Codex: Chaos Daemons, Part 3
- Location
- Back in the 90s (In a very famous TV show)
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Ve/Ver
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...Hm. Even I know that Nurgle is the god of all life, and that while plagues are commonly used as a tool of war, he is as much an embodiment of environmentally-healthy life as destructive life. So, no, a leper monstrosity is not how Nurgle is typically depicted. He is a laughing, portly man-god hunching over the evolutionary cauldron.
(Ashlee Viola: Wonder how he fits in with the Nids.)
(The Magician: Oh, look at these silly billies! What confusing little fawning floundrels of verminous tosh they are! What poor, misguided dears!)
You do not sound like you.
(Felicity Vandire: She's a being of Change, there are a lot of "her"s for her to choose from.
(The Magician: My point, dear Watson, is that to every curse there is a gift, and every plague an evolution, a mutation, a transformational sensation worthier than all the rest! Life, randomness, and growth are things that Nurgle promotes, from the most disgusting disease to the loveliest flower, from the tooth of a T'au to the heart of a human and the genitals of a grox! You can make anything sound ugly and drab, flabby and sad, if you just focus on the parts that aren't so photogenic! Besides, it's easy to avoid paying for healthcare when there's someone to blame for disease! After all, Nurgle loves all, from the cutest little ebola virus to the largest Hive Tyrant!)
(The Magician: Oh, it is true that the mark is often simple and naive / but if you want to distill an ideology to see / it at its most basic / a stripped-down philosophy / you have to start small, microbes and skin, maggots to win, all the things that everything comes from / from the basic to the bold / this story, well, it must be told / even if the means are slightly sorta just a bit creepy...)
We're still participating in this harmonic operation?
(Vior Or'es: Please, please, set your thesaurus on fire.)
(The Magician: Does anyone wanna sing?)
No, thank you.
(The Magician: Come on, anyone, anyone, any takers?)
(Felicity Vandire: ...You thought my voice sounded beautiful?)
(The Magician: Come now, my darling little circus peanut, sing in your style.)
(Felicity Vandire: There's a song I know that's brave and true / a song that no one else could do / a song that sits for me and you / and makes me feel just not so blue / I know it's tough to believe but trust me, wow, it's true! / This song is the song for me and you!)
...Very good, Felicity!
(Vior Or'es: You should work on writing better lyrics.)
Don't say that!
(Vior Or'es: I thought sophonts are supposed to help other sophonts identify their weak points to get better.)
...Well, yes, but you have to phrase it differently! For example: "My, Felicity, I love your voice, have you considered trying to make your lyrics more focused and poetic? They would go great with your excellent tones!"
(Vior Or'es: You just said what I said in a way that sounds condescending and overly flowery. Is this a social nuance I am missing?)
(Ashlee Viola: Well, uh, I thought the meter was good, I liked yer voice, the way ya kept pitch changes smooth, an' while I wasn't really sure what the song was about other than itself, it was catchy.)
You can't say that!
(Felicity Vandire: No, that was the best criticism I've gotten. Vior Or'es didn't tell me how to improve or reassure me that I was doing well, and you didn't tell me where I could improve.)
(Ashlee Viola: So, uh, can I drink yer blood, now?)
(Felicity Vandire: ...What?)
(Ashlee Viola: Oh, an' pardon me for bein' literally fucked in the head, but seems pretty screwed-up of the author to paint worshippin' a different god as bein' mentally ill. Stigmatizes us, which I care about because I'm an us.)
(Ashlee Viola: Fer the T'au'va's sake! Back me up on this, Magi, but the garden's got all life, not just the ugly life. Besides, most of the Daemons this book talks about are war daemons, so why wouldn't they embody the ways life can kill?)
(The Magician: You're...aware of this stuff, dollface?)
(Ashlee Viola: I have a degree in archaeology. I pick up a thing or two.)
(The Magician: I also think—humorously enough for a daemonology text—this book just can't stop demonizing us. You know me! I'd only violate the mind and body of some poor, innocent thing if they asked me first! Or, well, if I was in danger and it was self-defense! Or war, I guess, but I haven't fought in a war in a real long time! Point is, we ain't evil, we're just weird!)
There...are more malevolent Daemons, yes?
(The Magician: Sure. We're just collections of thoughts made manifest, and some thoughts are bad thoughts. Most thoughts or emotions aren't good or bad, though. I was once a person, now I'm a few ideas in a trench coat!)
This is exploitative, uncomfortable, demeaning both to the human species and to Nurgle, and frankly just vile. Every line is meant to elicit an emotional response. It's distasteful, propagandistic, it of course has to find some way to shoehorn in the blessed Space Marines, and it's utterly and completely repulsive. The implication that this priest trying to heal the sick summoned a Great Unclean One and thus that this horrifying and lovingly-written medical grotesquery is implied to be their just desserts is awful. It genuinely does read like the author is enjoying talking about the horrible failures of the bodies of innocent people in sadistic fashion. This is one of the worst things I have read in these Codexes, and that includes the bigoted pile of trash that is the Drukhari one. We've seen parafascism promoted, dehumanization detailed, and massacres made moral in these books, but this masturbatory crap about the deaths of heretics is utterly inhuman.
