#neves rambles

[nevesmose]

I don't know anywhere near enough about Sanguinius to metaphorically crochet him into a little finger puppet for my primarch fics but how about a little baseless speculation about him and Fulgrim? Please note that this is all based on how I view them in the universe of my silly little stories and is in no way a claim about knowing how they are in canon / lore.

I would probably a) portray Sanguinius as a genuinely sweet adorable cinnamon roll too precious for this world and b) have Fulgrim utterly loathe him because of this.

I tend to write Fulgrim as being a pleasant and charming person who, deep down, is about 50% a deeply broken overthinking ultra-perfectionist and 50% really jealous and vindictive. Please understand that this isn't me saying he's just evil and always was because it really really isn't. It's entirely possible for someone with these traits to function perfectly well in society and not be a bad person in any meaningful sense.

However.

One of his formative experiences as a primarch was almost losing his entire legion due to the Blight corrupted geneseed that almost wiped them out right at the start.

He had to build them up himself from nothing with the constant threat of annihilation both in the sense that "if I fuck up a war and lose however-many thousand Astartes in a terrible accident on the double-ended dildo planet I have no reserves or replacements" and also "every use of our geneseed is a gamble against the horrific mutation coming back and destroying us all over again". In that context the solution he turns to, and the only one that probably makes sense based on his prior experience on Chemos, is perfection.

Make no mistakes, ever, anywhere, because the cost of failure is incalculable, even if it means committing science-treason so you can purge all weakness from your own space dudes. It's not a desire for perfection based on arrogance, although he is of course immensely arrogant in a lot of ways, but one motivated deep down by fear.

People like to clown on Fulgrim based on Jaghatai's infamous "I hear you do strange things to your warriors 😂👌" sick burn, but to be honest, viewed from his context, what Fulgrim's doing is somewhat understandable.

That is if we assume that the Khan isn't just making a cheap insult but rather is implying he knows a lot more than would be preferable about Fabius dicking around with Astartes genetics in order to detect and eliminate carriers of the corrupted gene-seed so that the III Legion, one of the smallest of all numerically, can still survive. And then a lot of other things too because, like Fabius could believably say in one of the weirder McNeill stories, forbidden science is akin to the ancient Terran delicacy known as Pringles. Once you pop you can't stop.

With that in mind it feels like a lot of Fulgrim's post-heresy actions, not just the snake orgies but the general distance and lack of care for his sons, comes from revelling in just finally being free of that level of stress and pressure weighing down on him at all times. Even Perturabo doesn't withdraw from the Iron Warriors that much and he's a dick.

Anyway, back to pre-heresy days. He has all this going on and then in comes Sanguinius with his giant fucking angel wings who everyone loves and who turned his legion into One Direction (not really but you know... perceptions vs reality and no one in this setting actually communicates with one another since they'd probably have a lot in common regarding fears of being mutants etc)

It's the kind of thing that I think would feel like a dagger in the heart to someone like Fulgrim. Directly highlighting and literally embodying all of his fears about mutation and imperfection and yet somehow appearing to get away with it while he has to exercise constant control and do horrible things simply in order for his legion to exist.

So for that reason I think he would absolutely hate Sangy and do everything he could to undermine him.

"Oh no, brother! I've accidentally spilled this entire Big Gulp cup of bright red Tizcan wine all over your beautiful white wings, and only moments before you were due to make a speech to ten million people about how wonderful the Imperium is! Let me help you clean it up."

And then he pulls out a Looney Tunes sized bottle labelled Fabius's Finest Molt-O-Matic Guaranteed Feather Remover and starts spraying it on him.

[nevesmose]

WH40K and Berserk Oneshots & Completed Stories

Ongoing WH40K Projects:

#702963 Something is very wrong with Revelation City. (Ferrus/Fulgrim cyberpunk AU)

Set Fire To Us All treachery and toxicity among the mortal servants of the VIII Legion

New Blood Ferrus/Fulgrim modern vampire AU

Filled Requests ● Night Lords Lore Posts

[nevesmose]

I suppose I could think for just a tiny little bit, late at night when I have a really bad cold starting and can't get any sleep, about an NL/EC toxic yaoi story centring around the NLs staying the same trash pre and post heresy while the EC starts out as some kind of unattainable epitome of perfection in the eyes of our deeply messed up extremely poor self care and devastating inferiority complex possessing NL...

