Hello! Online, I like to go by MaddytheBunny. You may recognize the name on various other sites where I also roam. Other online aliases include: RikoShuz based on the character Riko by the artist Shuz. Regular RP slut, but I can do other things, too! For example, I'm also addicted to Rimworld (1.6k hours) and am a fledgling Warhammer fan (My favorite faction is the Adeptus Mechanicus) She/Her, 22 years, may be on the spectrum, undiagnosed. Born in December. Any argument I may get into matters pretty little to me. my online presence is not a commitment.
Just finished playing citizen sleeper and HOLY CRAP this game is underrated.
Amazing character designs for one.
Also the character writing is fantastic. Love Lem & Mina. Love bliss & Moritz. Love Sabine and Rabiah. Also Emphis and Tala and Tala.
It’s really rare for me to find a game I think is underrated. I find games I like, but think they have the expected level of popularity. I tried looking up play through to see what the game was like, and the only thing that came up was trailers, and nothing else.
Also maybe I’m just not looking hard enough but I haven’t seen any fanart either.
What I’m trying to say is that this game is criminally underrated for how good it is.
I think it's unfortunate that, throughout the Ciaphas Cain books & short stories, we never really see him interacting with one such gung-ho psychopathic Commissar. Sure, there are mentions of some, but they're either already dead or have no presence in the story otherwise.
Usually, the Commissars he interacts with are either less senior than him, or just go along with whatever he says because of his reputation.
I think it'd be really cool to see him absolutely lay down the law to one of these gung-ho psychopaths. A Commissar who's getting on in years, but has similar experience to Cain even if it was in a longer timeframe. The kinda Commissar who will absolutely refuse all notion of withdraw and vehemently dismiss anything but a suicidal Banzai charge and/or last stand as cowardice.
I'm not sure whether the Commissariat would approve of any given Commissar outright executing another one if they were unable to pull seniority on them. Beijie at least wanted to arrest Cain and bring him to tribunal alive first, but he was lower-ranked.
Anyway, all this to say that I think it'd make for a fun story element, and good payoff after a dozen-odd chapters where this psycho-Commissar causes absolutely nothing but trouble for Cain and his cohorts. For Cain to finally, toward the end of the story, say; "You're a psychopath and are no longer in charge here, I'm relieving you of duty effective immediately." and put a lasbolt through his face, much to the delight of every officer and trooper around.
So my beta reader for the Big Fics is an astrophysicist, right. Who is currently also writing a hard sci-fi novel about the exploration of Phobos (more power to them, I cannot with the physics required for that, best I can do is soft sci-fi/fantasy and that reminds me I should finish that story).
Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.
So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.
You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.
And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.
It's still in the debugging phase (last error fixed: every planet wants to have a population of exactly 5000 regardless of other factors, turned out to be a missing equals sign somewhere), but I'm psyched for this and trying to gauge interest for how high a priority 'make this an accessible web tool' needs to be.
Reblogging to drag this project over here, this is killing my notes on main so I'm giving it its own URL. Follow over here for updates on the star system generator and only the star system generator, and not on my Star Wars bullshit.
Will go through and tag interested parties when things calm down below 100 notes an hour.
I think it's unfortunate that, throughout the Ciaphas Cain books & short stories, we never really see him interacting with one such gung-ho psychopathic Commissar. Sure, there are mentions of some, but they're either already dead or have no presence in the story otherwise.
Usually, the Commissars he interacts with are either less senior than him, or just go along with whatever he says because of his reputation.
I think it'd be really cool to see him absolutely lay down the law to one of these gung-ho psychopaths. A Commissar who's getting on in years, but has similar experience to Cain even if it was in a longer timeframe. The kinda Commissar who will absolutely refuse all notion of withdraw and vehemently dismiss anything but a suicidal Banzai charge and/or last stand as cowardice.
I'm not sure whether the Commissariat would approve of any given Commissar outright executing another one if they were unable to pull seniority on them. Beijie at least wanted to arrest Cain and bring him to tribunal alive first, but he was lower-ranked.
Anyway, all this to say that I think it'd make for a fun story element, and good payoff after a dozen-odd chapters where this psycho-Commissar causes absolutely nothing but trouble for Cain and his cohorts. For Cain to finally, toward the end of the story, say; "You're a psychopath and are no longer in charge here, I'm relieving you of duty effective immediately." and put a lasbolt through his face, much to the delight of every officer and trooper around.
There are, I'd say, three characters in Warhammer (across 40k and fantasy) that I would consider giving the One Ring to take it to Mordor to destroy it. There might be more, but these three are the main ones that come to mind.
At the bottom of the list is Castellan Garran Crowe, of the Grey Knight Purifiers. Though I'd probably say he's the least certain of the three, I think it is possible that he could resist the Ring's temptation through sheer force of will. His job s already similar--he guards the Black Blade of Antwyr, a powerful Chaos Sword that will corrupt you if you ever use it's power. If anyone could resist the One Ring's power through force of will, he probably could. Though, considering my own headcanon that Purifier Castellan is basically a sacrificial rank where your soul will be taken by the blade and the current castellan is just whoever can last the longest, maybe he's not as well suited to the task.
