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painting-warhammer · 2 months

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Solitaire in the style of Vriska Serket (Homestuck)

Just in time for 4/13! Commentary under cut.

The Lessons Learned

#1: Learn As Much As You Can Before Letting Your Mini Anywhere Near A Brush

As first figures go, this was honestly not as bad as it could have been, but I am an outlier. (and the second figure would be much worse.) Since the proverbial canvas was so expensive, it was a lot of "measure twice, cut once."

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This was the main thing I used, and save for the face looking like chewed-up bubblegum, it came out relatively okay for a first try. Overall, this guy's a legend and this would be far from the only video of his I would reference.

#2: It's Okay To Be Inspired

What really hooked me on Warhammer in general is that you can paint things in your style. This is appealing at first, but if you're not an artist, you're going to be exposed quickly in the worst way possible, and that's by the color wheel theory. If you don't understand contrast and coomplements, all the technique in the world won't save your figure from looking like an eyesore.

This is where "established" characters that you are mimicking end up being your saving grace. If canon material is your bag, that works: You certainly won't lack as far as exact guides then! But in my opinion, you learn a bit more by improvising and trying to make something similar to an established character. Chances are they're popular because they have an appealing color scheme. As it happens, Vriska's various blue motifs really complement her orange, which is something I never realized way back when.

Also, reinterpretation was inevitable. I had initially considered freehanding the sun symbol on her lapel, but when everything was smaller than my pinkie, I just settled for making her jewels yellow. The real masterstroke was taking the Harlequin's Kiss weapon and recoloring it as the Warhammer (oh hey) of Vrillyhoo.

I just took the general colors and used Spiritstone Red on the rounded bits, and made something analogous to it. It's still the neatest part, imo.

#3: The Best Way To Start

For every color, I had a swatch. I had one base color, which I then doused in a shade, and then added one layer paint as the main color and one shade lighter for highlights.

#4: How To Make A Shiny Figure

There's a special paint called Ardcoat that puts a glossy texture on, but something that's a little more muted that gives a shine is... shade paint! I didn't shake the paint pot enough and created a fun glossy texture that you can see on her knee. (I learned how I accidentally did this by asking at my local Warhammer shop, lol)

#5: Don't Be Afraid To Make Mistakes

I'm sure there's more than just this wrong with this figure, but the Solitaire is supposed to be leaping off that little rock there. There were glyphs where I was able to put in a glowing line of Baharroth Blue that was watery enough that it filled in the little gaps on its own. It looked fantastic once...

Unfortunately, I overfilled my brush and it sloughed over into the other creases and ruined the whole effect. I also slopped Mordant Earth onto the stones and made it too ugly.

But that's just it. As much prep work as I was going in with, there was always going to be a mistake, and on a personal psychic level it feels bad when you make it. It ruins a whole day of painting lol. And you can't really stop those emotions, but you should at least try.

#6: You're Not Married To Your Army

It's inevitable that getting your first figure leads you to think about a whole army of them, but I had this distaste in my mouth when I thought about making more than one Vriska. For one, I didn't like any of the other Harlequins or Aeldari, or more importantly, I couldn't think of fun color schemes for them. The thought came to mind to make the ships similar to the Batterwitch/Condesce, but they were too similar color-wise (and even in the symbology!) where it just felt redundant. I get a special kick out of making something different from the boxart, because that's the point in my opinion.

I coped for a while: Green stuff or 3D print horns for the other figures to make them trolls? Suck it up and just use Vriska's color scheme for the others? In the end, I just gave up and called this a practice run. This is still my favorite figure. I'm just happy the first one turned out so nicely, relatively speaking, so I don't really have a lump of paint surrounding what was once a figure like a lot of first-time painters.

But no worries. Because I'd definitely fuck up the next one. 😅 That's for a new post.

#Homestuck #Vriska Serket #painting warhammer #Games Workshop #Warhammer #Warhammer 40K #WarhammerCommunity #Warhammer 40000 #wh 40k #WH40K #Warhammer40K #WarhammerPainting #Miniature Painting #Painting miniatures #Mini Painting #Aeldari #craftworld eldar #harlequins

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denofimagination-blog · 10 months

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"Stars are our allies, and cosmic mysteries are our power."

Corsair Voidscarred Kill Team!

