In the grim dark future of the 41st millennium, a guardsman writes, with just a small amount of frustration, of the many foolish deaths that have claimed others, in the hopes that future generations will avoid the same downfalls. He isn't holding his breath.
A Warhammer 40,000 fanfic by errtheking. Can be read on Space Battles
and FanFiction.net.
Examples:
- Accidental Suicide: Considering that the whole premise is about characters being Too Dumb to Live, there's at least one example on every page, on average.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Entry 18 has someone die of poisonous meat due to the lack of this, when others around take such immunity for granted.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Many entries are a result of this.
- An Arm and a Leg: The narrator himself loses a foot to a Necron gauss flayer, part of his nose to a melta bomb that someone was juggling, an eye when he beat a Catachan jungle fighter at cards, and a testicle from when he insulted an Ork warboss and got kicked where it hurts the most.
- Anti-Hero: The narrator isn't the nicest of people, having committed several acts of fragging and maintains quite a few of the Imperium's more xenophobic attitudes without question. But he can generally be trusted to keep those mindsets in check when the situation calls for it and tends to do the right thing.
- Asshole Victim: Several entries involve horrible people suffering horrible deaths.
- Ass Shove: Implied to be what the Imperial Fists will do to people who make fun of their chapter's name.
- Badass Family: The narrator is a veteran in the Imperial Guard. His wife, an IG heavy weapons expert, has several cybernetic implants which, among other things, make her strong enough to break a human spine with only two fingers. His sister is a Sister of Battle. His daughter is a psyker. And his daughter-in-law is a gunslinger from Gunmetal City.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Used multiple times, but at least one standout example is when the narrator unexpectedly steps in to stop a lynching, but only because:"They were using utterly shit rope, and I wasn't doing this twice."
- Better to Die than Be Killed: This is often true in the 40k 'verse, with many factions and enemies all too willing and eager to inflict a Fate Worse than Death on their victims - and several entries admit as much, but entry 238 points out why it's important not to jump the gun to this.
- Berserk Button: The author's buttons include, but are not limited to: Threatening his family, implying his relationship with his sister is not so platonic, sexual slavery, and bad-mouthing the Lamenters.
- BFG: It's Warhammer 40K, of course there's gonna be big guns.
- A more specific example being the Volcano Cannon on the Shadowsword super-heavy mech-hunter, capable of severing a Titan's limbs in a single shot.
- Bittersweet Ending: The protagonist takes out the Chaos Lord and a good chunk of her forces in an epic trap... with himself as the living bait, setting it off in person. He doesn't make it out, but he makes damn sure his family does.
- Black Comedy: A good bit of the premise.
- Bling of War: Generally discouraged by the narrator because it makes you stand out on the battlefield, thus making you a more appealing target... plus, it's a real pain in the butt to remove those encrusted gems so no one would suspect the weapon was looted.
- Butt-Monkey: The in-universe author likes to shit on anyone and everyone he thinks is stupid, but he explicitly particularly enjoys picking on nobles - calling them his "favorite whipping boys" at one point, for doing "so much dumb shit" - and also seems to particularly like taking shots at the Dark Eldar and inept Chaos cultists (though he has a healthy fear of and respect for the power of actual daemons, to say nothing of his petrifying fear of the Chaos Lord).Narrator: Don't be a Dark Eldar, guys.
- Combat Pragmatist: The main character definitely counts, and many entries tacitly encourage this attitude, but it's the explicit theme of entry 402, Fuck Fighting Fair.
- Creator Breakdown: Happens in-universe, over his fears of confronting the Chaos Lord again, leading to the later-redacted Entry 420, where he basically calls the whole universe a "Shaggy Dog" Story. He recovers enough to go out in a blaze of glory.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The narrator is a firm believer that all Eldar (with exceptions for the Harlequins) are this and that any alliance with them is doomed to fall apart the second interests no longer align. That said he also insists that just because any Eldar alliance is doomed to fail, that doesn't mean the guard should go ahead and be the ones to break it while a mutual threat is still out there.
