Oh wait have I talked about my headcanon for the marvel time line involving vigilantes? Obviously this is all self indulgent headcanons and not involved in canon but anyways:

Technically speaking, all the mutants are first, but due to all the controversy and bias against them, people really don’t acknowledge them as being the first

Then Spidey is second, starting off as a teen in his homemade suit, but due to JJJ, he’s not even seen as a vigilante but as a menace

After that is the Fantastic Four, they’re very much in the public eye, so people start acknowledging those with powers, although it depends on how you define “vigilante”

Then after all that is when other vigilantes and established heroes come out of the woodwork

I just like it this way because I like the confusion it’d have with Spidey’s age and stuff, and because Johnny would try to establish himself as the “first” and it’d make Peter salty to no end, but also it makes sense to me for the mutants part about them always being first and people just not acknowledging them

(I didn’t include Captain America or the Black Panther as I definitely don’t think they count as “vigilantes” but rather superheroes in a legal sense)

40k Factions Headcanons Part 2

Right, here’s part 2 of what might be a long running series I’m mostly writing because I want to get these ideas out of my head so I never have to think about them again.

Sisters of Battle

The Sisters are probably my favorite faction in all of 40k. Fanatical power-armoured catholic space nuns wielding flamethrowers and rocket-firing submachine guns really encapsulate the feel of 40k. The fact that they haven’t received a real update in two decades makes me sad. SO here’s how I’d redesign them if I woke up one morning and suddenly found myself in charge of GW’s intellectual property: Crunch-wise there’s quite a few changes I’d make, including the Faith system, but a lot of them are really minor. I’d give Sisters units the Faithful special rule, which gives them the Shield of Faith invulnerable save and generates a Faith point at the start of each turn. Sisters can spend Faith points to either perform Acts of Faith (which buffs units) or to “dispel” hostile psyker powers. Because more units = more Faith powers, it means the Faith system will scale with the size of the army, something Faith systems have traditionally struggled with. I decided to go unit-by-unit for this analysis, explaining the changes I’d make to each one, because a lot of the changes where fairly intricate HQ Canoness with a possible Celestian bodyguard - Celestians all get storm bolters, canoness gives a “strategy buff” (An extra command point?) Priest with a possible Crusader Bodyguard - Priest gives a “morale/faith” buff compared to the canoness, possibly generating d3 faith pointsinstead of just one. Crusaders are Crusaders, one or two can take flamers/meltas/stormbolters. No plasmaguns for the priests, the sisters should be about the faith and fire. Elites Arco-Flagellants - a Fearless unit of crazy naked dudes. They throwout 2d3 Str 4 attacks each and have toughness 4 and feel no pain, but they aren’t Faithful (they aren’t believers, its why they’re here, they’re just raging on Holy Cocaine and Blessed Steroids). Repentia - Another Fearless unit of mostly naked people frothing at the mouth, tearing at their enemies and taking up an Elite slot, bThese guys need a few things to differentiate them from the Flagellants. First of all they have big girl eviscerators (instead of the nerfed versions they have now) making them effective against a different kind of enemy to the horde-killing Flagellants. They have two attacks each so they can dish out the hurt, but they’re only toughness three with no armour besides Shield of Faith. I’d consider including an Act of Faith that increases Shield of Faith to 4+ for a phase/turn, just to give them a better chance of surviving until they can actually kill something. I don’t wanna give them feel no pain, because it makes them too similar to Arco-Flagellants. We want our units to be diverse and interesting after all. Troops Sisters of Battle - 5 to 15 strong, able to take two special weapons for each five Sisters in the Squad. Flamer/Meltagun/Stormbolter, but no heavy weapons. This is to help keep them mobile and aggressive. Faithful Mob - a weak but Fearless close-combat tarpit, lead by a lay preacher. Gets around the Decree Passive because the Ministorum isn’t technically keeping them under arms. If some Lay Preacher, totally unaffiliated with the official Adeptus Ministorum, gathers a crowd of Ordinary Pious Imperial Citizens and inspires them to march to the battlefield in order to take the fate of their planet into their own hands and smite the Foul Enemies of the Most Holy Emperor of Mankind, its not really breaking the Degree Passive if the Sisters point them in the right direction, now is it? Having these guys as troops also serves to show how influential the Cult of the Emperor is in the lives of everyday imperial citizens and how fanatical those citizens tend to be. Transports Rhino - As standard. Its not broken so there’s no need to fix it. Although I would make the Rhino is the heavier armoured of the typical imperial Metal Bawxes, when compared to the IG’s Chimera. Can carry up to twelve people, can be upgraded to be Faithful with Laud Hailers, can take a pintle-mounted flamer. Immolator - As they are. BEHOLD! THE IMMOLATOR! PURGATION MANIFEST! Repressor - Similar to a rhino, but lighter armoured and open topped in exchange for firing ports. These things have been around forever, there’s no excuse for why they’ve remained forge world only for so long. Fast Attack Death Cult Assassins - infiltrating infantry, placed here so the Elite section isn’t so crowded. I wouldn’t necessarily give them power swords, we have enough close combat ass-kickers in this force with the Flagellants, the Repentia and the Crusaders. Maybe swap them out for some kind of short-range gun. Shotguns maybe? Seraphim - as they are. these girls are cool. Dominions - similar to Sisters of Battle, but they have the ability to outflank. I’d want to differentiate them from the normal sisters more than “they have outflank and more special weapons”, so I’d give