#Church of the dark one

[karsinogen]

This week's very important people episode goes out to the religiously traumatized everywhere

[sardonycal]

mirrors.

i was listening to end of beginning by djo and thought 'oh thats literally them' lmao. the line "another version of me" struck a chord.

[inkeyjay]

🫀 Eucharist of the Ravenous 🫀

It started out as a bellyache, guts rumbling after two days of barely eating. An unfinished visage, featureless, fixing the blurry sockets it had for eyes into his soul.

The humble priest dropped his brush onto the cold floor of the chapel and stumbled backwards. The walls, towards the ceiling, all full of still fresh perfect faces framed by golden halos, that he had been carefully painting non stop for days. Faces of dead saints and prophets, long gone, commissioned by the high church as a display of power and opulence in an age of religious and political crisis. And this last saint, the one that still had some loose and tired brushtrokes for it's face. There was something about it that made the priest flinch out of his creative trance. He swore the paint moved, vibrated with anticipation at the touch of the brush.

He laid tired in the center of the chapel, exposed to a hundred pair of eyes that almost felt judgemental, knowing of the priest's internal thoughts. "Why am i doing this" "Why do i have to over exert myself with work to survive while i use pure gold to embellish... You. This" "Why"

And the faces remained still and silent.

"Why all this for long gone martyrs that had the fortune to die for their for their beliefs, or to let their God speak through their lips, bestow miracles through their fingers"

"Why this for a God that let them die at the heretical hands of the non believers. That leaves hundreds if not thousands of people to die of the pestilence outside this golden, rotten, WALLS"

The bottle of turpentine exploded and its contents dripped down the wall, dragging hours of work with them, dissolving like acid false flesh and gold leaf alike. And then blood, through the priest's hand, holding the neck of the bottle. He panicked and kneeled towards the wall, trying to undo the mistake with cloth, only to make a bloody mess. Red running through the gold, ichor like.

The priest cried holding his hand, a deep wound running through his palm, burning because of the chemicals. But the pain was not the cause of his tears.

"A sign" "I just need a sign"

But the faces remained still and silent.

The priest got up, slowly, and turned around towards the door. Why be here then. Why remain hungry, at the mercy of a dying church that kept their riches safe in mausoleums and layers of paint upon gold leaf upon stone, while its believers died in the streets famished and sick. The priest saw it clear now. If God did ever exist, it was long gone, uncaring for its creation. He might as well die outside, with his people. It would be like inviting the sickness into his chest but at least his last breaths wouldn't taste of incense. His steps echoed through the chamber, determined, reaching for the doors.

But the faces opened their lips. And with a cacophony of voices, each one vibrating with a torrent of beating wings, It spoke. No.

It sang.

Super happy to finally be able to show you this illustration i made for Tome of Pacts, a zine about warlocks, patrons and their pacts! There's a leftover sale going on right now! This is Pantheon, a shapeshifting entity that impersonates long absent gods and feeds on the faith of their followers, always hungry for more. But it's not for me to tell you.

! First of all, credits to @/gothhoblin, the writer of our team, for helping shape out this Patron "...and it spoke with a cacophony of voices, each one vibrating with a torrent of beating wings, a thousand or more." Is a marvelous line of her creation.

Tome of pacts has 11 more patrons and 24 warlocks for your enjoyment, all beautifully depicted by teams of artists and writers. Im super proud to have been able to participate in this project 💛

This short story is about an original character i created after the patron, just as an appetizer, pun intended. You get it right??

Hungry for a copy?

[imthursdaysyme]

arthur trying to order coffee when he knows nothing about coffee and thinks it’s gross but there’s a cute barista

[weaponizedducks]

exr girlies when a song mentions alcoholism, depression, burnout, being in love with someone who they think doesnt love them, cynicism, angels, love in general, devotion, alcohol or all of the above:

[trensu]

Have an itty bitty tiny piece of stasis in darkness, just so you all have an idea of where the story is going after the godly reveal. and also have proof that i am, in fact, still toiling away at this (as well as hawkins halfway house.)

A week and a half later, Steve entered a town he’d never seen before. He wore simple traveling clothes and carried no weapons aside from a couple of carefully hidden knives. He’d left his armor and shield behind. His satchel held only the essentials one needed for travel and a single stone as large as his fist. The stone was wrapped in layers of cloth to keep it safe during the journey. 

