick with snow melted into a sheet of ice. His thin, blonde hair is quickly becoming wet at the tips, from where snowflakes are melting in the slight heat of the room. Anywhere he walks, he leaves chunks of melting sleet right behind. It has to be almost packed a meter high at this point out there, judging where the worst of it ends on his leg armor.

"Welcome back, Captain Polux." You smile in spite of the situation. It's something that Dorn had said he found- in his own words- 'curious' about you.

He holds his helm in his hands, walking closer to you. He brushes past the Commissar with not even the slightest tilt of acknowledgement. Unsurprising. He'd been there when the man had questioned your acting in Dorn's proxy. Polux is a man of a surprisingly amount of humility and softspokenness, but he is rarely forgiving.

"The storm is getting worse."

You hear another bout of wind howl through the brick and stone, as it continues to dump more snow onto the ground. While the Astartes can traverse it without much issue, it's becoming one for the Guardsmen. They've slowed their advance significantly as the snow reaches their knees.

"Even if we do get aid, they're going to be hard pressed to get anything more than small gunship planet-side; Though it goes both ways. We're all stuck out here in this mess." You open your mouth to continue, but Polux cuts you off.

"They are not built for the cold like we are."

You look up to the massive marine who's been serving as your second in command. Perhaps it wasn't an officially given title, but he's taken it well, and you could think of no better man for it. Especially given that the other Astartes respect him- which makes your orders have less of a weight to them, given they still have a degree of unfamiliarity with you. Your hands rest on the rim of the holotable.

"Finished my sentence for me." He hums as an odd sort of apology, the humor of your response going right over his head. When you let out a soft chuff of a laugh a few guardsmen curiously look at you for a moment.

"It was a compliment, Polux." He stares, eyes flicking across your face as he loudly thinks.

He really is a Son of Dorn.

You resist the urge to smile again, and look down at the holotable. It's been quite the week, but what was once another language has now become nothing but second nature. Putting theory to practice has proved quicker and less frightening that you'd thought, a week ago.

Though you still hope Dorn returns to you soon, turning away from the holotable to receive an update from a guardsmen holding a dataslate.

If anyone had ever asked, Rogal Dorn has remained no different than the stalwart nature he's always had. Though his captains and commanders can hear tenseness in his voice. No matter how phenomally well the Primarch can mask it.

It's been there since they'd first gotten the first of multiple emergency vox hails, only a few seconds long with a barely stable connection. But the few words that had gotten through had made it obvious that the planet was being sieged.

One of their bases was being sieged, a spit in the face of the Imperial Fists.

Even worse, Dorn has no idea as to your welfare.

He'd thought you safe there, the safest you could be other than with him or on Inwit, and now you stand on a world being laid waste with no way to contact anyone off world. He wonders deep in a part of his mind if it was an error on his part.

They're less than a day out now, watching the warp tear by. Dorn stands at the ship's bridge- unmovable. He'll see the planet any moment now when they leave Warp travel, and then can he prepare for what all is ahead of him.

He has the utmost faith in his men and you. However that doesn't mean that a small, human part of him doesn't worry at the idea of you being stuck mid-siege in an unknown location.

He taught you well. He taught you well. A mantra in his head no one else can hear. It is up to yourself to survive without him.

The siege isn't visible from orbit when they arrive, given the massive storm blocking large swaths of the land in a white blanket. It will making landing difficult, but the storm is clearing- at least according to the tech priest currently in charge. Not long after orders are given to begin battering the enemy's battleships as they strike back, shields taking a sizable hit. Nothing the Eternal Crusader and it's crew cannot handle.

But it doesn't feel as if the ice storm is clearing with the way the gunships struggle to remain stable, even with the most competent of pilot. Though they still manage to land on solid footing in one piece, the wind whipping their armor like a flog. Sheets of snow blow across snow already heavily packed onto the ground, covering up the large footprints of Astartes that had been here moments before them. The stone of the steps is barely visible through it all.