them a smaller unit size and less amour and say they have to take an immolator or repressor to outflank in. Heavy Support Retributors - Sisters with heavy weapons. Nuff said. May not be able to take a repressor, because that may be too broken. Penitent Engines - Random attacks like the Arco-Flagellants, but they don’t die if they roll max attacks. More lightly armoured than dreadnaughts but cheaper, meant to be taken in squads of two or three. The pilots are surgically connected to their machines, as they are never meant to be removed. Only in Death Does Duty End. Exorcist - shoots a barrage of four long-ranged missiles, each hit at strength 6 AP-3 and causing d3 hits. With all your melta guns you don’t really need d6 Krak missiles, and although this might be too “middle ground” its at least different. Super Heavy Living Saint - a generic version of Saint Celestine. Can fly and smite people with a giant flaming holy sword, essentially an Imperial Demon Prince. VERY hard to kill. She can be healed using faith points, one wound per Faith point expended. She has 6 wounds and a 3+ Invulnerable save, although she’s only toughness 3. Inquisitor - these guys aren’t the sneaky, investigative Inquisitors, oh no. They’re the Faith and Fire Inquisitors who raise armies of the faithful to purge entire planets, turning the skies black with the smoke from millions of pyres. They’re in the Super Heavy section instead of the HQ or Elite section because they have the ability to call down orbital barrages, which are devastating and can strike multiple units in one turn. It also gives them more “presence”, sticking them in the Super Heavy slot shows that these guys are a big deal in-game. In terms of their play-style, the Sisters tend towards a very aggressive mechanised force, although you can run them as a priest leading a vast horde of the faithful. I left Heavy Weapons off the normal Sisters squads to encourage close range, objective-seizing firefights. Their playstyle mirrors that of the Tau, in a way. They’re a mostly mechanised force, but while the Tau prefer to hang back and fight their enemies at a safe distance the Sisters want to rush in to a range where their bolters and flamers are more effective. Despite this, they aren’t meant to be a “close combat” army, there’s a reason the only good close combat units are Elite choices. Pushing so close to the enemy while depending on ranged combat makes them a high risk/high reward army, which suits them thematically. Sisters aren’t “safe”. They’re the DOOM soundtrack if it had a hymnal choir, they’re Faith and Fire, they’re here to rush across the table and smite the enemies of Humanity with Great Anger and Righteous Fury. Fluff-wise, I’d have there be more sisters. Like, A LOT more. I’d change them from being one of the minor factions to being a galaxy-wide fighting force. The Adeptus Ministorum is really pushing the Decree Passive with this, but the Inquisition doesn’t clamp down on them because large armies of powered armoured fanatics are actually very useful in the 41st Millenium, especially when you need to call up Righteous Soldiers of the Emperor to smite some deserving heretics. In a very real way they’re “budget space marines”, which isn’t a bad thing considering the Imperium’s current military situation. They have the powered armour and the fire power, but there’s enough of them that they’re useful in a defensive capacity and armies more of them can be raised up relatively quickly. They aren’t genetically enhanced like their big brothers, but they are enhanced in every other way imaginable while still remaining human - a high-protein diet since childhood, grueling physical training, steroids, etc.Thematically, they represent the religiosity and fanaticism of the modern Imperium. Faith and Fire. Gigantic techno-cathedrals full off countless faithful, their voices united in ear-blistering hymns. Violent redemptionists leading mobs of normal citizens to attack vagrants and mutants. This is the side of the Imperium represented by the Sisters and their followers.Also, there are trans sisters.p.s. I realise there’s a lot of ableism involved in this, what with the whole “purge mutants in the name of the emperor” thing. I’d acknowledge this in-universe: The Imperium AREN’T good guys, especially not in the new version of 40k I’m making. They’re is a brutal fascist empire, where the nobility live lives of unimaginable extravagance on beautiful garden worlds or in shining cities above the clouds, while the average imperial citizen works 16 hours a day in a dangerous manufactorum and dies of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 29. The leaders of the Imperium don’t value any part of humanity that doesn’t benefit them, and they go to extreme lengths to monopolise all of their subjects’ waking hours - time a worker spends doing things they enjoy is time the Imperium doesn’t benefit from after all. Heresy Grows From Idleness, from workers who waste their time doing things for themselves instead of working to strengthen the Imperium or from workers who stop and ask themselves WHY they have to work 16 hours a day in a manufactorum seemingly designed to maim them. A disabled human who couldn’t work, who was incapable of producing for the imperium, would be demonised for this reason. Not only are they not useful to the Imperium, they also risk laying bare its greatest hypocrisies. The harshness of life under the Imperium is why rebellion is so tempting, and why the Forces of Chaos find it so easy to recruit new soldiers. The Imperium are NOT the good guys, and the fact that Games Workshop have forgotten this is one of the worst parts of modern 40k.So yeah. There’s my headcanon for the Sisters of Battle in 40k. They’re my favorite faction, so much so that when Raging Heroes releases enough of their Sisters range I’m going to collect an army of them for 8th (they’re going to be an army of disabled IG vets who use their power armour as mobility devices and fight to protect fringe worlds). I was going to do my headcanon/redesign for the Guard in this post too, but this post took two hours to write so I’m going to hold off and do that another day. Tell me what you think, if you actually managed to read through all this.

