#tw: religious themes / religious trauma / religious imagery.

[floodleaf]

sin fascinates you, then it assassinates you

[comikbook]

The Eyes of God, 2023, Digital Painting by myself, Liz Pence

[draw-the-squad-like-this]

Draw your OTP like this

[painisforsundays]

[whereserpentswalk]

You were born to be a sacrifice. When you first exited your mothers womb the oracles decided that would be your fate. They tattooed your hands and forehead so everyone would know.

When you turn twenty, they'll take you to the church, and they'll set you on fire. And then when your body is burned they'll give your ashes for the angels, and the angels and saints will be proud, and bless your community and family with great riches. Or at least that's what they say.

When you were young it didn't seem to mean anything that you were born to die young. Nobody cared, they just saw you as another kid. But it was always there. Adults would ask other kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, but they'd ask you what you would do once you were a ruler in the court of heaven. They'd tell other kids about marriage and sex and having children, but for you that would just be for other people, you'd die a virgin.

And at a certain age, you were removed from school. Because they said you wouldn't need it. That you shouldn't be wasting your time on such things. And you didn't understand, but you understood that all your freinds were upset that they wouldn't see you anymore. Not as much at least. And people talked about you so much differently from then on. You weren't complimented as strong, or as smart, or as ambitious, you were pretty, and pure, and brave, and dutiful. And everyone talked about how proud they were of you, how wonderful it was that you were going to die for them.

They were so nice to you. They gave you so many gifts and jewelry. You got to spend all day inside playing video games, and you got the best toys and got to go to movies and plays when you wanted to. Soldiers in power armor would bow when they saw you, and robots and cyborgs would turn off their lights. And you sat at a special place in church, and the clothing you wore was diffrent then everyone else's. And people talked about how wonderful you were, and how pretty you were, and how much they loved having you when they knew you wouldn't be on this world for long. And they were so proud of you when they showed you the platinum clothing you would wear on the day of your sacrifice. And you didn't understand why but all of the compliments sounded sad.

As you grew older things changed. The other children went through puberty, but you didn't, they gave you surgery to prevent it, ans told you how pure you were for not producing blood or seed. And you were old enough to understand that you would die, that you would burn, and it would hurt, and that nobody really knew for sure what happened after peopled died. And you saw a sacrifice, and saw the pain they were in, and there weren't any angels, there were only priests watching and chanting, and the smell of burning skin.

Your parents and family started to care much more how you behave. To make sure you're polite. To make sure you're a good sacrifice, who the angels will like. And meanwhile while all your other freinds are going to college, and talking about becoming artists, or starship pilots, or scientists, you know you'll only ever have one ending. But still, everyone loves you, and you don't have responsibilities, but still sometimes you think about how much diffrent life would be if you were born differently.

You've started meeting people who've left the faith, or people who didn't grow up in it, people who believe in diffrent religions or in no religion at all. And your heaven seems less and less certain every day. According to imperial law you're allowed to be sacrificed, but if you choose not to they can't force you. But if you choose not to you can never be a part of your faith again, and your family will be disappointed in you forever. All your family and community, everyone who you ever knew, will consider you a failure, a coward doomed to hell for not going through with what the cosmos planned for you. And all that pride and joy they felt about your fate would be replaced with anger that you never became what they were so happy and proud about you being. You don't think you believe in heaven anymore, but you still might choose to die, if it means they're proud... it's what you're raised to do, you don't know who you'll be if you choose to leave.

Better choose fast darling, it's only a few months away now. You don't want them to be upset.

[nando161mando]

[h0rifix]

“𝔚𝔢𝔩𝔩, ℑ'𝔳𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢, 𝔰𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔦𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔦𝔯 𝔚𝔥𝔦𝔰𝔭𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔢 𝔭𝔯𝔞𝔶𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔞𝔩𝔣 𝔞 𝔪𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 ℑ𝔱'𝔰 𝔞 𝔩𝔦𝔢, 𝔱𝔥𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔟𝔲𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔡 𝔦𝔫 𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔦𝔭𝔩𝔢𝔰.”

- 𝐰𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥. (𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟕). 'the village’.

- image two quote creds: 𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐢𝐧. (𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐). 'sun bleached flies'.

[zlinkiez]

🍎G-d Embracing the Serpent 🍎

Very eXCITED for S3 and eager to get more into G-d's ineffable plan and how everyone is mucking it up! Or whatever Mr. Gaiman's vision should be, I like speculating all the same.