Dorn strides forward, the snow sticking to his boots as he trudges through it. He can hear bolter fire in the distance, as well as what seems like the highpowered cannon of multiple Baneblades. A small team of five Astartes follow behind him, two on each side and one directly behind. They have their bolters raised, ever vigilant even well in the safely of their own area of control. Wind rips through his cropped hair and howls in his ears, and for a split second, he perhaps regrets not wearing his helm. Even for a man of Inwit, this cold stings; He can hear the ice and snow crunching in the seams of his armor.

Stepping inside the cathedral, the first thing he notes is the myriad of supplies stacked inside in the aisles, safe from the elements. Guardsmen are looking after them, divvying them out amongst themselves, or delivering them to the Astartes in need of them. Of which there are a few- Imperial Fist guards from before the siege began. Most seem in decent condition; Dorn notes a lack of injuries amongst the Guardsmen and Astartes alike, and how there seems to be an established system amongst them.

He keeps walking through the nave, passing Guardsmen and Astartes who all give him a drop of the head when he passes.

"Primarch Dorn!"

An Imperial Fist Lieutenant calls to him, helmet in his hand. He has blood on his lips from where his skin has split, the cold having whipped his skin dry. Going down the few steps of the ambulatory, he gives a curt nod.

"Lady Dorn and Captain Polux are in the east hall. Central command has been established there."

He affirms to the warrior and turns, walking through the transept and down the hall. The one who'd spoken to him seems to have other duties, and stays behind on the ambulatory.

He can hear chatter in the large, arched hall- it increases until he reaches the door it's bleeding from, and he opens it and ducks to come through. It's just too short for him, but the ceiling inside can thankfully handle someone of his height. It's a thought that is always in the back of his mind.

When Dorn enters the room, the first thing his eyes focus on is you; Leaning over a massive holotable with Captain Alexis Polux standing firmly at your side. He stands like an unmoving guardian, a hand on the pommel of his chainsword. He's the closest to you out of anyone in the room- either out of his own will, or the gargantuan Astartes has incidentally created a personal area of clearance around you both with his presence alone.

"Dorn!"

You say, an audible pep in your voice. The Primarch walks closer and examines the scene in front of him. You appear uninjured, apart from your skin being slightly pallid from the cold.

The Primarch notices how everyone operates around you with a level of assiduity and efficiency, having been giving clear cut duties. There is no arguing, no fighting, everyone both in this room and all around the cathedral operate smoothly. You have a perimeter established, and you’ve been careful to push the advance but not stretch yourself too thin.

You've done well. That much is clear. A part of him wonders if you'd be able to clean this all up on your own, had he decided to simply give you the reinforcements and leave.

Dorn watches as you momentarily turn away from him to speak to an approaching commissar, and he finds himself listening to your confident and assured tone of voice. A thought crosses his mind.

You look beautiful.

All of your inquiries, curious questions and shaking confidence in your ability to lead have all mixed together, and while you might have made different choices than him, he cannot deny your effectiveness.

Dorn decides to speak before he distracts himself within his own mind further. A hold of your hand or to take a kiss of yours are things reserved for private, not here. As much as he might wish to.

"You appear to have done well for yourselves."

You look up at him and give a wry smile, while he glances at the holotable in-between you both.

"It could be worse. I have a squad of Astartes stuck behind enemy lines, but we've pushed the enemy back from the supply warehouses."

This planet has large city buildings that the wind rips around through, unlike the shorter ones of Inwit. The Astartes are fine in their sealed suits and higher body temperature, but the Guardsmen are all struggling. You more than likely are as well, despite holding strong. He can see the chill on your skin, the cracked skin of your lips.

Dorn's reinforcements will provide valuable support to yours, and with their might together, this planet with be rid of the siege.