We are a miniature painting studio. If you need painting, converting, sculpting, assembling, LED lights - literally anything regarding the hobby, don’t hesitate - simply contact us via [email protected].

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the-bonereaders-library · 8 months

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i decided to do a photoshoot of a little scene i made up. a small detachment of yme-loc fighters allied with a harlequin trio and stranded kabalites fighting off the encroaching chaos industrialization on a maiden paradise world, lead by an allied plague and rubric marine chapter

here's the entire battlefield, as well as two champions facing off in the center of the battlefield, plus a look at some of the special weapons each side brought

I might try and edit an actual background into these at some point

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lore-pls · 5 months

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Today was A LOT but when I came home @fourgods-nobrakes gave me a lil man to build and everything was okay.

#he's very handsome #warhammer 40k #harlequins #solitaire #miniatures #miniature painting

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worldeaterheresy · 2 years

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All most done. I few little details.

#warhammer 40k #my painting #games workshop #kill team #my art #miniature painting #miniture #harlequin #my wips

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tagedeszorns · 2 months

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So here's my live reading of "Lord of Excess"!

May contain Spoilers!

I'm only a quarter of the way through the book, which is because (apart from the fact that I only downloaded it this morning) the weather is sunny and warm for the first time this spring, so I've tended to be out and about so far. And being out and about led me to the Warhammer store, where I not only bought some colours for the Beastmen and had a little chat, but also got the miniature of the month (a very nice Terminator) and put it together. And during a little hike I thought about whether I should make him a Salamander, Word Bearer or Emperor's Children.

But I digress. A quarter of Lord of Excess. And so far the verdict is: holy shit, we finally have an author again! This is not a drill! There's a new Emperor's Children writer who understands their mindset, background and motivation!

Yes, Rich McCormick still has to find his way into some things and perhaps take a less narrow view of others - but in principle he's well on the way to growing into Josh Reynolds' huge shoes. (that sounds like Reynolds is a Harlequin. Clown shoes! Honk!)

This makes me very, very happy.

Quick summary of highlights (besides the quotes I've already posted):

McCormick lets Fabius be himself. I want to kiss his eyes for that. (No, Fabius has no appearance - but he's mentioned and speaks through his actions)

He understands that Emperor's Children are not just insane junkies, but gives them different obsessions with perfection (a logistician!).

He incorporates their history and gives space to the wounding they collectively suffered with the destruction of Harmony.

He's able to capture their incredible arrogance and narcissism without ridiculing them (Watch and learn, McNeill!).

He creates personalities that aren't all defined solely by their gene-seed.

The list will certainly be expanded.

But of course it's not all sunshine and roses. I find it difficult to accept certain things when I'm told them but then very consistently not shown them.

If Xantine and Vavisk are such incredibly close friends, I want to see that in their interactions too.

Why do the Adored follow Xantine? So far, it's not clear to me. Too much telling, too little showing. I mean, isn't it funny that Fabius, the man whose picture is next to "Caustic Bitch" in the dictionary, can apparently build and maintain healthier and more stable friendships than a charismatic warband leader with a Slaaneshi demon in his pocket?!

But that's just a minor annoying aspect so far - albeit one that makes it hard for me to like Xantine as a protagonist. Please don't get me wrong - I don't need a main character to be a classic lawful-good Hollywood hero to like him! I adore the characters with flaws, with bad habits and the ones who fight tooth and nail against being heroes. But at least a basic sympathy that makes me care why the protagonists are in trouble and makes me eager to see how they resolve the situation - that would be nice!

In any case, so far: I want to know more! The book is fun! So much!

(Okay, the usual Black Library mantra "There have to be little people in it, not just Astartes!" is getting on my nerves, as it does every time. But, hey, it'll be fine!)

One last thing: Lucius and Fabius pointing and laughing at Xantine, because Clarion/The Composer and Wolver/Key are so much cooler than a stinking heap!

#warhammer #emperor's children #warhammer 40k #Novel #Lord of Excess #Reading Rainbow

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rockermazy · 4 months

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Dude, here I am wondering why Val has a miniature Fizzy-looking (and Fizzy-sounding) thing... ...Until I remembered that Mammon in Helluva Boss was/is selling sex toys using Fizzarolli's image a couple floors down - at least before the latter quit. That included sex dolls.

