Recently saw the post that implied that serfs!readers in 40k fanfiction became a boring cliché, they're everywhere, etc.
I can understand where it comes from and now want to tell you my thoughts on this type of ideas...
For me personal serfs and their astartes are not this typical y/n x mafia boss dynamic, where big strong man protects a fragile shy girl with sad backstory, but something much more..i can't find the right word.
Serfs are often everything for their astartes. Best friend, a lover, a spouse, mother, sister, everything he can think of he will find in this little human.
Astartes gives his serf a protection, less hard work and better living conditions, and company, the serf provides guidance, comfort and love.
Serfs can be helpful, assertive, admonitory, they can do actual things ho help their astartes (like the Aulus' serf did save him from punishment) and much more.
They can be ready to die for each other, some serfs followed their masters to the Warp when chaos possessed them.
You can play with this dynamic however you can - your astartes and serf can be a power couple and may destroy each other - everything up to you.
Imagine corrupting a young Admech/Skitarii warrior. Young horny man - bionics and augmentations didn't suppress his desires yet and he's trying to resist your charm.
Or maybe one of astartes from some prude chapter, where they are sworn to celibacy? Mhmh Black Templars? Oh, to seduce one of them, to see how they are trying to resist your charm only to fail miserably and ravage you, desperately falling on their knees...
Light ships sweep across the skies of Catachan, while beneath the dense forest canopy, the planet’s terrifying wildlife battles the Tyranids. In the lower foreground, Catachan Jungle Fighters look up, eyeing the arrival of these aerial reinforcements.
Thinking about the first time an astartes calls you mother.
There is no genetic component to it, not like them with their primarch father. It's entirely a show of loyalty. Of trust. Of admitting that the only other person they can honestly, truly follow should their father perish is you, and you alone.
Bonus points if it's not only a son especially favored by your lover, but one that spent so much time disliking and distrusting you that the revelation rips the air from your lungs and you can't help but to break down in tears, forcing him to comfort you like a good son should.
Even more bonus points if your primarch was one that fell to chaos, yet managed not to drag you down as well, and that son chooses to turn against his father so that he can stay by you because if he won't protect you after the heresy, no one else will.
So…I had a dream about these guys. More specifically I had a dream about some of my favorite orcs fighting over the same human that they want to be mates with.
My dream was mainly centered around Grommash and Blackhand. These two were really butting heads in my dream. Like they were in each others face seconds away from killing each other all because they were not willing to share. But eventually in the dream they were sharing, which I thought was funny.
So I've been thinking about the scenario all day but decided to add Durotan and Ogrim in the mix because why not?
Just imagine these four completely enamored by you in their own unique ways, occasionally butting heads and fighting over you when you’re not around, but completely dropping all of that when you show up because they want you so badly. Ugh, I can’t 😩💕
ANYWAYS….this is basically what was going on in my dream:
As a profound commissar fucker I want to write a comparison between Yarrick and Cain. Yk, how they are in bed in general - kinks, sex drive, dick sizes and whatever you got me
So, I read it now (my special edition Hardcover got lost in the mail so I ended up reading the digital version, but GW were kind enough to send me a new copy after I sent an email so I got the big hardcover edition now).
The book's fine. It isn't bad or anything, not at all, but it was just okay for me, not amazing or as good as, say, the Ufthak books.
That's my overall impression, I'll do more detailed (spoilers) stuff below if you're interested in it.
I wanna start off with what I liked about the book:
The characters are genuinely fun and I love the council of Ork warbosses. I have said for a long time I think Ghazghkull's role in lore would be accentuated by giving him a fun cast of consistent lieutenants/allies to interact with. The warbosses are fun. Glinteef (the Badmoon) and Badsmak (the Deathskullz) are my favourite followed by the Goff warboss Rotgard and the Evil Sunz Warboss Urgal. Weirdly I found Slitta, sort of the protagonist, a tad boring and Mirak (the Snakebite) sadly just was given next to no character compared to the others. Tellingly Mirak is the only Warboss with no chapters from his perspective AT ALL. But I liked the Warbosses A LOT. I enjoyed the fact that they were given distinct personas from each other and also enjoyed the range of Orkiness that was expressed, with Glinteef and Badsmak having a standed approach to Warboss dynamics whilst Rotgard was a bit more swept up in hero worship of Ghazghkull (fair enough considering he is a Goff). So honestly the core cast of characters was great and fun and I love the idea of giving Ghazghkull a rogue's gallery of powerful minions and allies whom can do their own plots. A bit strength of Space Marine chapters in lore is that the major ones usually have, by now, an ensemble cast of well-fleshed out secondary characters who can serve supporting roles in each other's solo stories. Giving Ghazghkull a similar situation by giving him a cadre of storied lieutenants with persistent presence in the setting would be, I believe, a very good way to enhance the appeal of the Ork faction.
