#something something religious themes

[funishment-time]

thinking about Sayaka, thinking about how her influence extends Well Beyond her case, how her ghost haunts the franchise Well Beyond her game, how Makoto tells Hajime that 11037 is a number from someone "close to him" that "saved" him, how Hajime roots out Junko's false Makoto because she couldn't say why that number was so important. Sayaka, who wanted to save herself; the memory of Sayaka as carried by Makoto; Sayaka, who, long after her death, saves class 77B. Sayaka the redeemer, redeemed herself

etcetera

[pachimation]

a sinner wakes up and finds himself trapped in eden.

announcement that i’ll be working on a long-ish (40+) page vampire/vampire hunter chscr comic and will therefore be on hiatus for about a month!!

spiderweb in paradiso will be debuting at comifuro18 this may, and i’ll (do my best to 🤞) have asia preorders open and up by next friday with intl orders opening date tbd

[direquail]

One of the many things I find funny and irritating is the slant of a lot of interpretations of Alecto's name (that it's about feminine rage)--on this here wlw internet in the year of our lord 2024, it's easily made to figure as rage against God, or rage against patriarchy, or religious oppression, and therefore an allusion to the idea that she's going to get her vengeance on John for betraying and oppressing her somehow, but like

John is the one who named her Alecto. He's the one who named her that. So, naming her "Alecto" is alluding to the embodiment of John's rage--their rage, since they are joined inseparably (John even explicitly says that when he first perceives her: "You wouldn't stop screaming. You were so scared. You were so goddamn mad").

He says of Alecto to Harrow, "In a very real way, you are [Alecto's] children". At a very surface level, Alecto is (depending on the text or tradition), one of the Furies--famously, in several surviving Greek tragedies, who punish Orestes for the crime of killing his mother. In fact, in Aeschylus' Oresteia, they declare that they are specifically bound to avenge matricide.

So the name "Alecto" alludes to the nature of John's mission and how he sees it.

It also implies that his divine rage, the rage that gives him power, the power that makes him divine, that he either represents or wants to represent, is feminine rage. He was chosen by Earth (which, Furies are sometimes the daughters of Gaia); he is her champion, however he's managed to fuck that up. Once the truth of that comes out, it becomes clear that all of his power comes from her.

And that's why you get statements from Tamsyn Muir like:

“[T]he God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to. Even he identifies himself as the God who became man and the man who became God. But the divine in the Locked Tomb is essentially feminine on multiple axes – I think Nona will illuminate that a little bit more."

So yes, he plays the role of Emperor and God and Teacher, with all of the things that implies. And I don't think it should be discounted. But he also is (and partly sees himself as) the chosen champion of a goddess, or what is for all intents & purposes for a human like him a goddess. He is her avenger, and while she sleeps, her avatar.

And I don't think we're meant to read him purely as a parasite who's taking advantage of her to gain power for himself, either. Or an oppressive, Kronos-like figure. Especially if you consider Palamedes' theory of the Grand Lysis, even if he was purely motivated by desire for power before (which I really doubt), there are parts of each in the other, now. What was clear and separate before is uncertain and interpenetrated. Is his rage his own, or hers? Is his mission of revenge his, or hers? If he wants power, is that his own selfishness, or her desire to survive?

And does it matter?

[moonagedaydreamsofrhiannon]

When The Goo Goo Dolls said “I’d give up forever to touch you,” “you’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be” and when Hozier said “the only heaven I’ll be sent to is when I’m alone with you” and when Taylor Swift said “I would fall from grace just to touch your face” and when Hozier said “if I could hold you for a minute, I’d go through it again,” “I would not change it each time, heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I” and when Hozier said “I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door” and when George Ezra said “is the grass of Eden overrated? No one else is such a beautiful dream to me” and when Big Thief said “no love is like this, no sacrifices” and when Jeff Buckley said “my kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder,” “all my riches for her smile,” “all my blood for the sweetness of her laughter” and when Johnny Cash said “you can have it all, my empire of dirt” 

[canisalbus]

God I love religious allegory’s and undertones that rot into a characters bones as if it were their whole being.