I need you to find someone. 

He felt very bare but he hadn’t been given much of a choice. Speed was of the essence for his quest, and little no-name towns tended to be wary of strangers in plain clothes, even more so around strangers decked out for battle. Steve wasn’t sure this place could be called a town. It was so small it hadn’t been on any official map. It didn’t even have an inn. Hopefully, Steve wouldn’t be needing an inn once he found who he was looking for.

He’s too far from me to reach.

He asked around, laying on the charm generously. He explained he had been a friend of a friend and had been trusted to deliver something. Eventually, he was told where to go. The house he found far beyond the village’s boundary was small. It looked like it had once been well cared for but it was old and had fallen to disrepair. Steve took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

A sallow old man opened the door. He was bald but had some scruff on his face still. His shoulders, stooped from age, trembled. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked so tired.

He’s my very last worshiper in all the world.

“Wayne Munson?” Steve asked.

“Who wants to know?” The man’s voice was phlegmy and rough. He coughed into the crook of his elbow almost before he could finish speaking. 

“I’m Steve. Ser Steve Harrington, pledged to the Lord of Night.”

Wayne’s eyes widened. His grip on the open door weakened and slipped. Steve caught the door before it could hit Wayne.

“He sent me to you,” Steve explained. “May I come in?”

yep, that's it for now. i told you it was small. i'm not even gonna bother with a read-more here.

[wikitpowers]

guys i’m tired and away to go sleepies so here’s a cutie patootie, drooling ty for a good night’s sleep <3

art: @cassandrajean

[mamafidjar]

April 2024, shot by me

[ghostssmoke]

Sketch of a dream I had

[birchbow]

Gamzee often refers to himself as “pan-rotted” due to his sopor-eating habit as a wriggler (and so does pretty much everyone else at some point). He told Kurloz that he has to really focus in order to remember mission instructions a few chapters back, I think? Gamzee doesn’t have a great self image, but it seems true that he’s often slow to draw inferences unless he’s already paying attention for hints about something specific. Like his default awareness is a little more diffuse, and he has to put in deliberate effort to narrow it down on a particular problem? He attributes this to the sopor, and so does everyone else. What I’m asking is - sopor aside - does being neglected by a lusus affect a troll’s brain development? (Beyond emotional stability and the ability to form secure attachments, ouch.) Since lusii don’t talk I’m not sure about language acquisition but maybe lusii respond positively to grubs babbling? Sidenote: the fact that Gamzee has the scriptures memorized so well almost feels like his chronically understimulated pan grabbed these abundant in-person interactions with authority figures in his early schoolfeeds and ate it up like starving. Sorry this is so rambling 😅

I'm incapable of being brief, especially when I get long asks with lots to chew over, so here's a readmore!

SO There's a moment in canon where Gamzee outright says "[sopor] rots you. Rusts your motherfucking thinkpan." and I think it's up for debate to what extent that's true but also it does seem pretty reasonable that heavy/consistent drug use throughout your adolescence would leave you some cognitive issues!

(Although also, as a person who tests super well in things I intuitively Get and am interested in, but often feels slow and dull, can't fit certain subjects/concepts into my head, and has a hard time remembering all the steps of things I want to do,,,, I put a lot of myself into my characters, is what I'm saying lol.)

RE: not having a lusus, I think that probably would have way more effect than the kid who went through it would assume, yeah. Like, all trolls would know your lusus keeps you safe from predators/intruders, gives you early practice fighting/wrestling, and especially in more rural areas, scavenges and hunts for you especially when you're young. But trolls as a society definitely undervalue the part where they also provide a sense of security and affection, because you're not supposed to want or value those things as a troll!

It's hard to make direct connections since lusii only sort of resemble human parents, but there's certainly studies to show that children of neglectful human parents struggle forming the cognitive pathways they would otherwise establish, and have trouble later in life--even if your caretaker doesn't talk, it seems pretty reasonable to me that having a parental figure who fucks off for long periods of time and leaves you completely alone with no idea when they'll be back would have a pretty similar effect across species! I'm not well-educated enough on that topic to draw the parallels I would want to, but it feels like a solid theory.