Also, being in the Pride Ring and all, I like to imagine that Val acquired the Fizzy-Doll mainly because he fancies himself as the "Asmodeous of the Pride Ring", given his occupation and all. He's just... an inferior version of the "sex-god" when you mix pride and greed into it. [ID: a screenshot from the Amazon Prime series Hazbin Hotel, depicting one of the show's antagonists, Valentino, as he is situated in an ornate residence. Valentino appears as a tall, wingless moth demon with four arms and is dressed as a pimp, with a long red, white fur-lined coat and gold-framed heart-shaped rose-tint glasses and a red top hat. Valentino appears irate as he is being served a drink in a whisky glass by a diminutive, grinning demon, dressed in a leotard and a large, drooping harlequin cap. This second character bears a striking resemblance to Fizzarolli, a tritagonist from the Youtube series "Helluva Boss". End ID]

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin hotel VVV #hazbin hotel asmodeous #hazbin hotel mammon #helluva boss #helluva fizzarolli #i have no idea how to write an image description #first time for everything #right?

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swords-and-chaos · 1 year

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Cosmo might be a Midnight Harlequin, possibly a miniature one (some breeders like to introduce Jester blood into their lines for the cute size and playful nature they impart) with a Steel Satin color morph; a rare find indeed! Please give him tons of kisses for me???

Will do! You’re definitely spot on about the playful nature, they had tons of fun exploring their new environment

#Clownblr #clown doll #clown husbandry #clown care #clown breeds

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tearofisha · 9 months

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Deeds of the Players.

Below are the muses of the blog with their adventures and achievements listed in no particular order. Enjoy and see my Asks or DM's if you wish to contribute to any below.

Rishaeron Wayfinder. Ranger Veteran.

Attended a Corsair beach party, ended up working. Assisting a human recover secrets from her past. Became the leader of a Ranger band. Investigated rumours of an Aeldari superweapon with Drukhari help, survived the difficult elements. Acheron IV. Prevented the death of a human doctor in the Underhive. Eliminated threats to Craftworld Ulthwé. Discovered unused Webway Gates and partially mapped their locations. Helped a human psyker on a journey to find her son. Survived a Daemonette ambush with a lasting wound. Made mortal enemies with a Rogue Trader. Infiltrating a pirate stronghold. In the midst of getting over a romance. Destabilised Ork Waaaghs by killing Warbosses. Helped a fellow Ranger, Virlandril, escape a Guard ambush. Developed survival and cooking skills. Got badly beaten up by an Aeldari mercenary. Fought alongside Exodite Rangers the "Nightstalkers" to kill a Traitor Legion Warlord. Survived an encounter with a Daemon Prince when leading a detachment of Guardians. Assisted a Chapter of Space Marches kill an Ork Warboss. Stopped a runaway train destroying a Hive. Rescued a Gyrinx. Escorted a high value human away from Inquisition attention. Assisted a human warrior fight an Underhive gang. Became a teacher for warriors on Neni'Shelwe after healing his spiritual wound. Forgave himself for the deaths of his Rangers.

Aelinor Fatereader. Lost Farseer.

Attended the invite to a mystery Corsair adventure. Lead the Ulthwé forces to destroy Da Boss and survive the shadow war on Acheron IV. Allied with the Ghosts of Vaudeville Harlequin Troupe. Personal enemies of a renegade Chapter Master. Fought in the Eldanesh memorial duel against a Corsair Princess. Trusted with personal military resources to adjust the skeins of fate. Fought the Chapter Master of a successor chapter to a standstill in single combat. Earned the epiphet Fatereader after saving an Exodite colony. Survived single combat with a T'au Commander of the Farsight Enclave. Left behind Ulthwé to find a life of purpose, travelling with Rishaeron. Assisted a Chapter Master in destroying a Genestealer threat to a world, made enemies with said Chapter Master in the process.

Eldrin Shadewalker. Wise Spiritseer.

Guided the Wraiths of Ulthwé in the Shadow War. Discussed the nuances of life and death with a Ynnari Corsair. Led the charge that beheaded Da Boss and ended the Freebooter development. Guided countless souls in the Infinity Circuit, including his sister. Fought on every front line his Wraiths have. Destroyed a Daemon Prince that was ready to kill Rishaeron. Found solace in the kind words of an Iyabresil Seer. Guided a lost soul to help her find a home. Crystallising from years of battlefield injuries and the healing process, struggling to disguise the issue anymore. Met a Daemon Primarch and lived. Discovered the most prestigious, ancient art of tea brewing as a legacy. Provided refuge for a lost human that found her way on Ulthwé. Defended an Exodite world from a Slaanesh incursion, gained a new wooden staff as a result.