- Death Seeker: The Death Korps of Krieg are repeatedly cited as examples of this by the narrator. They're known for marching fearlessly into battle, heedless of their own survival, (brainwashed into) seeking to "atone" for past rebellion and "heresy". Ironically, soldiers of the Death Korps tend not to die stupidly, as they prioritize making their lives (and deaths) count for something.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Many, many entries have hints of this; a lampshadedly edgy version is how a Dark Eldar dies in Entry 391 (attempting to engage in some Bestiality Is Depraved while being surrounded by soldiers rather than making any practical attempt to escape).
- Do Wrong, Right: Plenty of this
- Entry #142 details this. If you must do a revenge killing, don't cover it up stupidly. Several guardsmen were executed for their revenge murders because they couldn't forge credible suicide notes, couldn't make the victim look like she fell off a cliff (due to said "cliff" being a mere 5-foot drop), or attempted assassination via grot.
- Entry #341: Don't frag officers in the middle of a raging firefight against orks, or if there are too many witnesses, or if the officer really doesn't deserve to get fragged in the first place.
- Dope Slap: After the guy in 181 got a bayonet in his balls after trying to pull a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man on a grieving widow, the narrator attempts to do the same to the guy. The narrator wasn't expecting it to work, he just wanted to hit the guy.
- Drugs Are Bad: Well, Dark Eldar drugs at least. The narrator himself is a smoker.
- The Enemy Weapons Are Better: Played straight with T'au and Eldar weapons, though getting caught with them will result in summary execution, and ammo is hard to find unless you're fighting those specific enemies. Averted with Chaos and Ork weaponry. The former due to usually being possessed by a daemon, which will then attempted to possess, corrupt, and/or kill the user. The latter because they're stupidly heavy, don't work as well in the hands of non-Orks, and make the user a more appealing target for Orks.
- Also averted with Necron weaponry. It is incredibly powerful, but good luck figuring out how to use it. One case the narrator mentions ends with the user's brains on the ceiling, their large intestine all over the floor, and their gallbladder in the narrator's good eye.
- Entertainingly Wrong: The narrator discussing Ciaphas Cain, defending his reputation against the "rumors" of his cowardice and implying Amberley Vail might kill people over them."Ha! Ha! Hahahaha! I'd drop this one if I were you, guys. His girlfriend is an Inquisitor."
- Faustian Rebellion: Advised against in Entry 6, which points out that if the highly superhuman Primarchs couldn't successfully accomplish this, the odds of an arrogant ordinary human successfully doing so are impossibly unlikely.
- Fling a Light into the Future: The last chapter of the in-universe book ends up as this, as it's left in the keeping of his family, who are able to escape his epic last act.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Violently and painfully deconstructed in Entry 181 by both the narrator and the anecdote, as the idiot of the entry is the proud recipient of a sharp Groin Attack for attempting this on a grieving widow. The narrator then gives the technique a second chance... on said Groin Attack victim. It doesn't work any better for calming them down.
- General Failure: The narrator is firmly of the opinion Chenkov is this, calling him out by name multiple times and lamenting being unable to write his entry due to his continued survival, and calls out several more people over the course of his list.
- Groin Attack: Pretty much implied to have happened to a guardsman when, as payback for his slain brothers-in-arms, he decided to urinate on a downed Necron whose self-repair systems soon kicked in.
- "89: Never accuse a Warboss of having no balls:...I was young. Very young. He kicked me...one of them popped. I was one of the lucky ones too."
- A guardsman tried calming down a fellow guardsman who just saw their husband get disintegrated by slapping them... got a bayonet in their balls as a result.
- Heroic Sacrifice: How the narrator finally dies, and ends up writing his own entry as predicted, as entry 500 (though the actual stupid death is the Chaos Lord). Aside from this climactic one, several other entries discuss how to do them right, and failed attempts at them, such as:
- 136: Using anti-plant grenades against Tyranids is... less than effective.
- 156: An aircraft's ordnance is also generally more effective than said aircraft's use as a battering ram, especially when it's fully loaded - and even more so if you can't even get it on target.
- 385: Blowing yourself up to end a Chaos Space Marine is the right way to do it. Misestimating your grenades' fuses and not making it to the enemy lines in the first place? Not so much.