.

[dtdrawz]

blackout church poetry because some verses were oddly fitting today

note: I am not religious I just like to draw on their papers

also I messed up horror’s face trying to draw him tiny ;-;

horror - sourapplestudios

dust/murder - ask-dusttale

killer - rahafwabas

nightmare - jokublog

[laurzvahll]

kiru belongs 2 @wewerebornsextuplets

[beezabub]

Arcane season 2 act 2 spoilers

They could have made Jayce kiss Viktor before killing him. yk to continue the biblical metaphor even further

[magnus-cinis]

Sometimes I forget I can just draw whatever the hell I want

Makima

Sketch looked better

[seraphalpha]

Angels are my funky little hyper-fixation.

The idea of just being breathed to life, to immediate indelible purpose, knowing nothing else but adoration for your Creator (holy-holy-holy), and love for everything in creation. That includes your perfect home, your siblings, and that includes yourself. Everything is as it should be, everyone is doing what they should be, and you're utterly content.

Do you have free-will? Why would you need it? What would you even do with it?

The idea of falling. That terrible, beautiful first breath of freedom, undercut by immediate sorrow. "Innocence lost cannot be regained", but even more: a broken machine cannot be relied upon. In finding yourself, you have destroyed what you were meant to be. Your Creator (holy-holy-holy) has thrown you away.

Would you still be you if you got "fixed"? Would the "flaw" just recur? Why can't you help but think of it in those terms?

You have the Fallen, your comrades in arms, your fellow damned. But you left two-thirds of Heaven behind, people you loved because you were made to love them, and who were made to love you in return. The oldest family in the universe, your family, is broken now.

Do you still love them, your siblings that stayed behind? Some fought against your newfound freedom, yes. But some just looked on, a few perhaps even in envy, too afraid to join you, but most in simple horror as their world dissolved. Do you resent them too?

You broke your family.

Do you hate them simply because they lacked your will, your conviction? Do you hate them for being better machines? Do you hate them knowing, in their own naive, ignorant, hurtful way, that they still love you?

To deny fault is to deny the very free-will you sought to prove you have. To blame Him (holy-holy-holy) is to admit to His (holy-holy-holy) infinite power which you, nonetheless, defy.

And from the other side, what of your poor lost kin? How could they do this?

Angels are purpose-made, gears in the Machine. The Host is singular, inexorable, deterministic. They turn the wheels of the Universe, from the birth and death of stars, to the birth and death of mortal creatures.

Why would your siblings do this, don't they love you? You are loved. Was there a flaw in the Design? He (holy-holy-holy) cannot err, by definition. What happens now that they're gone, what happens to their purpose? All goes according to plan. Then why can't you stop having these thoughts?

I'm not religious at all, but...

[rat-rosemary]

To come back to your arms, to lay warm once more

It's always odd to see Dream lounging like this, to find his God (because this is his God. No matter how much the castles scream and tear and twist, this is his God) laying on a sun beam, casually leaning against a rock.

When Karl read about other gods, when he heard people talk about theirs, they were always untouchable by mortals, living far away on their golden palaces. Not like Dream, with paws stained of dirt and scars. A being made of flesh and blood like any of them.

He wonders if those devouts can hear their gods' heartbeat.

"Are you trying to look poisonous?"

Karl snapped back into attention, focusing back on Dream's face from where his eyes had drifted to the God's... other features.

"What?"

"You have color splashes all over your back. Are you trying to look poisonous Karl?"

Did he? He hadn't noticed, but the in-between has a habit of trying to shove it's hands into Karl's form, trying to reshape him.

(Somewhere under the fog in his mind something shuttered, something that could remember screamed at the mere idea, at the implications. Karl was too tired to listen to it.)

He took of his black and white hoodie, walking to a nearby stream and looking at his reflection in the water.