Green events are things that happened when the muse interacted with someone else's OC.

Blue events are things that the miniature stand-ins achieved in a game of Warhammer 40,000.

Black, or unchanged events are backstory.

Updated: 9/11/2023.

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doolallymagpie · 1 year

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Not sure I’ve ever completed an army before. Interesting feeling.

Such a big project, I couldn’t fit em all in a good group shot.

#7TV #foundation paradox #spy fi #28mm scale #tabletop wargaming #miniature wargaming #miniature painting #jezebel enterprises #wargames atlantic #harlequin miniatures #black tree design #copplestone castings #statuesque miniatures #heroforge

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denofimagination-blog · 2 years

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Rainbow Aeldari!!!

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the-bonereaders-library · 4 months

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some more shots from the kill team game last night. I'm looking forward to the next

#hobby #painting #tabletop #tabletop games #wargaming #mini painting #miniature painting #minipainting #games workshop #painting warhammer #kill team #harlequins #dark angels #space marines #gallowdark #into the dark #aeldari

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pierrotwrites-hc · 10 months

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Pierrot do we get any hints about next chapter 🥺 please

I'll do you one better and post a lil preview!

The Generals of Breakwater held council in a drafty, echoing chamber at the heart of the keep. As guards hauled the great armored doors open to admit them, Luca tried to shrink into Master Balkas’s shadow.

He’d been brought along to scribe and keep Master Balkas’s cup full. This latter task, at least, was one with which Luca was well acquainted, but he’d never taken notes for his master at an official meeting before. He was horribly certain that he'd bungle the job so badly that Master Balkas would make good on his threat to ship him back to Highcourt by post.

Luca was right to be worried. The other Generals were all accompanied by free secretaries, educated and officious men like Tybalt who stared at Luca over their spectacles as he passed. The Generals stared, too. Luca told himself it was nothing; he was used to being stared at. But some of these men he knew from Highcourt, and others from the Harlequin, and even the ones who hadn’t fucked him or seen him fucked were familiar: moneyed, highborn, and dangerously at ease in their power. They said nothing; simply watched him with the languor of predators around the edge of a still pool.

Master Balkas moved stiffly to his chair and sat, spine ramrod straight. Luca stood behind him, clutching the writing materials he was still learning how to use. His memories of Robbie’s long-ago writing lessons stood out so vividly, yet the pen felt awkward in his fingers, like something he shouldn’t be allowed to touch.

If only it was a cock you were holding, hole. Then you’d know exactly what to do.

The tabletop was inlaid with a vast map of Solas on which the Generals pushed miniature battalions around like Legion pieces. This activity, as well as their bickering, was familiar from Highcourt—though in the royal war room Luca had always been on his knees, eavesdropping as he warmed the royal cock. Somehow it was harder to focus without a hot weight filling his throat and mingled fluids trickling down his chin.

Luca tried to ignore Master Trainer telling him he’d be better off crawling under the table and putting his whore mouth to work. From reading Tybalt’s notes, he’d picked up a bit of shorthand; he told himself that the meeting was simply an opportunity to practice.

After a few false starts, the transcription began to flow a little more easily. Once Luca didn’t have to give it all his attention, he could attend to what was actually being said.

“—no sign of rebel activity along the coast,” one of the Generals was saying. Perry, his name was; he’d used Luca’s ass at a party once and left him so sore he could barely crawl to the next man. “Could your scouts have been mistake, Balkas?”

Luca could see that Master Balkas was struggling not to take this as an insult.

“Berhaan is a master of misdirection,” he said tightly. “Robert Black is nearly as skilled at evading capture, and he’s traveling in the company of Willy Tyburn and his highwaymen. These men know the land, Perry. They know how to disappear. Besides, the peasants are aiding them. Hiding them. I’ll wager that’s why we can’t find them on the coast.”

“It’s quite a wager,” murmured General Worthington, a finicky little man who’d watched Luca split himself open on Ged’s bloody cock. “And if Balkas is wrong, it’ll be the Regiment that pays.”

Before Master Balkas could retort, Gaskin cut in smoothly. “Any rebel presence, along the coast or elsewhere, will be dealt with swiftly and conclusively once the Enkaaran legion lands in six weeks’ time.”