In the middle is Ciaphas Cain. Cain is just generally competent, and he's not particularly ambitious--the man just wants to live. Sure the Ring could grant him immense power, but that would just result in him being forced into more situations where he has to be the Hero of the Imperium, situations where he could very easily die a horrible, painful death, something he really wants to avoid.
My number one choice, though, is not from 40k, nor even 30k. For the number one choice, we go into the depths of Warhammer Fantasy (and AoS), to the one rat who truly is the greatest of them all, for the warhammer character most suited to destroying the One Ring is none other than the one, the only, Grey Seer Thanquol. Thanquol is ambitious, to the point where the rong would probably corrupt him within seconds of him even hearing about it, before he even lays eyes on it. Thanquol is malicious, and would all but certainly use it's power to further his own gains at the expense of all those around him. But, most importantly, Thanquol is an idiot. Whatever plans he makes using the Ring--and there would be plans and plans aplenty, would go wrong catastrophically. Over the course of his misadventures he would undoubtedly make his way to Mount Doom and, through his own pride and paranoia, and probably everyone else's attempts to stop him (though those would have a smaller contribution), the the Ring would find its way into the volcano, and finally be destroyed, for Sauron is not immune to collateral damage. Thanquol would be fine, though.
Jurgen could probably resist the Ring's influence. Being a Pariah and all. Though even if it could speak to him, he's hardly the most imaginative or ambitious of men.
I always forget the phrase "Blood for the Blood God" kinda escaped containment and that few know it's a quote from Warhammer about Khorne, because I saw a popular artist animate the post where a person questions "okay, but, why does the Blood God need blood? He's the Blood God, shouldn't he have enough of it already?" Because, if you're not a Warhammer nerd, this post makes sense, but if you are a Warhammer nerd and hear a person trying to rationalize a Chaos God... Yeah... It's a little cringy.
On the other note, I can easily picture a clueless incorruptible Guardsman or a T'au Fire Warrior wondering to themselves about this while fighting Khorne Berzerkers (maybe because they genuinely don't understand, maybe to provoke and rage bait the Berzerkers). And I just think this is hilarious. Didn't Cain canonically made fun of the war cry in one of his books, btw? I think this is a similar situation.
Like, Warhammer is FAR from being an unpopular franchise, but it's wild to me that a single phrase from it is more popular and widely known than the source itself which... is kinda wild for me to picture. Definitely a cultural impact.
No, see, I GET that they are trying to sound smart, witty and subversive. But in an attempt to sound smart or witty, they completely fail to consider that MAYBE the blood in question isn't meant to be taken literally.
Because in Khorne's case blood is rage, war, murder, honor, death. The things that Khorne is made of and what he as a God represents. He is not just a Blood God, he is a God of War and Honor and Murder and Rage. Things he promises to you if you give in to him, things he uses to corrupt you. Things that sustain him and strengthen his position in the Great Game. Even Technoblade (RIP) had a better understanding of the phrase, since he also used it as war cry, and he didn't even know what Warhammer is!
This is how Slaanesh fans feel with the whole sex thing, huh?
Hi noise marine fan here: the slaanesh fans absolutely feel that way about the sex thing, bc not only is that a massive and inaccurate oversimplification of slaanesh but also the ignorant like to interpret 'chaos demon of debauchery' > sex demon > SEXY demon, as in physically attractive to the interpreter
Ie the people who think 40k daemon primarch fulgrim should look like 'an aging rock star' and that everything slaaneshi should be conventionally (as understood by the normiest cishets) attractive
Which is another thing like this is EXCESS right its about seeking sensation to the point of peeling your skin off its not about 'being sexually active' like these assholes consider a perfectly normal orgy to be a thing that slaanesh worshippers would do for their god and that just says so much about the anti sex ideas of a certain demographic
Literally this. I've been saying this for years. Slannesh and their deamons find absolutely nothing about the conventional human form attractive. It's far too conservative for their tastes.
Slanneshi Psykers or Daemonettes MIGHT take the form of your greatest love/lust to entice you, but this is only temporary and certainly not their true/idealized forms.
Crab claws and snake tails seem particularly popular among most daemonettes, though.
Just a beaky boy with a light headache, probably a Lamenter (ownt...) or a Marine Malevolent (HAH, he probably deserved it), inspired by this vastly superior and AMAZING piece by a.shipwright on Instagram ! I Just love How The longsword Just sinks Into The Helmet like it's made out of butter 🧈
It's honestly really cute how often Amberley points-out the friendship (or at least the closest thing thereto) that LG. Zyvan holds for Ciaphas Cain. Ciaphas himself mentions on multiple occasions that Zyvan certainly couldn't have any relationships closer than "trusted colleague" within the ranks of the Imperial Guard.