(Sister Vandire: I'm no friend of Nurgle, but yeah. This is...This is cruel and an awful way to talk about a real incident of mass slaughter.)
(Ashlee Viola: I dunno, the morals ain't the issue for me, it's just kinda borin'. Not much to really work with beyond laughin' at some corpses. Still, kinda doubt the priest accidentally summoned a Great Unclean One. Somethin' ain't addin' up.)
(Vior Or'es: Let us avoid conspiracy theorizing.)
[This shared document has been left idle for twenty-nine hours.]
OOC:
Well, we've gotten to Slaanesh. Now, this work has always had an undercurrent of kink and sexuality used mostly for comedy, but I understand that most people don't come to the Warhammer AU for deep-dive discussions of this stuff. So, there's going to be two parts of this section. The first, not in spoilers, is going to be Sister (for now) Felicity Vandire's comments on it. They'll be PG-rated, and anyone who is underage or not interested in getting into the weeds of Ynathe's sex life should read those exclusively. There will also be sections in spoilers for Ynathe Azuuza's thoughts on the Slaanesh section, which are going to be more NC-17-rated and sometimes comedic. They won't have anything to say about any of the lore beyond the stuff that can really only be said in that kind of "adults only" section. Think of the Ynathe comments as "DLC" or an extra. They're there if you want them, but for those uninterested they're no great loss. I didn't want to cut those segments out for people who might find them fun or find that they give insight on the characters or world, but I also don't want to weird anyone out.
IC:
Well, then, after that utterly despicable Nurgle section, I've taken a break, enjoyed a drink or two, petted a Terran kitten owned by a friend, and now have returned to see the Slaanesh section. Oh, dear. I suspect I may need someone else to handle this one. Felicity, you can handle the bulk and I'll provide additional comments.
(Felicity Vandire: ...A figure long since forgotten once said that desire was the root of suffering. There is truth to that. Still, yeah, even I think "debasement and excess" aren't inherently evil so much as spiritually impure. Most of my friends are into that, and they seem fine. They aren't close to Him, but, well, they don't have to be. It just seems judgmental and a way to blame urges that are natural for most people onto some evil enemy. Oh, and I'm still technically a nun of the Sororitas, so I'd like to think I know how this works.)
Let us discuss sexual repression. It is true that sex is not natural for all sophonts, some have little interest in it. However, for those sophonts who do desire sex, they are sometimes told that sex is evil or unholy. This is untrue. Sophonts from the most violently cruel maniacs to the most pious and giving men of the cloth desire sex. What is harmful is not desiring sex but imposing your desires for sex on others, or otherwise acting in a way that does not include mutual consent and communication.
An act that would almost certainly be considered a gateway to Slaanesh in many parts of the Imperium would be what I did the last time I visited Vior Or'es. I, being the dominant, instructed Vior to act in a way we had specified ahead of time, namely for her to strip naked and wear a cat-ear headband, collar, and plug tail. She crawled around on the floor, ate out of a bowl, and put her head in my lap on the couch for pets. She sought to enter the headspace of being a doted upon pet for her own comfort and emotional/sexual gratification. I did not touch any of her genitalia during this experience, but nonetheless I was aroused by the sight of her in such submission and she was aroused at being reduced to a pet.
An act that would almost certainly be considered a gateway to Slaanesh in many parts of the Imperium would be what I did the last time I visited Vior Or'es. I, being the dominant, instructed Vior to act in a way we had specified ahead of time, namely for her to strip naked and wear a cat-ear headband, collar, and plug tail. She crawled around on the floor, ate out of a bowl, and put her head in my lap on the couch for pets. She sought to enter the headspace of being a doted upon pet for her own comfort and emotional/sexual gratification. I did not touch any of her genitalia during this experience, but nonetheless I was aroused by the sight of her in such submission and she was aroused at being reduced to a pet.
...Huh.
(Felicity Vandire: I think I'm genuinely starting to hate the purple prose in this Codex. I find it...disappointing, honestly, that they only show vaguely bigoted stereotypes of worshippers of these gods, like a Slaaneshi isn't as likely to be a temperamental chef obsessed with culinary excellence as they are to be a gibbering stereotype of a cannibal tribesman. What, did a Praetorian officer write this?)
Slaanesh is Joy, not just excess. When I had Felicity over my knee and paddled her rear raw red as a maintenance spanking before I fucked her with a strap, there was no excess there! It was thoroughly mundane, barely even non-vanilla. Sure, she might have treated it as though it was some great transgression against purity and common sense, but...
Where was I going with this? Oh, right, this book reflects a Praetorian Redcoat's sheltered view of sexuality, one that is ultimately regressive, controlling, and harmful when self-imposed or imposed on others.