Luca’s breath caught. The legion. It was arriving in six weeks. Now he just needed to know where it was landing.

Unfortunately the conversation veered in another direction. As Luca was directing intense mental pressure at Gaskin to name a set of coordinates, one of the Generals—Hassell, Luca thought his name was—said, “What a pity Gaskin has returned to us only to be dispatched again.”

“I don’t envy him the journey,” Worthington agreed. “Anton, you do realize that your detachment will have to ride like the rats of Orkus are at your heels if you intend to rendezvous at Redditch before heading to the coast?”

The question might’ve sounded petulant, but it was clear that Worthington was genuinely worried. Master Balkas wasn’t the only General who held Gaskin in high esteem.

“I’ve had harder journeys, Tomas,” said Gaskin with a gentle smile. “Besides, we shall need supplies and weapons from Redditch to feed and arm the Legion when they land.” He signaled the guards at the door. “Now, gentlemen, I think a repast is in order.”

The doors opened, admitting servants bearing platters of food. So much! Luca was half-afraid that he would be punished even for looking at it.

As a servant set a heaping plate before Master Balkas, Luca realized that the quantity was more likely an attempt to offset the quality. The meal consisted of variations on bread, turnips, and cured meat, all the same stringy texture and singularly unappetizing shade of gray.

“Not even butter,” said Worthington mournfully.

“Gentlemen, we must redouble the war effort on behalf of Worthington’s stomach,” said Gaskin. The Generals laughed; Worthington smiled sheepishly.

Gaskin made another signal to the guards; the doors were opened again. Tris and the Enkaaran boy entered. Luca had the irrational thought that if he made himself as small as possible, Tris wouldn't see him.

Fortunately Tris didn't spare him a glance as he passed. He as holding the other boy’s arm in a way that seemed casual, but Luca could see how tight his grip was. Was Tris in pain? If so, he gave no sign of it. He was as graceful as ever.

As he and the Enkaaran boy made their way to their master, their slow pace gave Luca the opportunity to appreciate that their indoor clothes were just as sumptuous as their outerwear. Both wore cream-colored tunics bordered with silver embroidery and clasped at the shoulder with ornate silver pins. Together they were a set: perfectly matched.

Clearly Gaskin thought the same. He looked at them with such warmth it made Luca ache, though he didn’t know why.

“My slaves Tris and Aram will provide entertainment while we refresh ourselves,” said Gaskin.

Cold horror washed through Luca. He was all too familiar with the sort of entertainment whores were forced to provide for men like these. The thought of Tris—so dignified, so perfectly composed, despite everything that had been done to him—stripped of his beautiful clothes and shoved to his knees was almost beyond bearing.

Oh please, thoughtLuca frantically, please, do it to me instead.

But Tris was allowed to remain clothed and standing. He braced himself against a table; only the whiteness of his knuckles betrayed how much it cost him to stand. He tossed his black sheet of hair over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Aram.

From the folds of his robe, Aram produced an exquisitely carved kanon. He cradled it like a lover. When he played his long fingers over the strings, a clear, bright note rang out.

Music. It had been so long since Luca had heard anything but the distant strains of the guitar on the other side of the wall. But that was nothing to the kanon. This instrument was a work of art, and Aram played it like a master.

Then Tris opened his mouth, and Luca was swept away.

The tune trilled like a bird, but the lyrics were haunting. A beautiful maiden was courted by a lord, but her heart had been won by another. Enraged, the lord locked her away beneath his castle. Hours turned to days turned to years as the maiden waited for her lover to rescue her. At last, her feet took root in the earth and her limbs became the limbs of a tree, twisted and brittle. Her roots sank into the foundations of the castle and tore it stone from stone.

The wind sighing through her branches formed the final refrain: When will you come to me, my love? Why will you not come?

The lyrics were in an old form of Erminian, almost too archaic to parse. Luca only knew it from having struggled through Robert’s densest books of law. He wondered if Tris understood the words. If his master did.

The song finished on a high note. The Generals applauded as Gaskin looked on, his lined face glowing with pride.

Luca felt a stab of longing. His owners had ever looked at him like that.

“Your little songbird is as lovely as ever, Anton,” said Perry once the applause had died down. “Still, I can’t help but notice he’s getting on in years.”

