Literally That Scene From Renegades: Harrowmaster

If I ever write a book, it's going to be half mad social ranting and half epic anime battles.

You see, AO3 has this wonderful thing where, if you scroll down, below the list of tags to include, you can set a list of tags to exclude.

"i'm tired of seeing-" use your filters.

"but there was an icky ship-!" use your filters.

"i don't like that tag-" use your filters.

don't like what you're seeing? use. your. filters.

Damn, AI *is* getting smarter!

World's most divorced man becomes first human to be alienated from both biological and digital children.

I feel like Death Guard would be the type to cuddle a lot, given Nurgle's temperament. I'm fairly sure I heard something about how certain more durable suits of terminator armor are especially coveted because they allow the marines to cuddle the beasts of Nurgle for longer.

Um hi! Hope you're doing well. I love your stories of astartes cuddle piles. I saw in your bio that requests were open. Would it be possible to see more chaos space marines cuddling? I find the idea so contradictory and it's fascinating. Hope you have a good day!

Space Marine Cuddle Pile - Part 5: CSM Edition

Previous - Writing Master post

Cultists wondering why a section of the walkway is void of anyone and no one will walk through it. They barely take one step in and are met with hissing. They immediately leave to find another path. Hidden in a small recess, like sardines in a can or a clown car, man Nightlords are crammed together. Nestled into each other's embraces, gentle touches, no talking. They only need each other and their company.

The only two World Eaters in a warband have walked past each other at least three times now. They just growl and nod at each other. On the fourth time, they lunge at one another as if to attack. They don't as they embrace each other and crouch on the ground. Fuming and patting each other's backs. It's doing what it needs to.

A group of word bearers cuddle pile is like a stereotypical sleepover. Talking about what daemon they'd like to possess them. Squealing over heretical scripture they've written for their primarch or one of the ruinous powers. Mapping out new tattoos of sermons on each other's skin. Face masks to prevent their tattoos from being destroyed. The blood of sacrifices painted on toenails to help with rituals. Having a seance or games of contacting the dead. Don't forget the pillow fights.

Black legion marines are angry at a pitiful defeat. They should have been better. They lost so many supplies. They only managed to pick up a random and very cold iron warrior they didn't like much. He didn't like them either, and that was fine. They start somewhat of a pile, but it doesn't feel like it should. It's not very comforting. Suddenly, the Iron Warrior is there. He says nothing as he climbs into the pile and holds marines smaller than him. A calm grows over them..

Deathguard cuddle piles are hard to spot. Is it a regular pile of nurglings? Or is there a space marine cuddle pile hiding underneath? Grandfather Nurgle loves this new aspect the marines have brought. What better way to share his gifts than being close to those you love? He holds Mortarion like a baby when he's upset.

A Drukhari is screaming to be released from this vile torture and that these mon keigh are ruthless, horrid, and crazed. This is the most cruel and terrible thing yet. The Emperor's Children just purr, content. They will not let him out of the cuddle pile. He's like a fleshy sock monkey, and he was cold!

Thousand Son sorcerers grabbing those affected by the rubric for a cuddle pile. Once in them, their affected breatheren go limp like a ragdoll or stiff like a doll. There's still a bond within those shells of armor. Most thousand sons will also not admit to still sleeping with a stuffy or toy at night. After nearly ten milennia, they have become tattered or broken. A battle brother will do instead.

You may think that now it's time for the Alpha Legion cuddle pile. You already got it. There's been at least one in each pile thus far. Yes, it was Alpharius.

It's a case of something I've actually seen in myself, where they're so set in their ways and beliefs that the idea of "someone", as in, a distant unknown figure, would disagree with them. Sure, they might know a person who does, but that's a *That Person* thing, they only do it because they're "weird". They see something they like, and to them of *course* it agrees with them, because to them, it has no reason not to.

They're like the Emperor. They're so sure that they're right that they can't comprehend some "sane, informed, and reasonable" person disagreeing with them.

So apparently on twitter there's a whole thing going on where anti-woke Warhammer fans performatively stormed out by declaring that they were going to play the horror-themed WWI wargame Trench Crusade instead, only to be mass-banned from its discord because the moderators didn't want a bunch of paleocon trolls stinking up the place.

The thing that blows my mind isn't just that they thought the thoroughly subversive Trench Crusade was positive Christian rep, but that they thought Warhammer 40,000 was. The setting where the messiah is explicitly dead and rotting and was an anti-religion crusader in life. Meanwhile Warhammer Fantasy's Sigmar is much more Thor than Jesus. A lot of conservative evangelicals and tradcaths seem to fall into liking straight up pagan gods if they have a sufficiently macho and traditionalist (western European) aesthetic.

Honestly, this is beyond media illiteracy, it's just straight-up blindness. Obliviousness beyond even the people who think Robocop and Starship Troopers are gung-ho pro-American action movies. Now I'm left to wonder how many fans of the Blasphemous game series are passionate reactionary Christians who get the happy feelings from the aesthetics and totally ignore the story and themes.

Still, I am glad to have learned about Trench Crusade through this, looks like a cool game. Aesthetic and themes kind of remind me of the Trench Foot/Countrycide mod for Doom (which, granted, started off as a Warhammer 40K mod...).

Fulgrim's fall wasn't from the Imperium to Chaos.

It was from "It is your duty to raise them up, as high as they will go. Anything less is not worthy of you" to "What we have won is already being given away to imperfect mortals who will waste the glories we won for them".

Oh definitely. He worked 12-hour shifts in a factory growing up. He's made sure his personal spaces are places where he can just flop down anywhere. You could be in fully sealed power armor, but the minute you sit down on one of those sofas, you're going to be fast asleep and get the best rest you've gotten in years.

I headcannon Fulgrim to have an insanely comfortable room, with plush sofas and all that. Like if you make the mistake of sitting down in his quarters for even a few seconds you WILL fall asleep, that happened to several of his brothers repeatedly, they sat down on a sofa and emerged eight hours later like a cat from a weighted blanket.

ferrus especially hates it when that happens.

Thought Experiment: Gender is complicated

Take a baby with one gendered set of genitalia (ISO standard male or ISO standard female, either one works), and raise them as the opposite gender. (e.g. raise the ISO standard male as a girl or the ISO standard female as a boy)

If they grow up and never question the gender you assigned them (they may question why they are different from other kids, but won't think about if they are the other gender any more than an average cis person would), are they trans?

If they grow up, wonder for a time if they are the opposite gender, but ultimately conclude that the gender you raised them as is correct, are they trans?

If they grow up, wonder for the time if they are the opposite gender, and ultimately conclude that they are the other gender, are they trans?

I'm not writing this with an intended "correct answer" in mind; I'm not entirely sure myself. Being cis (and not raised as a different gender like the person in the thought experiment), I'm not sure if I'm the right person to give the correct answer. I just want to share something I've been thinking about.

I think I know what my answer is, but I'm not going to claim it's the single correct answer.

AO3 has a wonderfully built tag system, in my opinion. If you don't want to see something in a search, you can literally just scroll down and edit the "exclude" tags.

Honestly the tags is one of the biggest reasons why I prefer it over FF.net. You can often get an idea of what's in a story beyond just the summary.

Being a pro censorship ao3 user is so insanely cringe. Either use the (incredibly effective and well designed) filtering system to avoid seeing the shit you don't like or stop complaining. Leave the pro censorship rhetoric to Wattpad or smth