Where was I going with this? Oh, right, this book reflects a Praetorian Redcoat's sheltered view of sexuality, one that is ultimately regressive, controlling, and harmful when self-imposed or imposed on others.
(Felicity Vandire: ..."Corruption", "stain"? These are such loaded terms for influence. I don't want that creepy IV drip of some god/dess's happiness, but this is just really unsubtle propaganda. It also keeps talking about "madness", like that means anything without the context of actual mental health talk. Anyway, and I feel kind of dirty saying it, a mark can mean different things to different people: a reminder of safety, a sign of allegiance, something to help someone keep the faith, that kind of thing.)
Ha, a "knot". Much like Ashlee's. Speaking of which, that mark can mean a lot of different things to different people. For some, it's a note of safety, like an Imperial Aquila. For others, it's a means of religious rememberance, like a Fleur-de-Lis. For some, it's even a form of submission to their God, much in the same way a dominant might draw or tattoo a mark on a submissive's body, though, of course, with added religious significance.
Oh, and I think I know a thing or two about "a pattern of pearlescent scales upon the neck".
Oh, and I think I know a thing or two about "a pattern of pearlescent scales upon the neck".
(Felicity Vandire: "Oh, don't get too good at anything, don't try to achieve anything we don't want, or Slaanesh'll get you". What a crock of shit. Oh, and I know what happened at Persiphon. The war clerics were Slaaneshi, but it was because they found joy in the constant struggle to succeed. They didn't invite some evil daemonic force, they used Slaanesh's power to exert control over their own people as a kind of soft-coup! Daemonic influence is dangerous, but typically it's dangerous because it's a power that mortals should not have. They're trying to turn an exploitative cult—one that would be exploitative no matter who they worshipped—into some kind of morality play. Heresy is a real problem, it takes away from the God-Emperor's light, but heresy is dangerous because it is a weapon in the hands of the immoral, not because trying to be too good at something makes you inherently evil. Fuck promoting mediocrity. I do blame a part of Slaanesh to a degree for helping to enable it, but Slaanesh is a collection of disparate positive and negative ideas and feelings more than a person, so it was more that the war clerics chose to draw on the negative stuff.)
I feel that Felicity is overstating the danger of heresy rather than that of imposed hierarchy, but nonetheless I would note that there was an element of kink in the war clerics' orders, and that the slavery reported was—at least at first—merely negotiated and safely-organized consensual submission play. That said, the war clerics did abuse that control and eventually devolve into the infernal practice of actual slavery, but that was due to their own greed, and some of those Daemonettes were enslaved as such by both the more malevolent Keepers of Secrets and by the war clerics. It is very important to be on guard and ensure that kink does not become abuse, and the acts of the war clerics and the daemons who were willing to aid them in their evil were their own sins. You might wonder why Slaanesh didn't revoke hir sponsorship, and the answer to that is that Slaanesh's negative facets are as autonomous as hir positive facets. In many ways, Slaanesh is more of a collection of ideas and feelings than a person, and some of those ideas can promote bad stuff.
(Felicity Vandire: Well, we're done with Slaanesh. Honestly, I'm kind of underwhelmed. I expected it to get more puritanical, or at least more lurid.)
Sest la vee.
(Antimony: I do believe you mean "c'est la vie"?)
I don't speak Vostroyan.
"The Emperor's guiding light"? This Codex really is just deeply unsubtle Imperial propaganda. If I can quote the utterly reprehensible Imperial propagandist Io Gebb, "propaganda wants to appear diverse ideologically while being uniform in reality". In other words, the best propaganda does not appear as propaganda.
(Felicity Vandire: Are you really asking for this crap to be better propaganda?)
I mostly just wanted to show that I knew who Io Gebb was. Not that I support her, just that I'm historically educated and able to quote such figures regardless of their moral ineptitude.
(Felicity Vandire: ...Yeah, that sounds about right.)
What's that supposed to mean?
(Felicity Vandire: All I'm saying is that you're the kind of person to drink tea with your pinkie finger extended because you heard that classy people do that.)
...Well, erm, anyway the Great Rift is...It's a bit more complicated, a realm of illogic and Chaos, both capitalized and lowercase. It's a part of the galaxy that's like a dreamland or a nightmare. Oh, and there's also a mediocre bit of fictional prose about a "Sergeant Idras" that isn't particularly useful, it's mostly just an attempt to inexplicably center this Codex about daemons on the Imperials.
All of these things do exist in the Eye of Terror, and the Eye of Terror does tend to be more obviously nightmarish than other parts of the Warp and the Chaos Gods' psyches, but even so the horrors are matched equally by wonders. There are rivers of gold, islands in the sky, dragons made of heads and tails, along with bent realities and unreal utopias. The prose here is also very...overdone.
What overdone nonsense. It is deeply unlikely that all of the universe could be subsumed into the Warp's unreality. The Warp and realspace support and feed off of one another. This is just fearmongering.
What an uncomfortable, tedious, unwanted experience. I still find the Nurgle stuff unsettling.
(Antimony: So, who wants wine and cheese?)