You turn to order that the men currently in the battlefield get notice that Primarch Dorn has arrived, and that reinforcements are coming. Besides the soon coming tactical advantage, it will provide a well needed boost to moral. With the intense weather, it has surely been lowering. Though your smile and optimistic look in your eyes prove to be a valuable motivator.

No matter how good the orders, often times the way they're said and the person giving them are what matter most.

The Primarch looks to Captain Polux, and gives him a curt nod. The Astartes politely returns a dip of his head in thanks to the silent compliment of his duty. Dorn then looks back to you.

"You and any men injured will return to the Eternal Crusader." You let out a laugh and shake your head. He can hear the rattle of the bolter on your hip.

"Well now that I've started this, I'm kind of keen on seeing it finished before I leave."

Dorn's eyebrows raise ever so slightly, amused by you. He taught you well, he repeats again. Your command over a such a less than optimal situation has proven as such.

The Lady of the Imperial Fists has proven herself not only to be smart, beautiful, and full of humility, but to be stalwart and confident as well.

"Very well."

He'll stay at your side, and judging by his solid stance, Polux will as well.

Dorn very rarely has doubts, but your confidence and ability to adapt have solidified his thoughts that he had made the right choice in you. His 'sons' taking well to your command makes it far easier.

They will have to when you officially become his wife, after all. You have already accepted the title of Lady Dorn, he has no reason to not seal your bond. There hasn't been much else in his life he has been more sure of.

Ignoring any of his more personal desires in the back of his mind, Primarch Rogal Dorn abides by your request, eyes focused more on your lips as you smile at him.

#gee i wonder if my favorite astartes are obvious if you read my stuff #just wait until i write for Konrad and 90% of the fic is actually just Sevatar because I love him uwu #rogal dorn x reader #Rogal Dorn/Reader #primarch x reader #warhammer 40k x reader #reader insert #reader #mywriting

[churchyardgrim]

3e ravenloft’s greatest hits: lady edition

ASK AND YE SHALL RECIEVE 

Natalia Vhorishkova

so we know and love the Weathermay-Foxgrove sisters, 5e actually kept them more or less the same, BUT. what 5e neglected to give much detail on was Natalia, and as soon as i read the dread possibilities in Van Richten’s Arsenal i was obsessed. holy shit! fucknasty sadomasochist werewolf lady, locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the hunter she seduced and betrayed and who has now made it his life’s goal to hunt her down?? give me 40k words about her right now immediately.

Perseyus Lathenna

holy shit yall, i didn’t even know about this character until i went looking, but she’s? amazing?? a tiny-ass grandma wizard who got the goodness traumatized out of her, and was then inspired to try again years later and ended up reclaiming that drive to help people? a disabled woman who innovates a new method of spellcasting that doesn’t need somatic gestures? a respected scholar who keeps her identity close to her chest, as a way to bypass the systematic inequality of the cultures she’s working in? holy shit i love her. put her in your game so help me god.

Tara Kolyana

listen i know we all love Ireena but 5e did her so so dirty, and 3e for all its faults gave us Tara. homegirl’s parents saw the writing on the wall and got the fuck out of dodge, and it fucking? worked?? she’s free? mostly. mostly free. the narrative tugs and tugs like an undertow but she’s had time to grow now, time to become a wholeass person outside of Barovia, outside of her destiny, and who knows what she could do now? who knows what kind of power she could have if she went back to Barovia as an adult, a full-fledged cleric with a solid sense of her self and her duty.

Ebb

literally who doesn’t love a fuckmassive shadow dragon. she’s fantastic, she’s goth, her best friend is a wizard, what more can i say? 