The Orks do win (which is so rare so I have to be thankful for it) and whenever Ghazghkull really actually gets to mix things up the Black Templars just get absolutely crushed with no real chance of victory. Heck the only reason the fight isn't over instantly, considering how gargantuan Ghazghkull's army is at this stage, is because the entire book (which basically plays out over like two days) is just Ghazghkull taking one ship with his drinking buddies on it to attack a planet. His whole army gets left behind as him and his top Warbosses just take one ship on a joyride to fight. The book is basically the equivalent to Ghazghkull just taking a jaunt with his mates.
What I don't like or am more neutral over:
Connected to the characters, and a reoccuring problem with Ghazghkull, basically every single Warboss is dead by the end of the book. This is also about the fourth time lore has attempted to introduce a 'council' of Warbosses for Ghazghkull only for them to all be wholly irrelevant and all dead, or just never mentioned ever again (looking at you Warbosses from the 10th Edition Codex opening). It's just really fucking sucks that all these fun cool powerful Orks die in basically one day on what isn't even a major battle for them. I'd be fine with 1 dying, Orks do have high mortality rates, but these are depicted as the top Boyz of each Clan in Ghazghkull's horde and Rotgard, Glinteef and Badsmak are dead by the end. Which also annoys me because those were my three fave and the three who were Orkiest. The crux of the book's second half rests on Ghazghkull seemingly dying due to the scheming of Glinteef and Slitta and how the Orks react to it. Rotgard, Glinteef and Badsmak have the Orkiest reactions: Rotgard goes off to face the Black Templars and prove himself successor by emulation of deeds, whilst Glinteef and Badsmak seek to scheme and seize power via usurpation of Ghazghkull's horde. Urgal is by this point just running away from Black Templars and Mirak just immediately goes about trying to 'resurrect' Ghazghkull. I think Glinteef dying makes sense (Nazdreg clearly fills the Bad Moonz spot better and gives Ghazghkull an antagonistic ally) and throughout the book Glinteef is the most obvious one seeking (along with Slitta) to backstab Ghazz. But Badsmak was so GOOD! Like points to Badsmak, even Ghaz says so, when it does finally come down to it Badsmak just straight up shoots his shot and tries to take an injured Ghaz down. Badsmak and Rotgard were so fun! ;-; at least Urgal survives, though since we have Wazdakka now like all Ghaz's previous lieutenants in lore he'll probably cease to exist.
The book is trying to do far too much for its size. It is cramming at least two books' worth of content in one book which results in a LOT of it feeling tangential. The world clearly has an entire expansive backstory connected to a (maybe corrupted?) Blood Angels successor Chapter called the Knights of Gabal who show up in a horror movie-like stinger at the end. They have no connection to anything else happening in the book but a surprising amount of time is devoted to setting up this stinger (even though this book is CLEARLY not part of a series so that cliffhanger will never be resolved). There is a Grot side character who gets 3 chapters to himself which I liked at first and thought was going to set up a fun dynamic with Rotgard but ends up going nowhere and is just used to do the UMPTEENTH Makari resurrection. I think one of the biggest signs of the overstuffed nature is the sheer volume of perspectives we get, so many different characters who the book gets told from (all the Warbosses barring Mirak, the grot who becomes Makari, one of Slitta's henchorks, the human leader of Gabal, his traitorous advisor, the Black Templar Emperor's Champion, the Black Templar Marshal AND a more junior Black Templar) means that it struggles to give any one adequate space and time to land. Rotgard's death against the Marshal is CLEARLY meant to be impactful for both: it ends Rotgard's arc of seeking to not only follow Ghazghkull but BECOME HIM and does so with the ironic twist that as the Marshal kills him the Marshal literally believes he is killing Ghazghkull and avenging his mentor who Ghazghkull killed on Armageddon. But there wasn't enough time for the plot to develop so it doesn't feel as impactful as I think it could have if the story wasn't literally the Orkish equivalent of a one-night pub crawl. I think if the story had been shortened to focus on some of the core points it would have felt stronger as an overall narrative.