[04>: you up?]

[> Hng. Bad time. Not like it will ever be a good time again, right? 😎>04: am i ever]

[04: we may never know. what do you have in stock for cat toys and adjacent?]

[😎>04: aw shit i sorry i spaced out for 😎: two hours 😎: uh havent been in my warehouse in a hot minute 😎: got a bunch there like mostly hello kitten stuff bc people like a good bit of illegal brands 😎: also a lot of other random stuff tho most of it is reserved for nepeta]

[04: i'm not gonna lie i'm just looking for gifts for nep.]

[😎: well fuck me cant have you gift her anything better than i do 😎: but turns out taking some unannouced offtime kinda made a dent into my sales soo i guess i can have you look around 😎: not like im desperate or anything]

[04: sweetheart you know i can have your back if your wallet's low, right?] [04: i'll be outside in a bit.]

😎[: like you dont already do > Well fuck you. Gdi.]

Clover 01/15/2019

> Your narrator's too tired to do this all fancy. You are There.

Dave 01/16/2019

> Sure alright, you're there too, totally not a day later. Where's the meeting? At the office or before your house? > Anyway, shit. You've already been nervous before, but actually seeing the green lil guy now fills you with so much anxiety and pain.

"Sup."

Clover 01/16/2019

> House ig?? "'Ey shadesy. You ready to show me 'round?"

Dave 01/16/2019

> Oh look, time to be even more nervous. You excused yourself from your bros because, you know, you actually got a business to run. Hope none of them are seeing you with Clover. "Sure. Hop on. I'd say if I had a car. You up for a walk?" > God please say he brought a car.(edited)

Clover 01/16/2019

"I can call a tax if you're out of shape," your tone is playful, if only because you're shoving your distress over literally everything deep deep down.

Dave 01/17/2019

"Yeah lets go with that, sure, that works." Meanwhile you'd absolutely love to repress all that feels bad you kinda stopped doing that when you got a moirail w*ho's dead now and can't really help you with all these terrible feelings and trauma and it's all because of these green fucks and-- You're incredibly uncomfortable and not nearly as good of an actor as pretty much everyone else in this city.

Clover 01/17/2019

Your mouth parts a bit as if you're going to say something, but you cut yourself off, breathing in and rubbing your face as you let out a sigh. As usual, a cab happens to drive by as soon as you need one, and you flag it down.

Dave 01/17/2019

Of course he immediately manages to get a cab. Actually a bit of a relief because you wouldn't wanna stand around here with him for another couple minutes. "So hey uh, real nice of you to get some stuff to treat Nep" you say as you get into the car, because you'd rather ramble down some nonsense than to suffer in awkward silence. "Been wanting to get her some stuff too but I'd been a bit hard to find some fitting free days to get together." First there was the paralysis thing, now this.. You know she's been kinda affected by this too, but you've honestly not been in the right headspace to worry about that too.