Lyssa von Zarovich

light of my life, girlboss of my heart, this list would not be complete without Lyssa. Strahd’s direct grandniece by way of the oft-forgotten middle brother Sturm, her goals are simple; reduce Strahd to a fine ash for the crime of piledriving the family’s history and reputation, and do some actually functional governing in Barovia. and she’s a genius! she not only found out about Strahd’s Big Oopsie entirely independently of anyone else in the know, she then looked at what uncle dearest had done and said “yeah i’ll have what he’s having” and fuckign followed through. and then! discovered a way to speedrun vampire power levels via a ghost booty call! and then invented vampire mindflayers, just bc she hadn’t broken enough records that week. 

she’s an excellent foil for Strahd, an ambitious, intelligent, and politically savvy woman who took the vampirism deal (literally the only other character to do so besides Strahd) with the full knowledge of what it entailed; as a means to an end, not an impulsive sacrifice. most of the material she’s got (and even in older editions there isn’t much) positions her as a middle-strength villain, but honestly i want to see her as a lesser-of-many-evils ally.

#ravenloft mood #no darklords bc i wanted to focus on lesser-known npcs #i'm drawing from a few sources here but if u want to go digging for more on these ladies i've got the pdfs archived hgdg #also i lied some of these are 2e content but shhhh that's not important

[x-populuxe]

my year in fic: 2022

Following the format of my 2021 year in fic, here’s everything I wrote this year: ~77K words over 4 stories. (I also wrote ~40K words of a few unpublished WIPs, and I am putting this here for public accountability to finish those early in the new year lol.)

I really loved writing these stories; several of them were things I never would have written if it hadn’t been for various fests/prompts. Thank you again to everyone who continues to organize and participate in them!!

1) “Correspondence” Charles/Erik, 13K words, Charles POV over the course of a single day The third installment in my XMFC canon-divergent series “No Steady State”

Summary: It may be the weekend, but there’s a letter Charles really must reply to before getting ready for their far more enticing evening plans.

2) “What We Inherit” Gen (David & Charles), 20K words, modern/still powered AU & what I’ve been describing as a non-romantic (father-son) slow burn Written for X-Men Rare Pairs 2022

Summary: Ever since David came to live with his father, their relationship has been polite but distant: his father is always working, and David still sort of thinks of him as Charles Xavier, The World’s Most Famous Telepath, a larger-than-life figure he first saw on television five years ago.

But when the grandmother David never knew existed calls and demands to meet her grandson, a harrowing weekend trip reveals how much he and his father don’t know about each other—and alters things between them in ways he never would have predicted.

3) “Unlived Histories (The Double Vision Remix)” Charles/Erik, 18K words, time travel/alternate history A remix of “The Cost of a Good Man” by arcapelago, written for X-Men Remix Madness 2022

Summary: When he was a boy, a man visited Erik and his mother and helped them escape before the war. Years later, Erik finally learns the man’s identity—but the truth is far more complicated than he ever could have imagined.

4) “to put the world between us” Charles/Erik, 25K words, modern/still powered actor AU Written for Secret Mutant Madness 2022

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood: fresh off an Academy Award nomination, he’s about to star in HBO’s most anticipated show of the year. And even though online chatter about his recent string of queer roles keeps getting louder, his personal life remains personal—just as it always has, and just as his manager and publicist continue to advise.

But when he winds up at the same wedding as his college best friend, Charles Xavier—and when they quickly fall into bed together—he’s forced to revisit the past he’s been trying to get away from for years. The pull between them has always been magnetic, but so has the weight of secrecy. Can they keep from repeating the same mistakes, or will the price of the truth be too high?

#my fic #cherik #x-men #erik lehnsherr #charles xavier #david haller #emma frost #charles/erik #canon-divergent au #remixes #actor au

[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

[whatmakesagod]

Some things that have helped me (so far) on my journey to writing a novel

Caveat that I am not agented and am still writing. I'm just sharing what is helping me in case it might help someone else.

Writing a query after 10k. Nothing sucks more than getting 40k in and realizing that you don't actually have stakes. Or character motivations. Or a throughline. Or worse, all three are missing. If you are a pantster/gardener like me, it really pays to write until you've had a bit of time to get to know the world, plot, and characters and figure out what they are and what they are doing and then write a query. If you struggle to write it, you might need to pivot, especially if you realize all you have is events and characters passively doing things.

