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Please see the link but be prepared to be a little disturbed. I reserve my own feelings on this only to say that it is fucking brilliant because it has people talking and is exposing a central hypocrisy and conceit in the fluff and the hobby. I'll go more into it but want to see what others think.

Again. This is NSFW.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/266249

That...wasn't quite as disturbing as I was expecting given the warning

Incidentally, what does NSFW mean?

NSFW means "Not Safe For Work"

There are some work places that closely monitor internet usage and things like nudity could trigger an issue for the person viewing the site.

I warned heavily only because this has caused a bit of a stir on another site and although SDNet is made of sterner stuff I just wanted to be sure no one went in unprepared.

Good idea. Well, it's a very well-done diorama, and it certainly puts an interesting spin on the men of the IG. I always wondered if this sort of thing happenned. I assumed it did but was just never shown

It's an excellent diorama. The subject matter is well chosen, good at portraying how war dehumanizes the enemy and is brutal and all that. Definitely not a subject matter that gets talked about much in 40k, despite the fact that logically such things would happen in such a massive organization as the IG. Especially as they often recruit from the dregs of society.

Of course. 40k prides itself in grimdark and action and violence, attracting an audience of children who want to play toy soldiers and fancy themselves as being all hardcore and the like, pretending to be whatever. Just like people who pretend to be tough and go on about wars and guns and everything like that. Ironically, the sight of real human suffering seems to perturb these people and make them uneasy, because they'd rather have their fake cartoony toy soldiers and pretend wars that they fantasize about. It's the same when you're talking about people who dig fiction that's "grim" and "dark" and "edgy", or armchair generals who fancy modern military nonsense, it's all a game of pretend and they'd rather play make believe and toy soldiers than see what it's really like.

I don't see how this is supposed to be disturbing. After all, the xenos are subhuman scum, and wouldn't hesitate to do the same to a human.

I can't award bonus points because none of them are Slanneshi.

I have to say I like it.
It reminds me of Full metal Jacket, and the whole Vietnam thing, but with Imperial guard which is... unsurprising I guess...
Amazing painting, modelling, and an evocative choice of subject material.

Considering that we are talking about an universe inhabited by gods that get demons by creating incredibly large orgies of pain and pleasure, I do not find that scene that disturbing. Unless you expected somehow that those soldiers were somehow supposed to be noble. If anything, a scene like this is something that would happen all the time.

As much as I could easily see this happening in 40k, it strikes me as an amazingly poor idea to attempt to gang-rape a member of a highly psychic species in a universe with such common applications of psychic combat. Perhaps a sequel diorama?

If you look far enough back into the cultural memories that Wh40K is based on, this is positively life affirming by comparison. Of course it happens. It's always been the black joke latent in Wh40K, that the Killing Fields and Passchendaele and the Black Plague and the Final Solution and the Holy Inquisition and all the bloody pogroms ignorance, cruelty and fear loosed on the world are repeated and magnified on a day to day basis, as the way things are and righteously ought to be, by the good guys.

It is a property in it's own right, when a hundred other wargames are just cardboard and plastic counters and interesting if sterile exercises in applied statistics, bcause of that streak of black humour/horror, and I hope that, as the kids it is being sold to grow up- which a lot of them already have, we're looking at near enough twenty-five years here, they start to question what they're told, read the fluff with adult eyes, and get the joke. The maker of the diorama did.

(EDITED IN- that really came out the wrong way. I am not condoning anything of the sort, just want to make that clear.)

This turns my stomach, but I'm having a hard time sorting out why. I think the fact that it's fanart of a fictional universe just has me going "why?". What's the point? Shocking sadnerds who think the Imperium is great? I'm sure that was the driving force behind this little undertaking. He clearly hates the setting so much.

White Haven wrote:As much as I could easily see this happening in 40k, it strikes me as an amazingly poor idea to attempt to gang-rape a member of a highly psychic species in a universe with such common applications of psychic combat. Perhaps a sequel diorama?

Yeah, you could save this for me with a sequel diorama, featuring the Guardsmen choking to death on their own genitals after getting sodomized with their own weapons. But that wouldn't be a monument to the military manly men of human history or something.

I'm looking forward to the diorama depicting the rampant pedophilia in the Ecclesiarchy. After all, you know it happens!

Darth Raptor wrote:This turns my stomach, but I'm having a hard time sorting out why. I think the fact that it's fanart of a fictional universe just has me going "why?". What's the point? Shocking sadnerds who think the Imperium is great? I'm sure that was the driving force behind this little undertaking. He clearly hates the setting so much.

Bear in mind that in the backstory, one of the reasons the universe is so fucked up is because the Eldar had too much fun raping and murdering anything that moved and several things that didn't, and even now the Dark Eldar literally have to keep up a quota of torture and rape so that Slaanesh doesn't just up and eat their souls.