[loggedbloddgedfjsjf]

every girl needs a gun.

[fandumb-thoughts]

“What did you do?” Adam asked.

Cain—his first born, the first ever born—looked at him with eyes wide and terrified. Adam’s eyes, Eve would say, the same brown of rich, rain-watered soil.

“I don’t know,” Cain said. “I don’t- Dad, I don’t know. Why won’t he wake up?”

Cain’s lip trembled, hands clasped tightly together, tears welling and falling in great fat drops. He was still so young, younger than Adam had ever been. His knees were knobbly and his wrists thin and he barely came up to Adam’s chin. Big enough to work, to till the fields and pull the weeds and harvest the crops, but small enough to curl tight in his mother’s arms when lightning cracked the sky.

On the ground was Abel, even younger yet. He tended the flocks and kept watch for anything that might want to harm them. He was good with them—gentler than Adam understood, though Eve told him to let him be. Even now several sheep creeped closer, braying nervously at the sharp scent of iron.

Abel was still shorter than Eve. He had a gap in the far back of his mouth where the last of his molars had popped out only a handful of days before. He had freckles that showed up in the summer sun, as if he had grown them there, all over his face and shoulders and arms.

“Dad, what do I do? What can I-?”

Abel’s eyes were open, looking to the sky that they so resembled, but they didn’t see anything. Somehow, Adam knew. Abel wouldn’t see anything ever again.

Adam hadn’t known that they could die. Humans, that was. Adam hadn’t known that Humans could die. How could he?

He’d suspected, of course. He bled when he was cut just like the animals he’d learned to butcher for their fat and meat and skin. He grew weak when they had little food to come by, they all had fallen ill a time or two, he’d watched as Eve lost what would have, otherwise, turned into a child. It wasn’t a shocking conclusion to reach, but he’d never known for certain. Not like he did now.

Adam fell to his knees, hands helplessly cradling Abel’s face. His son, his body, his baby-

There was so much blood, comign from the cracked-open place in Abel’s brown hair. It dyed his curls slick black, spilling down his neck. The soil was covered in it. This place would be stained for days—weeks, maybe even months—just as the place they slaughtered the livestock was marked as a place of death.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry.” Cain was sobbing, hiccuping over his words and gasping for breath.

Adam’s vision was blurring as his own tears came. Abel’s face felt rubbery and wrong underneath his hands. Lifeless.

This was wrong. This shouldn’t have happened. This should never happen. Abel was so young, had so much more to live. He would keep growing—maybe until he was taller than not only his mother but Adam too—and he would continue to tend the flocks like personally tending to the lambs that fell ill with sudden weakness and some day he would have his own children because that’s how it worked, how God had told them it worked and He never lied.

“D-Dad, say something, please. Daddy, say something!”

Cain was his son, too. The first Human ever born when Adam and Eve still struggled to provide even the most basic needs for themselves. He was a good boy—always so helpful, always so smart. He knew when food ran low, when the well pulled up dry, when the hearth burnt out, that it wasn’t easily fixed and so he didn’t complain and tried his hardest to make it better, somehow. He was a good son. 

So why had he done this?

“What happened?” Adam asked, still looking at those glassy blue eyes.

“I-” Cain stuttered, like he didn’t expect to be asked. “We went to bring out sacrifices to God. I brought what extra I had grown and Abel slaughtered a goat—the little one, with the limp. God accepted the goat but He…He said I was to do better.”

God was like that sometimes, Adam knew. He didn’t know why, maybe He just liked meat better than grains and fruit. 

Each time they had to butcher even a chicken Abel got—had gotten—upset. When they slaughtered the goats and sheep and cattle he always cried, but they needed to eat and God needed to be praised and worshiped.

“He- He always says that, but I give Him everything. I’ve always set aside the sweetest fruit, the finest wheat, the very best of the lot. I make sure to give Him everything Mom thinks we can spare—sometimes even more because I don’t want to disappoint Him.”

Cain sounded desperate. Like he needed Adam to understand.

“What happened?” Adam repeated. His voice thundered, and he saw Cain’s feet stumble back. Some part of Adam was distraught at having incited such a fearful reaction, but some other part nearly reveled in it.