Clover 01/17/2019

Step one: don't overshare with the already distressed dealer. Just be chill. "Yeah," you say, leaning on the car door when you get settled inside, "she ain't been doin' too great, and she's th' last person to deserve that, bein' what an angel she is. None of us really have, but....think she's been hit deepest. Gotta do what I can to help, you know?" Instructions unclear, got dick caught in he brought it up first it's not your fault.

Dave 01/17/2019

You're quiet for longer than is usual for you. I mean you're pretty quiet these days either way, but considering you've just been rambling off, the pause is very notable. It's just. A lot to process. You love Nepeta a lot and god she's the last one you want to also be affected by this, but. 'Hit the deepest'. Yeah. Right. Hn. "'s cool. You.. got anything specific in mind? Like, there's a whole ton of plush and brand and off-brand jewelry and weird ass figurines, or are you just gonna be flooding her whole room in this stuff."

Clover 01/21/2019

"Basically just give me everything I can get, probably?"

Dave 01/21/2019

"Yyyeah alright I can work with that I guess." This is a business deal, no more and no less. Focus on that, Dave.

Clover 01/21/2019

"...You're rather lucky, you know." > You lean on the car door, and the rest is muttered under your breath, easily dismissed. "To be unaffiliated. We talked about the pain that it brings to be with both, what it feels like, how deep in hell you can get- but. When this kind of thing happens, you still pretty much answer to nobody and everybody. You still have a choice who you talk to, who you trust, who you work with. I wish I had that."

Dave 01/21/2019

You, likewise, lean against the door and look out the window. God, what wouldn't you give to just space out for a bit just now, but no, you're listening attentively, and give a dry and voiceless laugh in response. "Right, so lucky I am. Watching whatever friends I got left hurt and kill each other while I gotta play good ol Switzerland or else I'd be like, choosing sides, and stuff. But at least I can do deals with either side, get that good cash for all this junk. And hey, if I play nice enough, no one's out to hurt me, probably, minus a bit of extortion here or there yeah alright. Least I can chose not to trust anyone. Just the same old shit everyday."

Clover 01/23/2019

"Mmmm yeah 's fair enough, isn't it. Grass and greenness and all that noise, aye."

Dave 01/23/2019

You hold your breath for a moment, so many thoughts running wild in your head, but none that are good enough as an answer. You eventually let out a long drawn sigh. "Yeahh. It's like everywhere sucks." Almost as if a few assholes in this city fuck it over for everyone. Fortunately it shouldn't be too far to your office anymore.

Clover 01/23/2019

"Everywhere does suck, that's basically just Midnight City summarized." A soft huff through your nose. "It's all we can do to try to find gems in the dirt, I guess."

Dave 01/23/2019

"Ain't that the truth." You find yourself clutching your lower arm, the spot with the tattoos. Despite all... there's still some people you care about and that make you happy. They're making it worth it all.

Clover 01/23/2019

You hop out of the taxi and pull Dave's side open, humming to yourself as you offer to help him out.

Dave 01/23/2019

Not like you need help, but hey uh, if he insists. The hum reminds you to take a moment before getting out to put yourself back into a better mindset. "Alright, hope you got a van ready cause there's a lot of shit to pick up. Also bags are 10 cents each."

Clover 01/23/2019

"Can get one. I can also have 'em bring my own bags."

January 24, 2019

Dave 01/24/2019

"Eco-minded, I like that. Don't need to have plastic bags pollute the river any more."

Clover 01/24/2019

"That river gets anymore polluted and it's gonna start producing backstories for comic mutants."

Dave 01/24/2019

"Some might think it already does. Would make a good enough cover story at least."

Clover 01/24/2019

"Maybe I'll use that sometime."

January 25, 2019

Dave 01/25/2019

"I'm expecting royalties for the idea."

Clover 01/25/2019

"Your royalties are me coming to you as often as I do."

Dave 01/25/2019

"That's fair." > Well, as you talk, you're on your way inside into your stre, skipping the office room and heading right up and down some stairs into a room designated as the storage for all kinds of cutesy and mostly harmless merchandise, filled to the brim with plushies, toys, accessories of all brand and no-name variety. "Knock yourself out I guess."

Clover 01/26/2019

> Ehh you mostly just pick out a bunch of stuff and get someone to get it back to the manor with you. Not really much of note left to be had here.

Dave 01/26/2019

> Cool cool. Hella good and awkward business transaction.