This type of event is the entire point of two whole factions in the game (Slaanesh and Dark Eldar).

I reserve my own feelings on this only to say that it is fucking brilliant because it has people talking and is exposing a central hypocrisy and conceit in the fluff and the hobby.

I'd be interested to hear what you think that is, as I'm not seeing it, unless it's the "horrifica violence, insanity and gore, but don't you DARE suggest penises".

The diorama's very well executed and shows the darker side of the square-jawed-heroes-fighting-for-our-survival stereotype of guardsmen. I'd have to agree with Darth Raptor - what reason does the modeller have for making the diorama?

Ah, I think I see Stravo's point. It's a diorama showing a typical war scene, and the hypocrisy he mentioned is the glorification of war in general, I imagine? The modeller is being very subversive and making a very good artistic point, that the average battle scene is arguably no less distasteful than this one.

Thought provoking.

Sinewmire wrote:

I reserve my own feelings on this only to say that it is fucking brilliant because it has people talking and is exposing a central hypocrisy and conceit in the fluff and the hobby.

I'd be interested to hear what you think that is, as I'm not seeing it, unless it's the "horrifica violence, insanity and gore, but don't you DARE suggest penises".

The diorama's very well executed and shows the darker side of the square-jawed-heroes-fighting-for-our-survival stereotype of guardsmen. I'd have to agree with Darth Raptor - what reason does the modeller have for making the diorama?

Ah, I think I see Stravo's point. It's a diorama showing a typical war scene, and the hypocrisy he mentioned is the glorification of war in general, I imagine? The modeller is being very subversive and making a very good artistic point, that the average battle scene is arguably no less distasteful than this one.

Thought provoking.

Thought provoking is the highest compliment you can give this piece. People don't need to condone it to see the worth in that this piece actually has people thinking about their hobby and what it might represent.

One aspect of the hypocrisy I'm also seeing is that there is this moral outrage about even suggesting this violence towards women but many of those same people who play the game and have played a scenario with the Sisters of Battle would have had their toy soldiers killing, incinerating, chopping these warrior women up without a second's thought.

To put it another way, if this diorama depicted a demon lifting a Sister of Battle or female guardsmen over its head, ripping her in half and drinking blood and guts people would be like "Whoa cool" however hint at the rape remember the act here is not depicted - and suddenly there are outraged gamers coming out of the word work. Pretend butchering women and their fellow man is a great way to spend an evening over beer and pretzels but a talented painter injects a whiff of reality to grimdark and he's a pervert.

It's the whole American sex/violence divide with a dash of fans who apparently don't know what grimdark would actually mean.

This isn't anything new is it? A common trend in many media is that the faceless mooks are almost always male, hardly ever female - female characters will always be special, named characters to give them the maximum character shield benefit so you never have to deal with topics like this - how many female redshirts are there compared to male, *even in universes that are ostensibly gender balanced*.

This turns my stomach, but I'm having a hard time sorting out why. I think the fact that it's fanart of a fictional universe just has me going "why?". What's the point? Shocking sadnerds who think the Imperium is great? I'm sure that was the driving force behind this little undertaking. He clearly hates the setting so much.

I think its very darkly amusing that the diorama works for any era in any setting, fictional and real life - WW2, 100 year's war, star wars, bosnian civil war, Iraq war,starcraft, etc etc. ALL that needs to be done is swap out the models. The posing can remain 100% the same and it still works! It's good that people ask themselves why pretend violence is a-ok but pretend implied rape that even makes sense in universe (as opposed to say, fanfic where it really is just inserted for shock value) is not. (offhand, as I type this I am playing Civ V on my desktop and the city conquest noise with the screaming and all...just think about that happens in real life when this actually happens. Does Civ V need to be 18+ now?)

Especially as they often recruit from the dregs of society.

Heck, it happened even in Iraq with the American army, so you don't even need to regularly recruit from the dregs of society.

You don't get to be called deep for painting boobies on your doll and painstakingly staging a rape fantasy; something most people have too much taste and/or respect for women to do.

Yes, soldiers (particularly conscripts and the economic conscripts of our modern "volunteer" armies) are often little more than barbarous thugs. It's only because we need them to go get killed for us that we stoke their egos with ideas that they're somehow better than gangbangers when historically, that hasn't been the case. Good job, you've exposed the dirty secret that anyone who knows anything about the history of warfare is already aware of.

The people harping on the sex/violence double standard are ignoring the fact that rape is just a particularly egregious kind of violence, not a kind of sex.

You don't get to be called deep for painting boobies on your doll and painstakingly staging a rape fantasy; something most people have too much taste and/or respect for women to do.