- Hope Springs Eternal: In the form of the Indomitus Crusade as well as the Chaos Lord's death, and on a more personal level, the protagonist's daughter beginning to write a new in-universe book, explicitly named as a new beginning: "Surviving in the Hell of the 42nd Millennium".
- Human Resources: The practice of the Imperium converting the recently deceased into rations is often referenced, with fasting being recommended as a way of avoiding them.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Never spin loaded guns around your fingers. One guardsman and his girlfriend die because the former spun their pistols round his fingers by the pistols' trigger guards. Not surprisingly, this ended with the two lovers getting shot in the face, as it appears the safety catches were off.
- Impractically Fancy Outfit: Heavily discouraged by the narrator, after an experience with a regiment with collars so high they managed to get outflanked by Orks. Orks that weren't Kommandos.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The explosive used in Entry 10 is apparently an example, at least enough so to beep loudly before detonation. One wonders why the Eldar would use such a bomb, unless the narrator is embellishing here...
- Juggling Dangerously: The very first entry is about how juggling grenades is a bad idea, not just for the juggler but for any one near him. The narrator himself lost part of his nose because a drunken Catachan tried this with a melta bomb.
- Kick the Dog: The varyingly direct cause of many mentioned idiots' deaths, such as, again, the Dark Eldar from 391.
- Kill It with Fire: Very much a thing for dealing with plenty of problems (especially tyranids and haunted houses), but only if done correctly. Plus, the narrator states that you shouldn't stay within a building you've just set on fire, as quite a few too many zealous people (including a Sister of Battle) stuck around, screaming "The emperor will protect me" as the burning building collapsed.
- Knight of Cerebus: The Chaos Lord. Nothing about her is played for laughs, the narrator experiences nothing but sheer dread at her presence, and chapters where she personally makes an appearance focus heavily on suspense.
- Last Words: Defied by the narrator refusing to allow this in Entry 304, then further deconstructed when another enemy in another incident uses it as Holding the Floor to set off a powerful explosive charge and inflict seventeen casualties.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A couple of the entries lean into this kind of humor, such as the fate of the Squats and the stagnant timeline.
- Lethal Chef: Entry 18 discusses the possibility of a deadly serious version of this due to Acquired Poison Immunity, although the actual death of the entry also (as with many) also falls in Lethally Stupid territory. At least, according to the narrator, who may or may not be embellishing.
- Mama Bear:
- The Chaos Lord, to the narrator's horror.
- The narrator's wife as well, as one commissar found out when he pulled a gun on her daughter.
- Mercy Kill: The narrator has given out several, especially where the Dark Eldar and Chaos Cults are concerned."You are so lucky that Dark Eldar accidentally shot you in the head..."
- Noodle Incident: Many entries, such as Entry 13, which only shows the aftermath of the Exaggerated Alcohol-Induced Idiocy.
- Papa Wolf: Don't pull a gun on the narrator's daughter, it won't end well for you.
- Pyrrhic Victory: It's the 40k, they abound. If you end up an Entry, this is about the best you can hope for. Unless you caused the entry.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The narrator DOES NOT support sexual slavery of any sort!
- Reckless Gun Usage: Just about every firearm safety rule gets broken. Not surprisingly, everyone who breaks the rules ends up dead.
- Redshirt Army: The Imperial Guard often falls into this trope, much to the narrator's annoyance, but he also provides an unintentional example with his wife. Originally, his wife was part of an elite force put together by the Iron Hands with extensive augmentation meant to enhance their combat abilities. But these forces all had zero combat experience, meaning they still suffered heavy casualties when they were first deployed. The narrator gripes about how it would've been more effective to give said augmentations to more seasoned veterans of the guard.
- Self-Made Orphan: The protagonist and his sister, thanks to a Molotov cocktail his sister made. He's still of the opinion that their father had it coming.
- Sergeant Rock: The protagonist, though a little less caring about the lives of his men than most. Still, he has good reason to believe you can't save 'em all at this point.
- Sex Is Evil: Pointedly defied. The protagonist frequently discusses the dangers of sex and erotic interaction with genuinely dangerous and malicious people and beings (as well as the risks of doing reckless things in pursuit of the attention or affection of your preferred genders), but also openly advocates for and explicitly okays mutually negotiated consensual sex and kinks.