Be willing to let projects marinate. I'm not gonna talk about how many WIPs I have because that's a really embarrassing number. The amount of ideas marinating in the back of my head is even longer. When a project is just not working and you cannot force it, set it aside and give it more time. Come back to it when you're ready to tackle it; maybe you'll have new ideas and better ways to handle the subject matter or characters.

Writing short stories can be a great way to try things out. Want to improve your descriptions or combat scenes? Or maybe you really just want to get a better grasp on word choice and sentence variety. Maybe that idea can be developed further or maybe it's only meant to be a short story. Either way, the idea has been exorcised and you have a new project to develop your editing skills on on top of having worked on your other skills.

Do a reverse outline as you go. If you are not a plotter/architect, the idea of the outline can either be really scary or it can be counterproductive. If I write an outline before the work, I feel as if I've written it. The journey matters more to me than the destination and I lose all motivation if I have a finished, developed outline. Instead, I write a chapter and then jot down what the audience learns, what the characters learn/are revealed to have known, and the contents of the chapter. I also keep notes in a spreadsheet on characters, motifs, potential changes, themes, and worldbuilding details.

This is to my fellow pantsters: do not let yourself become too inspired by your New Favorite Thing when it comes to the WIP. Do not do it. Do not let the themes of infertility in the Witcher invade your retelliing of Snow White if you never had plans for it to be there without seriously thinking it over. Make a note, let it sit, and decide later when you are no longer as inspired. Sometimes it really can work and is the right choice. Other times...no. Mermaids do not belong in every project no matter much you love The Little Mermaid. Save yourself the grief of taking hard pivots you have to undo at a later date.

Not keeping everything in my head and writing it down. Things still in your brain are beautiful and perfect and are still so very malleable. You cannot possibly keep track of every aspect of your WIPs if it's only in your head and, worse yet, if you're anything like me, you cannot edit what you cannot physical see on the page. When it's on the page, then you can do the real work of figuring out if it actually works.

Regularly consume media from a variety of cultures, genres, and voices. Netflix has an incredible catalogue of works ranging from a Nigerian legal drama to a South African conspiracy teen drama to an Irish comedy about the Troubles and life under normalized violence to a South Korean historical zombie horror series. For books, there is a growing wealth of translated works from many different cultures and a sharp rise in diverse authors. Australia has it's own literary movements as does Japan and Brazil. There are more and more books by and for Queer and neurodivergent people. Even listening to music can help. It's important to see what groups outside of your own are doing in media and art, how they represent themselves and their identity/culture/history, and the kinds of stories they want to see and make. It might inspire you, but it's also a great chance to learn and help uplift other voices.

Reading. This is tied to number 7, but reading really cannot be understated. Read the age category and genre you want to write in. Read short stories professionally published online. If you do better with audiobooks, listen to audiobooks. Thankfully, more and more authors seem to be getting them.

Resources:

#writing #writing resource #writing improvement #writing life #writblr #writers of tumblr #amwriting #my posts

[kathrinesadventures]

Update!!

This week was pretty okay in terms of a lot of things. The public release will happen somewhere around 1 and 5, with 40K words!! It’ll put the public release somewhere near 210K. The Patreon version will be about 230-240K which will be released on the 15th.

John/Elizabeth was given more Indepth, and the pendant was brought up a few times. We may or may not be getting a lil history lesson from John/Elizabeth!

A prologue has been added! A small history and a little poetry added, still working on Poetry since it helps with my writing

That’s pretty much it! Hope you all have an amazing week! I’ll start working on FDS on the 15th-20th!

#lost in your eyes #chooseyourownadventure #if #hosted games #storytelling #choice of games #interactive fiction #bookblogging #choice script