Tris stiffened. His face was blank and smooth as porcelain, but Luca could tell he was furious.

“True beauty ages like wine,” said Gaskin, giving Tris a placating smile. “I assure you, the years have only improved him. And every night I reap the rewards of his experience.”

Knowing laughter rippled around the table.

“Myself, I prefer young wine,” said Perry, eyeing Gaskin’s other slave with open interest. “Where did you pick up such a fine Enkaaran vintage, Anton?”

“Aram was pledged to service at the temple of the goddess Ithithe in Kawere,” said Gaskin. “When the Kanemi raided the temple, they took him as tribute for their reji. I happened to be the reji’s guest. Knowing my tastes, he gifted me the boy. A gesture of friendship between our great nations.”

“Would that we all had such generous friends,” sighed Perry.

“Careful, Michel,” chided Hassell. “You know how possessive dear Anton gets.”

Gaskin smiled slightly. “I don’t share my treasures.”

“I wonder if Balkas will be so miserly with his,” said Perry, letting his gaze linger on Luca.

There was a long silence. Everyone turned to Master Balkas, awaiting for the answer to a question that hung, unasked, in the air. Luca winced to see how tightly Master Balkas was gripping his cup; this usually meant he was about to throw it.

But Master Balkas didn’t throw his cup. He cleared his throat and offered a weak smile.

“Of course not, gentlemen. I would be, ah, happy to share…” He made a vague gesture in Luca’s direction. “That is to say, I have no, ah, objections to, to…”

“It’s settled, then,” said Perry. “As the boy is famed for his dancing, he should perform with Gaskin’s slaves. A fitting farewell for dear Anton. And after…” He smiled. “After, the boy will provide us with a different sort of entertainment.”

#the golden bird #pierrot writes #chapter preview #unedited

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quasitsqueeries · 1 year

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Decadence, Degeneration & the Drukhari

I think the Eldar are really interesting. While other Xenos in 40K, like Orks and Tyranids, represent a sort of general external threat, Eldar bring some other ideas along with them. I’m afraid we’re going to have to talk about Fascism again, but there’s some other fun stuff too.

So Eldar represent two things that Fascists don’t like (see my previous post if you want evidence that the Imperium is a Fascist state). The first is intellectualism. Fascism demands an uncritical adherence to national myths, and intellectual movements tend to question things like that, so Fascists are by necessity suspicious of intellectual “elites”. Eldar are depicted as more psychic and more cultured than humans of the Imperium, and they’ve been around longer, so they have greater knowledge of things. It’s the Eldar who maintain the big repository of information about the galaxy, in the form of the Black Library. (Maybe someday we can look at the weird relationship the Inquisition has with the Eldar, and how that organisation seems to simultaneously seek out knowledge and supress knowledge) The second thing is that Eldar, shall we say, fail to live up to the Imperium’s heteronormative models of gender. The Imperium, like all Fascist states, venerates hyper-masculinity, I’m not sure I need to argue this one when I can just point at a Space Marine. The Eldar, by contrast, are represented as somewhat efette; elegant and graceful, but physically weak. Orks used to refer to Eldar as “pansies”, GW seem to have realised that maybe getting rid of that bit is a good idea in the 21st Century and so it seems to have been retired. The fact remains, though, that Eldar’s relationship with gender is a bit queer. From the start Eldar have been depicted as androgynous, they’re slight of build, wear form-fitting clothes and tend to wear their hair long. In 1998 GW first released Dark Eldar, which complicated things. Dark Eldar are kinky, but they’re also much less androgynous than Craftworld Eldar or Harlequins. Wyches in particular are really interesting. They’re the first genuinely mixed-gender unit I remember GW releasing, (there were also some Craftworld and Dark Eldar plastic kits around the same time that included a single chest piece with boobs) the miniatures were explicitly gendered, and they were really kinky, there was a lot of skin, a lot of spikes, and a lot of whips. Basically Craftworld Eldar are sort of gender neutral and Dark Eldar are chaotically genderqueer. All of this is the kind of thing that Fascists hate. Fascism centers the role of the heteronormative family unit, which has the role of making more “racially pure” babies (the Nazis called in the Lebensborn program), queer people who reject the gender roles that that unit relies on are therefore instantly suspicious to Fascists. So, to the Imperium, the threat of the Eldar is not just that they’re Xenos, they also present an ideological threat. The Eldar’s intellectualism and knowledge about the galaxy is a threat to the Imperium’s narrative and myths about itself and the universe it’s up against. Their queerness is a threat to the heteronormative gender roles that the Imperium is structured on.