So one must think Zyvan to be quite the lonely man, lonely at the top as they say, to hold Cain in such high regard as to go out of his way to maintain their friendship anytime they're in the same system together. Even if it's just a quick dinner or game of Regicide.
Quite naturally, many would suggest an underlying implication of homoeroticism. They can believe whatever they want, in my opinion.
Ciaphas Cain strikes me as the type of man to use an Ork's own logic against them. At least he doesn't consider it outright heresy that his aide knows how to read Orkish runes and even opts to drive Ork vehicles.
Anyway, if Cain knew the particulars of Ork color theory, then he'd totally be the type to use that. The lore of Orks and their psychic belief-manipulation is played pretty fast and loose at the best of times, and has changed a lot over the years, but I think it could make for a fun story element regardless.
Like "Orks believe red paint makes their hideous vehicles go faster..? Has this always been the case?" And uses that knowledge to assist greatly in evacuating civillians from an encroaching Ork warband. Attaining as much Orkish red paint he can get his hands on, he orders the evacuation shuttles to be completely covered. Since it's Orkish paint, the Orks can believe that the color is "Orky" enough, and the shuttles are faster.
Not super fast, but definitely given a boost. Enough that their pilots have a little trouble flying them.
I Need a better way to learn 40k lore. I cant stand watching videos to learn shit, pls let me fucking read and pls give me something that works w how I integrate shit
If you want advanced lore first, then you can't go wrong with the Necron/Eldar books. Almost everything in the setting can be traced back to either one of their groups, and they will throw around a shit ton of proper nouns in their writing.
NOTE: This will contain spoilers for Citizen Sleeper and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector. If you haven't played thse two (excellent) games, parts of this will not make sense to you.
I think the world of Citizen Sleeper is one of the first times I have seen the idea of the Bronze Age Collapse translated into a proper hard sci-fi setting (and not pseudo-archaeological bullshit).
The Late Bronze Age Collapse in our history involved the near-total dissolution of the major civilizations of the time, as people actively reverted to simpler ways of living in the moment while continuing progress on technological development via improving the metalworking of iron. The Hittites collapsed, as did the Mycenaeans, and the Assyrian and the Egyptian empires barely survived. It was the lead-in to what is now known as the Greek Dark Ages.
The games channel the feeling of living in a period of marked civilizational decline, where the world is notably materially worse than before and we are visibly, actively regressing in the eyes of almost every single person across the world, where the best technology available is the detritus of a galaxy-spanning dominant company that went bankrupt ~70 years ago and took with it all the institutional knowledge that mage large parts of society function, forcing people to build something new in its wake.
And despite this, the new generation of talented people who want to make technological and social progress are not blind to the evils of the company that died, or the ones that came after - they are actively, consciously, deciding to preserve the good and discard the bad when it comes to pieces of the past. There is a profound sense of hope that we, the people, will get through this, and what will emerge on the other side of this slump is a better, kinder, more just world.
Juni is the most explicit example of looking to the past with fondness, but we see traces of this elsewhere as well, such as Feng's idolization of Erlin's ideals and in Yu-Jin searching for the fraction drive to try and escape. And even Juni remains aware that the systems of the past did a lot of bad, that needs to be dealt with for things to get better.
More subtly, we see this in all the AI systems that were either sapient or on the verge of it, that were built by Solhiem and only barely kept in check by the governance structures that could not be kept up by any successor authority. Hunter became arguably sapient, Neovend/Navigator definitely did become sapient, and the Gardener probably still counts as sapient despite how much it has ascended beyond what normal people can comprehend with ease. The Overseer and Warden are clearer still, in that they are both remnants of the old world that need to be reshaped into something better.
All this combined gives this image of a world in decline, but one that can be fixed - yes, life is hard, and widespread systemic collapse makes it harder, but there will always be kind people willing to lend a hand, a ear, a few bills, a bit of food, and maybe if we can pay that kindness forward, that can make the difference.
It's a profoundly hopeful sentiment that I find myself clinging into in the dark times we find ourselves in.
A detail in Duty Calls that I think says a lot about Ciaphas Cain’s inner workings is that Cain says when he rides transport for the Astartes (I forgot the specific vehicle type), he always feels a bit self-conscious because the seats are too tall for him.
But, in earlier volumes Amberley noted Ciaphas was just under 2 metres tall (like volleyball player height for other sports nerds)! He knows he always sticks out like a sore thumb when he’s with normal humans! Yet he still can’t help but compare himself to the genetically-altered warriors specifically known for their sizes.
However, what works so well for Cain is that he never makes his self-doubt a problem for others nor does he express it in a destructive way. Most notably his anxiety seems to make him more attentive to others. It’s very sweet that he not only understands Jurgen better than others and accommodates the way he works, he also always keeps note of how Jurgen’s doing wherever they go to make sure he’s comfortable.