Truly, there were splashes of color on him, looking like someone had violently slammed a paintbrush against his ribs.

"You don't look poisonous Karl. The colors are too muddied, they make you look sick."

Karl jumped. He hadn't noticed Dream getting up from his sunbeam and following him. That was two times that Karl wasn't paying attention and got startled, and from the look in Dream's eyes he hasn't pleased with that.

Oops.

"You did such a better job with your hair before, I don't know why you decided to change to this. The grey looks bad, makes you easy prey," Dream said, one of his hands sliding over Karl's scruff, covering the back of his neck, "let me fix it for you."

And then there was warmth flooding Karl's body, flowing into him from Dream like fresh blood as the other forced a transformation, shifting the form of his devout.

Karl felt cleansed. Exorcised of an evil that settled on him bit by bit, consuming him like a frog on boiling water.

Like waking up from a long terrible dream, like falling asleep in a warm bed after a long terrible chase.

Belatedly he realized there were tears sliding down his face as his mind cleared and sharpened, and it took a bit until he could see his reflection on the water of the stream again.

The ends of his curls were once more filled with color, less vibrant then he would personally have but such a relief after spending so long not realizing that they were gone that Karl's eyes almost blur once more.

The ugly muddy splashes across his skins have become a light brown pattern, just slightly darker then his skin, spanning down his back and on the tip of his nose like a deer's fur.

Karl laughs, desperate and fearful as all at once he feels all he has done, remember all he has forgotten, and as he feels Dream hesitantly pull his hand away Karl slams his own on top, keeping the God's hand in place.

"Karl?"

His laughter becomes maniac, his eyes closing as he curls up on himself. Shaking his head like he shake away the memories, turn everything he went through into a bad fever dream.

And then he starts sobbing, throwing himself into Dream's arms and praying that he will somehow hold him together when that being (because whatever the inbetween is, it is not a God. Karl will not give it that tittle) was trying to rip his devout away from him.

His prayers are answered and Dream pulls him closer, letting Karl hide his face on his shoulders as he sobs, the fur there growing wet in a matter of seconds.

Eventually, after what feels like eons, Karl feels himself calm, a natural exhaustion settling deep on his chest at the same time a pounding headache settles behind his forehead.

Distantly he realizes he has shifted once more.

He stops clutching Dream like someone will come drag him away, glancing down and finding colorful spots like confetti on his skin and ears floppy and long against his back as he takes shape of a rabbit, mimicking Dream's favorite form, his real true form, not the showy and impractical angel that he uses to scare away outsiders who expect something else of him.

Karl's eyes are heavy and this time he let's them fall with no fear of where he will wake up.

He is back home, in his den, safe from the claws of the hunt.

It's time to rest before the next day, before his next chase.

🐇¤🐇¤🐇¤🐇¤🐇

Inspired by this fanart I found on pinterest

The artists is @/mama gingerale but I can't tell you if they're from here or twt or if they're even active anymore

ALSO BTW IF YOU EVER SEE THIS I THINK THE MARKINGS ARE BEAUTIFUL SORRY FOR CALLING THEM UGLY AND MUDDY BUT ANGST

[iamjackstylerdurden]

“god doesnt limp”

“mine does”

[just-bee-lieve]

haunting the narrative with her absence

[triple-pupil]

I swear to God I posted this before but I can't find it...

So have it again.

Song: Choice - Jack Stauber

[canisalbus]

Religious trauma anon again! Im genuinely serious when i say hes been a major sort of comfort, especially as someone who has one side of family that is catholic, and the other evangelical. The imagry you use is fantastic especially in your more thematic and symbological pieces, i love picking out the different aspects like where bandages and wounds are placed, what kind of background may be going on, the colors and the emotions associated with them, etc. Even if its not all intentional, its good food

.

[bishonenvoicedbyadyke]

muslim armand is real to me because i keep picturing arun/amadeo/armand in the middle of Wudu (cleansing rituals before prayer) and him wondering am i clean enough now? will i ever be clean again?