- Sex Slave: The protagonist explicitly isn't a fan of enslaving people for sexual activities. He includes multiple entries threatening any guardsman who would attempt to take such "prisoners".
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Yep, these entries definitely appear. In Entry 420, an In-Universe Creator Breakdown leads to an entry about how the entire 40k galaxy is this. Thankfully, in-universe, that entry is redacted before it can be published and lead to suicide pacts if not mass suicides, and the protagonist's earlier and later experiences arguably disprove it, or at least provide counterarguments.
- Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb: In a big way in the climax, though it's a dead-man's-switch activated suicide detonation. Double revenge boners don't end well, and tend to make one's movements and strategic decisions rather predictable, as the narrator is all too eager to point out.
- Take Our Word for It: "11. Don't make fun of the Imperial Fists' name: They will actually do it. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. DON'T DO IT!"
- Take That!: Entry 40 "Do not attempt to make an Eldar Farseer your sex slave" was written in response to a now deleted fic that featured exactly that, while several other subsequent entries poked fun at (and Deconstructed) various other... implausible plot points in that author's works, along with other works.
- Taking You with Me: 385 - an ordinary lieutenant manages to use a pair of Melta Bombs to end a Chaos Space Marine that had just slaughtered most of the base. And in the final entry, entry 500, the narrator does basically the exact same thing at a much larger scale, exploiting his enemy's revenge lust to blow up an entire continent and take their entire army with him to The Warp.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Encouraged in 403, especially as a much preferable option to "helping" them die. Since, among other things, survivors and loved ones don't tend to take kindly to the latter.
- Too Dumb to Live: Pretty much 90% of the entries are because of this.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Slaaneshi cultists. It's pointed out how trying to get violent revenge on them is an exercise in futility, on top of being quite dangerous as the cultists can still cause harm.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: When recounting his childhood, the narrator makes several references that painted his sister as having pyromania as early as when she was a young child. Though she at least had enough sense to have her brother on standby with a bucket of water.
- Sarcasm Mode: "Oh, why yes Corporal, you DID introduce me to Henry the Gaunt. What's that? He just ripped your throat out? Well, color me very UNSURPRISED!"
- She Is the King: The narrator's most dangerous enemy, and primary nemesis in the later, more plot-driven portions of the story, is a female Chaos Lord who is referred to as such.
- The Smurfette Principle: Inverted. The narrator is the only male in his family, which consists of himself, his wife, his sister, his daughter, and the daughter's girlfriend/wife.
- Suicide Attack: Discussed. The narrator says he's not against the concept, but remarks that if you're throwing your life away, it should be in a way where the enemy is paying a high price for it.
- Unfriendly Fire: Multiple rules demonstrate what happens to Commissars who get too trigger-happy about executing their own troops. Or commanders who like to lean too hard into We Have Reserves. Oh, and if a guardsman mutinies by holding you at gunpoint, DO NOT INSULT HIM OR THREATEN HIS FAMILY, because this will make him resort to covering up the murder after he's done shooting you.
- Upper-Class Twit: Several entries involve Imperial nobility suffering the fatal consequences of their own arrogance and/or ignorance.
- We Have Reserves: Several entries call out this attitude, and detail the ways it can fail and backfire, from getting Fragged by your own men in response, to the higher-ups being unimpressed with the "strategy", to quite simply not having enough men for the strategy to work, or being up against something that pure numbers can't defeat.
- We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: No. "Your attempts at heroics are probably going to kill the guy faster because your serrated combat knife tearing his chest apart isn't good for him. Who would've thought?" Though exceptions are made for yet-unexploded explosive rounds.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Apparently the end result of a casual sexual encounter with an Eldar in Entry 10.
- William Telling:
- Entry 3 is a variant, where the idiot of the entry attempts to shoot an unwitting officer's pipe. He gets his own head blown off for his trouble (while being forced to smoke the same pipe).
- Another entry involves some drunk Guardsmen trying to shoot a bottle off of another's head, which ends with one of the Guardsmen getting shot in the head. They survived, albeit with severe brain damage.