“I was just so angry,” Cain said, sounding miserable and defeated and small. “It isn’t fair Abel is always getting praised when he’s choosing the weakest and worst of what he has. I didn’t…I wanted him to hurt but not this badly.”

“Wasn’t,” Adam said.

He was shaking, but not from cold or fear. Rage coursed through him like it never had before—not even when Lilith left him, or when he’d bitten into the Fruit and understand what they had just been tricked into doing, or when God had cast them from Eden.

“What?” Cain asked. He still sounded so small, like he was Seth’s age instead of nearly fifteen. Maybe even younger than that.

“It wasn’t fair. Abel was getting praised.”

“No! No, Dad, he isn’t- I didn’t-”

He understood what he’d done. He probably had since the very start, or close to it. He was never stupid.

“He is,” Adam said, and finally looked at Cain.

Cain looked lost. Frightened, in many ways, like every single thing he knew had been upended and scattered. Adam…couldn’t feel much of anything.

“He can’t be,” Cain said, a plea like a prayer. “I didn’t mean it.”

“He is. He’s dead. You killed him.”

“No,” Cain wept. “No!”

Adam was standing. His hands were covered in his son’s blood, his son who lay dead on the ground at his feet. Cain shrank away from him, like-

Like he was afraid Adam might kill him.

“Leave,” Adam said.

Cain sobbed. “No, Daddy, please- I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”

“Leave!” Adam shouted. “You killed him! Get away from here, get out!”

Cain tripped over his feet, scrapped a knee and both palms in the dirt. And then he ran.

Adam watched until he left the field they had tended together, that Adam had first sowed when Cain was first learning to wobble on chubby legs. He watched as he tore through the brush and sharp brushes, until he lost sight of his hair and brown tunic, until he couldn’t hear him in the forest. He stayed there, staring off into the space where he had gone, until a small lamb brayed near his feet.

The creature had crept closer to him and its fallen favorite master. It bleated at the boy crumpled to the earth, clean white wool coming nearer and nearer to being stained by the blood congealing in Abel’s clothes.

“Fuck,” Adam said. His boy—his boys. Cain and Abel, the first two and then only two for several grueling years. One always coming right after the other.

Hadn’t Eve seen this coming? Had a dream so terrible it woke her in the night with a start so strong it had woken Adam, too? She’d begged him to help them, their two eldest children, to prevent the animosity she knew was brewing.

Adam hadn’t believed her, not really. The boys adored each other, it was plain as day to see. Still, she had insisted and it wasn’t that bad of an idea to separate their area of work. Perhaps it would be best, in the long run, for Cain to know as much as he could about farming the earth and for Abel to know how best to tend to their animals. A downright practicality. Up until this moment, had Eve come to him again with her concerns, he didn't think he would have believed it. 

Even now, even after all this…he couldn’t actually believe that the two hated each other. Certainly not their sweet, gentle Abel and their thoughtful, dedicated Cain. Not when the roughest tumble they’d gotten into before had only resulted in bruises because they’d accidentally fallen from the river bank they’d been walking near. Not when Adam had watched Cain rise from the bed he and Abel shared with their youngest brother, delicately extracting himself from the tangle of limbs so as to not wake the others, only this morning. 

“Fuck!” Adam yelled, tears falling hot and fast.

It was frighteningly easy to gather Abel into his arms. To carry his limp little body back to the house—back to his bed, his mother, their hearth.

“Adam?” came Eve, as he entered their little yard. “What- no, no!”

She must’ve thought he was carrying something else, at least for a moment, but the instant she realized her scream was shrill enough to send the chickens flying to the trees.

“No, no, my baby, my baby,” she cried, running to Adam as if she could take the weight all unto herself. “No, please, this can’t- oh!”

From where Eve had come was Seth, only seven and still little enough to cling to his mother’s legs when uncertain. He looked very much like he would like to do just that, now, old enough to understand that he wouldn’t be able to. Not when Eve wept as she did, not when Adam’s face was wet, not when Abel was limp and Cain was nowhere to be found.