To the point that an intense obsessive rivalry develops that, viewed objectively, the EC may not even actually be aware exists although they end up learning quite a lot about each other because I'll need it to hurt them later. Like a sort of "oh ho ho good try my grotty little opossum sidekick I know your past traumas from your sickeningly inferior homeworld make things difficult for you" (glows with patrician beauty, ruffles NL's hair affectionately, gauntlet comes away covered in grease and broken glass) while the lost footage from Event Horizon plays in the NL's head as he wants so desperately to tear him open and curl up inside the resulting cavity like a big blue cat.

And then the post heresy part would just be me hitting every possible monkey's paw exact words you finally got what you wanted pain point I can think of. Like they encounter one another again and the EC is now DTFF (the extra F is for the extra fleshy protrusions) but it's like the dynamic between them is reversed and the same sweaty terrible taste in anime NL is the reasonable and competent one versus the debauched tentacle monster the EC has now become. And despite being so far gone the EC still remembers every single item of personal knowledge he learned about the NL and now has zero compunctions about using it to torment and manipulate him.

It would end with a big musical number tragedy. And its title will be a quote from some indie song from 2006 that only I remember. Purpose Built To Not Feel Guilt perhaps.

[nevesmose]

An understanding and reasoned contempt for one's neighbours, together with a fiercely unreasoning conviction of personal superiority, is not an uncommon phenomenon of the slum mind. [...] Perhaps there is, all the time, a subconscious rebellion against conditions which are outwardly taken for granted. And, as there is no escape from these conditions except by imagination, many a tenement dweller, particularly before the years have withered his hopes, likes to think, and does, in fact, believe that he has something in him - some special gift in mind or body - to make him different from his fellows. [...] In the face of all evidence to the contrary, he is still confident that the day will come when his superiority will compel recognition.

No Mean City (A. McArthur & H. Kingsley Long, 1935)

That post the other day about having all your teeth removed as a wedding present really got me to thinking. I feel like when I write my silly fanfictions about Nostramo I'm also airing out quite a bit of Scottish quasi-generational trauma.

Not the fun and interesting kind about centuries-long romantic feuds with Clan MacShagger but the kind of lasting, corrosive cognitive dissonance that comes from knowing intellectually that a place has a lot of severe shortcomings and that some people will instantly view you as less-than for having the background you do, while at the same time emotionally valuing it because despite all those things it's still yours, the culture and community and lifeways that made you who you are, and the resulting easily-bruised but hard-to-articulate pride and defensiveness that can come from that in a lot of ways.

Anyway, since I mentioned Clan MacShagger I feel obliged to post this Burnistoun sketch:

[nevesmose]

I did it, I talked about "The Things" by Peter Watts again

[nevesmose]

Can I ramble about vampires for a bit? There's a very good short story called One For The Road by Stephen King which is a sort of sequel to Salem's Lot, set several years later where it shows that following the events of the book the Lot has become a dilapidated ghost town that everyone in the local area is afraid of and knows to avoid.

and by "ghost town", haha, well. let's justr say. Their vampeanits

Without their leader the vampires don't really do anything, they just kind of exist from one day to the next and survive by hunting people who do happen to be unlucky or unaware enough to wander too close to town. Anyway the story is about two old guys in the next town over who encounter a man from New York whose car has broken down leaving his family stranded in the Lot...

"Mister," she said in a high, clear voice, as sweet as morning mist, "won't you help me find my mother? She's gone and I'm so cold—"

"Honey," I said, "honey, you better get in the truck. Your mother's—"

I broke off, and if there was ever a time in my life I was close to swooning, that was the moment. She was standing there, you see, but she was standing on top of the snow and there were no tracks, not in any direction.

I was reminded of this because I started thinking about Sylvania and the Vampire Counts in general. I really liked them in Warhammer Fantasy and maybe one day I'll try to figure out what their Age of Sigmar equivalents are, but... it's just not the same, ya know? Sylvania was what I liked. It was an interesting place to read about.

My favourite part was always the bits we'd find out about the humans who lived there and served the vampires because it's always interesting to think about their point of view and motivations and the weird codependent relationships they could form.

Like in the first Ulrika the Vampire book her mentor has a small group of human knights that are totally loyal to her and aware of what the deal is. What's their motivation? Are they all just simps blood-swains? I don't actually remember for them specifically because it's been a while since I read those books but, in a more general sense, it's an interesting question to ask.

I'm getting back into a vampires obsession just now anyway which will no doubt lead to me resuscitating that novel I've had on the go since 2015. But I could see my way clear to writing some related stuff on here/ao3 as well. Did you know there's a shocking lack of Vampire Griffith fics? (I might need to fix that sometime. No guarantees though.)