A final point, which is very weird coming from me, but I must just say it is...if the lore of this book was consistent, in that Ghazghkull in the Armageddon campaign is now this strong (he won't be) then it'd be fucking broken. Like. He'd be too strong. Ghazghkull, in this book, can take the following without dying: An Emperor's Champion runs him through with the black sword. Then a titan-killer weapon which can level mountains hits him. Then a mountain full of explosions blows up and drops a mountain on him. He gets out of this alive but hurt and armour broken. AFTER THIS he fights and beats Badmsak and tanks a looted T'au Railgun to the chest. After that the same titan-killer weapon which earlier fired at him and blew up a mountain fires at him again and Ghazghkull WITH HIS BASICALLY BARE FIST just punches the energy beam and it blasts it away like eh's a freaking Dragonball Z Character. After all this he also displays Wolverine-style insane rapid regeneration when, after all this (and stomping a Black Templar Marshal to death as well) Slitta tries to beat him, fails, and as Slitta is literally talking to Ghaz in the immediate aftermath of the fight Ghaz's wounds are basically being erased from reality as if they didn't exist in the first place. Look, I get it, it is all psychic, and far from the most insane things Primarchs and the Emperor have done, so if they want to say this is how strong a Beast Ork is, sure. But my problem is...they won't. Armageddon's probably gonna end with some Blood Angels' Captain beating him again and sending him running like he has in every fight against Marines ever. If they are going to make him this strong I'd just like if it was actually consistent.
That last point isn't necessarily bad, or good, like I said if they want to commit to the idea that Ghazghkul has just grown to this point of power fine, fair, we know a Beast Ork can overpower a Primarch, Vulkan died redirecting an entire powerstation energy beam right into a Beast Ork's face and it still didn't kill him, didn't seem to even really injure him severally. But then please, PLEASE, for the love of Gork and Mork if Ghazghkull is this strong now you can't just have Space Marine captain's clowning on him.
Which they will, this hope is in vain, I know, because Ghazghkull is becoming like the Swarmlord now. Because GW is basically saying he can psychically resurrect from any damage due to Ork believe in him they can, like the Swarmlord, like the Avatar of Khaine, like Greater Daemons and Daemon Primarchs, kill him off as much as they want to make Marines look cool, which is what I fear.
Final thing I really liked about the book: stayed consistent with the plot point first promulgated by Nate Crowely, but seemingly now being affirmed by Denny Flowers in all his Ork books too, that Ghazghkull just let Ragnar chop his head off because he had to (stupid but better than Ragnar actually beating him). When utterly trouncing the Black Templar Marshal (after having already trounced the Emperor's Champion) he pointedly mocks the Marshal by saying the only Marine who ever even gave him a challenge was Ragnar and that Ragnar only did as well as he did because Ghazghkull let him. Considering that Ghazghkull before fighting Ragnar had already fought and decisively beat Belial I have no problem with this and see it as at least a correction of an egregious error, even if I still wish that the error hadn't been made at all.
So, yeah, my closing thoughts are that the book is alright but not particularly gripping. The characters are well done and fun to read, but I wish we had more time with them and I feel the book hurts itself by trying to do too much in to little a space of time. But, still a fine read overall.
My friends convinced me to draw something with Yarrick and Ghazghkull ~~
I once read a work on ao3 that I fell in love with, so I'll make a small series of illustrations for it. English is not my native language, so I might not have understood some aspects correctly, but I tried my best! It's quite unusual to draw Yarrick without his cap.
All is fair in love and Waaagh!
by @tastytoastz
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Tears .
They ran down his cheek from his remaining eye and made the other sting.
He shouldn’t cry he had no right to, but he couldn’t help it.
His screaming ended, as his voice started to shake instead and he just went slack. He stopped stabbing him, the knife falling out of his loose fingers that was turning blue from the bruising. The knife hit the floor with a quiet ‘clink’ on the floor amongst the puddles of the warlords dark blood.
Ghazghkull’s eyes went wide. He looked shocked but was way worse was that he looked concerned. He should not look concerned, he should look happy. He should be laughing at this pathetic display, feeling a rush having been able to bring his nemesis to the absolute breaking point. Ghazghkull should have been overjoyed, should have grinned sadistically, that would have set everything right with the world. That was what Yarrick wanted despite knowing that would have left scars that would never fade.
WIP to the next art
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