Except the artist is doing it to make an actual point. He or she has noticed a sort of cultural hypocrisy. The glorification of war and violence that runs rampant in our culture and in our literature and war games... but the one thing that always accompanies war--rape, especially against dehumanized opponents--gets glossed over. It is forgotten, ignored, pointedly not mentioned. I wonder how many Iraqi Women are Valiant Soldiers(tm) have raped in Iraq? The proportion of soldiers who were rapists in the occupation of Japan was nearly 100% thanks to brothels filled with unwilling "comfort women". No one ever hears about that. And no one (Except Imperial Overlord) who plays warhammer 40K ever thinks about what happens to the women wounded on the battlefield when they get captured. IIRC it even gets glossed over in the novels when the reality is, it would be one big rape fest.

The artist has pointed this out to us, and has done a masterful job.

Good job, you've exposed the dirty secret that anyone who knows anything about the history of warfare is already aware of.

They are aware, they just dont pay attention. Like you ignore a crying child on the bus.

Darth Raptor wrote:You don't get to be called deep for painting boobies on your doll and painstakingly staging a rape fantasy; something most people have too much taste and/or respect for women to do.

Yes, soldiers (particularly conscripts and the economic conscripts of our modern "volunteer" armies) are often little more than barbarous thugs. It's only because we need them to go get killed for us that we stoke their egos with ideas that they're somehow better than gangbangers when historically, that hasn't been the case. Good job, you've exposed the dirty secret that anyone who knows anything about the history of warfare is already aware of.

The people harping on the sex/violence double standard are ignoring the fact that rape is just a particularly egregious kind of violence, not a kind of sex.

Why is the first point refering to a "rape fantasy" and the third to "just a egregious kind of violence"? Actually thats the point - the question is not why is rape depictions condemned, its why other violence is celebrated and made into entertainment?

It's an effective piece for certain, really puts the GRIM into GRIMDARK. Looking at the comments you can easily tell how well this hits people into the soft spots. Some go directly to "You deviant fiend, you like RAAAAPEE!!!", while others explain away how she could escape the situation. It counterpoints in very visceral manner the normal chest thumping and glorification that goes with 40K fluff, all those brave guardsmen fighting and dying to protect the emperor and yet here you have it, Imperiums heroes about to a commit horrible act on a defenseless woman. In the 41st millennium there is only war and by association sexual violence, no amount of accusing the artist, talk about the evil xenos, or any other excuse will change this. Even when talking about a completely fictional universe, it's sobering to be reminded about the ugliest faces of war.

Even if the artist made this little piece just to fap to it night and day, which I don't buy for a second, doesn't reduce it's effectiveness.

-Gunhead

I wonder how many people outraged by this are bothered by the Sororitas slaves on Asdrubael Vect's Dais of Destruction? My guess is "none," considering how they even were included in Dawn of War. This is only slightly more explicit, and suddenly, people are outraged.

I was going to slam the hypocritical fuckers who play in the grimdark 41st millenium with daemons and factions explicitly dedicated to rape and torture and shit, and then are outraged when it's not handwaved away like it usually is. Then I remembered that GW likes it that way because they want to market the setting to 13 year old boys, so any kind of truly mature examination of the setting is impossible.

I mean, look at the way sex is handled in the Black Library novels. Which is, "not at all," even for characters who are working in the sex industry (like Bequin).

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Gunhead wrote: It counterpoints in very visceral manner the normal chest thumping and glorification that goes with 40K fluff, all those brave guardsmen fighting and dying to protect the emperor and yet here you have it, Imperiums heroes about to a commit horrible act on a defenseless woman.

I would hardly call an Eldar warrior defenseless. She got beaten in a battle fair and square.

Chaotic Neutral wrote:

Gunhead wrote: It counterpoints in very visceral manner the normal chest thumping and glorification that goes with 40K fluff, all those brave guardsmen fighting and dying to protect the emperor and yet here you have it, Imperiums heroes about to a commit horrible act on a defenseless woman.

I would hardly call an Eldar warrior defenseless. She got beaten in a battle fair and square.

...what's that got to do with anything?

Jesus, CN, is one warning not enough for you to get the hint and stop being a reprehensible little shitbag?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Chaotic Neutral wrote:I don't see how this is supposed to be disturbing. After all, the xenos are subhuman scum, and wouldn't hesitate to do the same to a human.

I can't award bonus points because none of them are Slanneshi.

Chaotic Neutral wrote:

Gunhead wrote: It counterpoints in very visceral manner the normal chest thumping and glorification that goes with 40K fluff, all those brave guardsmen fighting and dying to protect the emperor and yet here you have it, Imperiums heroes about to a commit horrible act on a defenseless woman.

I would hardly call an Eldar warrior defenseless. She got beaten in a battle fair and square.

You are a prime example of why chemical castration is a good thing.

I don't see how getting raped and killed is significantly worse than the alternative of being tortured for information.