It just seems like if I file off some serial numbers a suitably inclined vampire could exist as the leader of a late medieval/renaissance era mercenary company whose inner circle are all inducted into The Terrible Secret forming a creepily obsessed cultlike atmosphere all centred around his endless desire for power. Wouldn't it be nifty if it was revealed that Vampfith has been doing this over and over for decades with an endlessly replaced cast of followers, failing every single time due to his own personal flaws that no amount of effort can fix? That would be tragic huh. 🤔

You know what, you deserve a reward for making it this far.

Six all-new vampire stories from masters of the genre, presented by BBC Cult

Ten thousand years ago the BBC used to cover various kinds of niche entertainment interests grouped under the Cult theme on its website - this for example was where Doctor Who used to be prior to the 2005 series. Anyway, vampires was one of them so here are some just about two decade old short stories.

[nevesmose]

Here's an RPG/story plot hook for you. From the Chronographia of Theophanes Confessor, describing events in 808 - 809 AD:

In  the  same  year,  while  the  army  of  the  Strymon  was  receiving  its pay,  the  Bulgarians  fell  upon  it  and  seized  1,100  lbs.  of  gold. They  slaughtered  many  men  together  with  their  strategos  and officers.  Many  garrison  commanders  of  the  other  themata  were present  and  all  of  them  perished  there.

Eleven hundred pounds of gold, Theophanes? That's crazy. That's just under 500 kilograms of gold. Gold is heavy, is what I'm getting at.

So let's put your RPG adventurers or protagonists or whoever in that situation. They've successfully defeated the forces of the evil empire (sorry Byzantium fans) and have come into possession of a whole army's worth of gold.

And then what?

You literally just finished a difficult fight to get it in the first place. People are wounded or dying and supplies are desperately low so you can't just stay put with your gold forever. Someone's going to need to go for help, but who? Who can you trust to actually come back instead of just taking some of it and leaving you behind? If you're the one to go, do you trust that the rest of the party will still be there when you get back?

It might be better to just take a bar each and leave the rest, but... it's an infinity of wealth just sitting there. Would you ever stop regretting not even trying to get all of it out somehow?

You can't move it yourselves so maybe you could go back to the nearest town and hire wagons or something but good luck keeping it a secret. Very soon the price of everything you need will have gone up by sheer coincidence to a minimum of one gold bar.

By the end of the week a whole shanty town has grown up around you and your gold. Eventually they're going to realise that there are far more of them than there are of you and the polite fiction of "trading" with you for your gold will come to an end.

So the question then becomes, do you wait to be attacked in the middle of the night or do you take action to protect yourselves from what you know is coming? You fought an army before. Killing a village's worth of commoners before they do the same to you is nothing in comparison.

The next day your party's mage, driven mad by the terror and guilt of what you did, starts trying to create some kind of gold-and-bone golem so that your riches will walk themselves out.

It doesn't work and with every day that passes in the stinking charnel you created, the half-made creature looks more and more like an unspeakable heathen god surrounded by its sacrifices.

The gold is still there.

[nevesmose]

This is just a fic writing ramble but I thought I'd play around with a height comparison since there'll be more "normies interacting with Astartes" soon in Set Fire To Us All.

Next chapter Misleir will just carry one under each arm and throw them as a special attack. Woe, blackmailed serial killer space pilots be upon ye.

Fun fact: I used average Scottish heights for Poleyn and Revila. Turns out we're the shortest UK nation. I guess it makes some sense because we have the least sunlight.

Ya know, I bet there's vicious gang wars for control of the Vitamin D supplements industry on Nostramo. Little chewable kids' vitamins with a chibi Night Haunter on the jar, etc.

I've also been feeling like I need to find an actor or something for Misleir to look like in order to really get a feel for him. This is weird for me because I'm more or less faceblind IRL so I don't tend to think about or describe faces in much detail but sometimes it just doesn't work without having an idea in place.

@krynnmeridia called him an entertaining asshat (agreed btw) so that's the vibe I'm going for. Hmm. Bear in mind any comparison would be a) Nostraman and b) beefed up into a Spess Mehren, but...

The man, the myth, the mischievious scamp himself, Iwan Rheon in his GoT/Misfits era. I just feel like Misleir isn't that old or highly ranked of a Night Lord because if he was, he wouldn't have to blackmail legion serfs to do his bidding. He'll get there though. Dishonored Heart voice: if he survives the Heresy, the Changer of Ways will claim his soul for eternity whether he knows it or not.

Feel free to berate me for my terrible taste.