Also, quite apart from any of that, there was definitely a chain of cause and effect from "dad doesn't want me and there's no food" to "...but I have sopor slime" to "this makes me less hungry and also I give less of a shit about how hungry and lonely I am" to "if I stop eating this I feel shitty and have a hard time thinking straight and there's like a decade of repressed emotions under there".

RE: scripture, one of the things that I see original-flavor/canon Gamzee do is be all in on his religion, and when that falls out from under him, reorient to the first convincing power he finds, which unfortunately for everybody is the whole mess of Doc Scratch/Li'l Cal/Lord English. It to me feels very much like a guy who has no idea how to make his own ideological support structure, and is desperately looking for someone to give him a belief system and set of rules to follow.

ANYWAY SO hopefully it's fairly clear how that carries forward in a universe where instead, he gets a supportive church that helps him sober up and channels all his deeply-repressed rage into "hey, those aliens over there need conquering, go kill em", and also he's offered these books that are like. The rules. And knowing them gets him approval, and reassures him when he feels like a fuckup, and it turns out he can learn things, if they're things that fit in his brain right, and that's reassuring because he genuinely thinks most of his failings are his own fault for wanting sopor, and Alternian addiction support boils down to "do that again and we'll cull you" so they sure the fuck don't have a compassionate attitude about recovery or good information into after-effects, so everybody else is also just like "yeah, probably you fucked up your brain, idk, git gud".

This is a very lengthy way of agreeing with you lmao. The feedback loop of "oh you're pretty good at this" from authority figures, and it being a topic that he naturally had an interest in, definitely is a big part of why he's so deeply into it.

[paranorahjones]

you know it's bad when you start journaling about him

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

it's like. everything happens so much. it's all happening right now but at the same time nothing is happening whatsoever. it's a liminal space of an existence. it's slowly crushing me under the weight but when I look up there's nothing actually bearing down on me. there shouldn't be any weight. something is wrong but nothing has happened. I'm simultaneously overwhelmed and utterly bored. nothing is happening and maybe that's the everything that's happening. maybe the everything is the nothing. we aren't there yet but it's all so imminent. either everything is going to crash down or nothing is. I'm just waiting to figure out which.

[russelross68]

dumbass deltarune oc/idea

Since there might be a trend of speech quirks throughout the bosses

Anjle's might be for a word at the end of it's sentence to be spelled backwards

Or

It's might be to refer to people in pronoun form as it and instead of saying gendered names like girl or boy.. It'll just use thing instead leading into it not believing in gender

Anyways, that's all for now.

[krissiekarze]

Christianity the Idea vs. Christians the People

“Be kind to each other,” said the man on the mount, “For all you are one, even those you’ve cast out.”

But the priests and the kings took all the man’s gifts, And they said to their subjects “Give us all that exists!

We have heard the wise words of the man on the mount, And we are made pure, while you heathens are not!”

Then the man from the mount came down to the kings, And he said “Fools, I did not say any of those things!

Be kind to all, slave, free, holy and heathen, For you are just as impure as one guilty of treason.”

The priests said to the man “What of those you despise? Are we to be lower than even the unbaptized?”

The man said “I’ll tell you again what I told you before, There are none I despise, not the queer, dark or poor.

No matter your thoughts and your personal bias, I assure you, your enemies are just as pious.”

And the priests said to themselves “We’ll live forever, too!” Where the wise would say simply “It’s the right thing to do.”

-Krissie Alex

[ceaselxss]

aesthetics for the entities, part i.   bold what applies to your muse, italics what applies situationally or only in certain verses. rest of the fears here.  this is based on a horror podcast;  potentially triggering and / or upsetting content ahead!

i.  the buried.   weighed blankets.  drowning.  the comfort of a loved one’s weight.  soil and sand piling on top of you.  hugging so hard it hurts a little.  cramped hiding spots.  letting out air underwater to sink to the bottom of the pool.  walls pressing in on you.  not moving from a position even though you’re cramping a little.  dragging the last second before you have to inhale.  lonely subways.  feeling like one with the earth.  a layer of dirt on you.  looking for something below.  cardboard boxes and tiny pillow forts.  hands calloused from digging.  knowing that your purpose is just below the surface.  entering your final resting place before it kills you.  a storm drowning you out.  dust and sand speaking to you.