At this point maybe some people are thinking “but aliens and daemons and cults and unsanctioned psykers are a real threat and the Imperium does need to keep throwing bodies into wars to stop them.” The thing is, Warhammer 40,000 is a fantasy about what would happen if all those threats really did exist out there, it’s the aesthetics and ideas that are important. In the real world Fascism is never justifiable, its arguments are never coherent, it only makes sense in 40K because 40K is fantasy.

So, decadence and degeneration, the things I put in the title. If you’ve ever been called a degenerate by some keyboard Fascist, just know that you’re being interpolated into a long tradition. Around the Fin de Siecle (the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries) there were some ideas about decadence and degeneration doing the rounds in Europe. Now I’m probably going to mess this up a bit, but the theme is that due to the rationality of Men, civilisation generally advances on an upward trajectory. I assume this idea came out of the enlightenment, reason leads to progress and makes society better (obviously there are some Colonialist ideas that come out of there). Maybe it’s useful to call this process generation (idk, I’m really winging it here), but anyway, these men are distractable, and if they allow themselves to be distracted by aesthetic things, like the colour yellow, or the taste of absinthe, or the feel of high quality brocades, or the skin of other men, they might become... decadent. Decadence is supposed to be when you give up rationality and hard work to focus on a life of sensation. Obviously there’s an implication here about sexuality. Oscar Wilde was regarded as a decadent. Too much decadence, it was thought, could lead to the reversal of a civilisation’s progress, degeneration, in other words. Versions of this idea pop up all over the place, certain Conservatives regard Western Civilisation as having fallen from the ideal state embodied by the Ancient Greeks (and I don’t doubt these people would blame decadence), and it’s also really common in fantasy. In the Lord of the Rings, the state of the world has fallen from the Númenorean and Elvish civilisations of the distant past, and Elric of Melniboné describes a previous civilisation brought low by decadence.

But, Eldar. So the story of the Eldar is they had this big galaxy-spanning civilisation before humanity reached the stars. As their civilisation became more advanced and the automation of their physical needs freed up their time they started to become decadent, and as they pursued various pleasures and became more and more jaded, the decadence gave way to sadism.

The descriptions of the dying days of the Eldar civilisation sound like being at the worst kink club you’ve ever seen, where nobody’s heard of consent and everyone’s really into knives and medical role-play. Various groups of Eldar began to leave their empire. First the Exodites, who went to live a sort of monastic existence riding dinosaurs about on idyllic worlds as far away from the Eldar empire as possible (it’s a travesy that GW have never made models of them because they’re the coolest thing in 40K).

Then the Craftworld Eldar fled. All the bad and horny psychic energy released by this debauchery built up in the warp (because Eldar are very psychic) and gave birth to Slaanesh, the Chaos god of excess and decadence, exploding all the heads of the decadent Eldar and ending their civilisation. Those Eldar left are supposed to be fallen from civilisation. There’s a sense that they’ll never be able to regain their old empire and their only role now is to become extinct with as much dignity as they can.

The fall of the Eldar is exactly the kind of thing that the Imperium would use as a cautionary tale to frighten its citizens. “Get too curious, or too decadent, or fail to uphold the family model, and your civilisation might collapse.” I wonder sometimes if the whole story was originally just meant to be Imperial propaganda, but these days the game certainly treats it as real. Now, I’m not sure there’s a heap of evidence to suggest that 20th Century Fascists were particularly interested in the concept of degeneracy (although the Nazis thought it relevant as regards art). 21st Century Fascists seem to love the concept. I think it’s fair to say that ideas of degeneration formed part of the cultural millieu of the early 20th Century that fed into Fascism. In any case the ideas that some cultures are more civilised than others, and that decadence can cause a culture to fall into a less civilised state, are consistent with Fascism.

So, again, we’re talking about a piece of fantasy media here. Saying “the Eldar were decadent and degenerate” or “the Imperium’s rejection of the Eldar’s degeneracy makes sense because they did give birth to Slaanesh” is meaningless. The Eldar are a piece of media that express an idea, they play with the concepts of degeneracy and and decadence to tell a story.

#warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #craftworld eldar #dark eldar #exodite

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