Eve crumpled to her knees, taking Adam down with her. Her arms crossed beneath his. Between them they cradled Abel, so small and so young and so very dead.

~~~

A/N: Full disclaimer I did in fact write this because I watched Hazbin Hotel. Yes, it did surprise me that such a stupid little show (that I have semi-complicated opinions about but did enjoy watching) inspired something like this. I don't think it's strongly related to Hazbin Hotel in any way, though it could be if I was actually interested in expanding it (and I'm not really). There is non-negligible impact from Supernatural and Good Omens in this as well.

[stonermuttslut]

Treat me like the angel I am <3

(he/it)

🪽🐾🐇📿👁️💫

This one’s for the religious-trauma queer transexuals LET ME SUCK YOU OFF PELELAPSLELAPSLWPLASE

[comikbook]

Forgive Me Father, 2023, Digital Painting by myself, Liz Pence

First post !

Socials and Commissions

[mightymorphinnegro]

Oh, nothing, just thinking about how "divine truths" seem to shift with societal norms—like doctrines created by flawed humans rather than timeless wisdom. It's ironic how what’s considered sacred often trails behind our moral progress instead of leading the way.

[izel-scribbles]

cool title or something

(closeups + oc lore under the cut)

this is eve, short for eversor (destroyer in latin) - she/they (angels dont really have gender but she's transfem yay)

eve is an angel that used to be god's right hand. her duty was to destroy sinners, as her name would suggest, but her bloodlust eventually caused her to fall from grace. the scar on her arm is from a battle with a demon. they have another burn scar on her other arm from hellfire from that same design.

their relevance to the story is that she "corrupts" beatrice (see below) craving the power she used to have, and essentially possesses her to carry out eve's orders. beatrice is still conscious during this, and the possession is manifested as the wound around her eye.

back in ancient times, eve fell in love with a priestess, but it didn't end well, and the priestess erased all mentions of eve's name from every bible she could find, and therefore effectively rendered eve nonexistent. eve sulked for a couple hundred years and then resumed her duties, but god didn't forgive her for falling in love with a mortal. thus begins eve's descent into almost becoming a demon.

also, random but her animal is the barn owl, which inspired her physical appearance, and she can see from any barn owl's eyes

also random, if she was human she'd be east asian

this is beatrice, star of our show! she is 17 at the start of the story, and almost 18 at the end. (she/her, lesbian)

beatrice grows up in a small town in upstate new york, that is almost completely isolated. this town is very religious, and beatrice is raised catholic. (i also call her betty sometimes, which is her grandma's nickname for her)

her mother died in childbirth, leaving her father to raise her. Unfortunately, he is not the best father, since betty's mom was in a marriage arranged by her parents and her father is the strict religious type. Pretty sure he's a pastor or something, idk

eve first starts speaking to her on evenings when she would want to avoid her father, and would spend time in church alone.

beatrice loves nature and animals and being outside. her garden is her most prized possession. her grandma taught her a lot about plants and biology, which her father disapproved of. beatrice also knows how to play piano, and her favorite composer is Chopin.

about halfway through the story, she murders her father under eve's guidance, after he catches her with jenna and starts yelling and threatening jenna

he's an abusive pos tho, we don't miss him <3 also, betty's theme song is "wine and wheat" by madds buckley

and now, jenna! she/they, 17-almost-18, bisexual

Jenna is your typical 80s girl. she lives in NYC i think, and every summer, her parents send her to stay with her aunt (who may be a little on the occultist side). the town her aunt lives in is the same one where beatrice lives.

over 9 years, jenna and beatrice become friends, writing letters to each other in the spring and fall and winter and spending summers together. Jenna finds herself wondering if she thinks of Beatrice as a friend or something else when she's about 15, but she doesn't mention it because she knows how it would go over given betty's upbringing. beatrice is 100% in love with her, but she doesn't know it :D

throughout the story, we get little flashbacks of jenna and beatrice's childhood summers spent together, showing how they got close.

Jenna loves queen, the smiths, etc (im projecting here), and plays their music for beatrice. beatrice commits it to memory and learns to play "somebody to love" on her piano, and plays it for jenna (GAY)

at the end of the story, after beatrice has gone on a murdering spree under eve's influence, jenna has to kill beatrice to stop her from hurting anyone else. jenna is the one person eve cannot convince beatrice to hurt. they have the big gay love confession, after which jenna stabs beatrice in the chest. obviously beatrice dies in her arms.

this entire story is taking place in 1985 i think, im not really sure yet lol

feel free to ask any questions! i've had this story brewing since about september

[littlest-bugz]

[no images or poetry belong to me]

[liquidlycan]

vittorino. wife stimboard please god

VITTORINO - 8:11 STIMBOARD

themes of religion and teeth

cw religion, teeth

requested by... anon

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