ii.  the corruption.   insects.  a close imitation of the natural course of life.  an illness in a community.  a rag that dirties more than it cleans.  an untreated wound.  containment.  breaching containment.  unbreathable air.  fungi.  one with that you love.  one with what loves you.  a corpse unfit for a glass case.  hearing a song in the sound of tiny wings and legs.  honeycomb patterns.  an ecosystem within a person.  a curse passed on.  the hubris of a scientist.  an ugly death where a glorious one is owed.  blood on a handkerchief.  parasites.  something pushing up the sewer.  a mask to keep something out.  trypophobia.  knowing you belong.  death weeks after impact.  fever.  food that’s gone off.  pandora’s box.  death behind a glass.

iii.  the dark.   shadows.  lights that turn off by themselves.  the feel of cold marble.  a beaked creature in the night.  the difference between seeing darkness and seeing nothing.  touch of something you can’t see.  hiding under a blanket.  white, clouded eyes.  months without going outside during sunlight.  pouring dark.  unscrewing lightbulbs.  black matter.  light sensitivity.  a starless night.  time before light was created.  a shadow on the wall without a body to attach to.  withering plants.  a world without a sun.  footfalls in an empty house in the night.  a light that doesn’t reach as far as it should.  desperate reach for a flashlight.  clothes that hide your shape.  staying unperceivable.  winter months in the north.  an empty church.

iv.  the desolation.   senseless pain.  warmth of faith.  wax where skin should be.  a blazing fire.  heat without a source.  the third or fourth tragedy in the family.  losing everything you’ve ever held dear.  so much to live for, gone so soon.  the smell of gasoline.  touch that scars.  coffee cup that never goes cold.  scorch marks on wood.  inescapably warm air.  a child born in fire.  death of a loved one.  a candle without a flame.  an altar in the middle of the woods.  animals with burnt fur.  plastic explosives.  burning hot metal.  sweating in an interrogation room.  never touching a loved one.  disfigurement.  a kiss that ruins you.  the scent of burning fat.  a tattoo that terrifies its viewer.  the agony of hellfire displayed as art.  auburn hair.  little clothing in cold weather.  a ripple in the air.  trying to cool down in vain.

v.  the flesh.   body horror.  factories.  a hunger for something more filling.  never quite happy with how you look.  the terror of an animal waiting for slaughter.  a very good meal.�� the liquid of a perfect steak.  fighting your worst survival instincts.  a twisted bone.  long nights working out.  more than one heart.  appearance that shapes like clay.  a bag of bones.  bone broth in a pot.  knowing to fear pigs.  the butcher’s shop.  plastic surgery.  something alien inside your body.  a hunger in the gaze laid upon you.  unwitting cannibalism.  forgetting what you used to look like.  being admired for your appearance and appearance only.  teeth marks on skin.  scars from wounds that should’ve killed you.  cooking in scarcity.  fenced in with one way to go.

vi.  the end.   the last page of a book.  nightmares that don’t feel like nightmares.  a skeletal hand.  the grip of the grim reaper around your throat.  existential pain.  ivory dice.  flatlining in a hospital.  gambling with death.  as old as the universe.  soul and spirit tied to an object.  a dream where you die.  closing your eyes for the last time.  the plead of a dying one.  knowing the fate of someone you know and being unable to prevent it.  a thousand cords tugging you towards your end.  skin that’s freezing to the touch.  an act of desperation.  someone’s life for yours.  an eternity spent alive.  the cost of your selfishness.  watching your own burial.  causing your own burial.  the smell of death.  numbness to fear.  words from someone gone.  meaninglessness of the actions or lives of single people in the universe.  multiple near-death experiences you refuse to die from.

vii.  the eye.   googling something you shouldn’t have.  eureka moments.  the unforgiving lens of a camera.  witness reports.  hidden libraries.  eyes of different colours.  feeling of being watched.  a death recorded in tape.  a tragedy you can’t watch away from.  endangering yourself for knowledge.  truth.  analog records.  a symbol of an eye.  a watch tower.  compulsion to document.  turning on recording devices without thinking about it.  saving the evidence before the person.  extracting information.  truth or dare, without the dare.  a thirst for knowledge.  books that speak to you.  coordinated shelves.  cataloguing systems.  voyerism.  police report you can’t put down.  reasoning your way out.  smell of old papers.  books that read you back.

Tagged by @reapersxfolly bc they know my interests <3