#ashes of faith

[ashesoffaith-official]

intro ig

main - @cultofthelevi

this is a side blog for an oc project

tw for gore, religious themes, and sorta suggestive themes

basically uhh gay priests in their gayass church that has a fuckin medieval torture dungeon under it and the gayass demons and gayass angels are there too

idk im gonna make a more detailed summary at some point

anyways here's refs for most of the major characters

[betuspaints]

Ashes of Faith Inquisition Kill Team! (plus a bonus photo of my kasrkin goons) I am so happy this Kill Team is a thing. I've been kitbashing little inquisitorial goons for years now and I'm excited I finally have rules to use them with. These are just the dudes from the box though, plus an old metal inquisitor model standing in as an interrogator. I have also since painted up an old metal demonhost to serve as a mystic that I'll take photos of at some point in the future. Pretty satisfied with how these turned out though. The camo on the death world veteran was hell to paint, but looks good, and the questkeeper isn't my best work, but I have plans on a replacement there.

[avrelia]

Mai does love sitting alone and reading books in peace and quiet, just as I suspected.

[thespiritualencourager]

"As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust."

— Psalms 103:13‭-‬14 (NKJV)

"He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is."

— A.W. Tozer

[theoneandonlylobster]

My Big Damn Ashes of the Academy Thoughts

Okay so honestly I just need to take this panel by panel because frankly my overall impression of the comic is that everyone got replaced Invasion of the Body Snatchers style with people that look the same as they do and have the same name, but have zero idea of the backgrounds or motivations of said characters, and so they were just making shit up as they went along. Like, I write fanfic, I read fanfic. I have, in general, a pretty high regard for fanfic. And of course one of the more common Dangerous Ladies childhood type fics is how did they meet, why are these three very different individuals friends, etc etc.

And this was not even approaching the worst, crappiest, least coherent of that type of fiction I've read over the last nearly two decades.

Ashes of the Academy is a giant nothing burger comic, a fart in an elevator you're trapped with until you can make your escape.

So, without further ado, let's begin:

So right here on the second page of the comic, and the first page with dialogue, we have Ursa letting us know that, apparently, contrary to what we know, the Academy made Azula a bad person. Not her parents, definitely definitely not Ursa. You got that? It was all the Academy's fault. And we will continue beating that ostrich horse the entire rest of the comic, make no mistake!

Ah yes, Ursa, noted Not Ever An Imperialist At All, Not Even Once, Nuh-Uh.

Skipping several pages that would be me saying these two things multiple times...

Credit where credit is due, I like these two panels. I like this tiny glimpse into the friendship of Kiyi and Lihua or whatever here. One, because I imagine this is more like how Azula probably actually was, based on what we see in Zuko Alone. And two, that means Kiyi is unconsciously mirroring her sister and I like that interpretation of her character. It seems that Hicks does too, on a subconscious level. Look at that devious little look on her face! Little shit. Yeah, you cause a ruckus! Adorable.

I'd be lying if I said this didn't get a chuckle out of me. Is Katara on Zuko's Ministry of Education? Lol wtf. Still funny though.

More Kiyi being a little shit that I can get behind. This time in a Little Miss Know-It-All superiority complex sense that I'm sure would get real old real fast for anyone around her.

I've pointed this out on another post but Kiyi isn't a princess? Wtf? Come on, Hicks. Like it's not hard to figure this shit out. I think giving her a character trait of literally running to her big brother the Firelord anytime she feels slighted is pretty good, but of course it's never explored, because that's not a heroic trait and Kiyi has to be a hero for some reason unlike that irredeemable monster Azula who was born bad.

So nice of you to ask her first Zuko! Fuck's sake! Being Firelord has really gotten to this boy's head, like I know he has absolute power and all that shit but damn, if I was Mai, I would be wanting to get back with him less after this, not more, regardless of whether or not I liked the job in the end. Fucking consent, bro! (Previous page has him telling the headmistress she'll do it.) Unfortunately, this is actually not ooc for what we've seen of Zuko, honestly, imo. Mai, you can do so much better. Like, I ship Maiko. I love their dynamic etc etc. But girl. Respect yourself. This boy is NOT it at this point.

This is our continuing indication that they'll be rewriting the past in this comic, and we'd all better get on board. Zuko certainly thinks Azula treated him badly and has a very, "Zuko did nothing wrong!" approach to it all, but Mai was there for the vast majority of it, witnessed it with her own two eyes, so she would not react to that sentence with, "True." She just wouldn't. At least not the Mai we know. So let the assassination of Mai’s character commence!

Like, was this comic so half-assed nobody could be bothered to look up the spelling of Ukano's name? Yes. Yes it was.

Can I be made to believe Ukano said this to Mai when she was smol? Absolutely, yes. He's portrayed as a social climber and willing to utilize basically any route he can access to gain clout and influence. That's a man who is not above using his daughter in this way. I think it's somewhat implied by Mai’s dialogue in The Beach, even. Dude was a shitty father, Caldera was rife with them. Do I believe for one second Mai became friends with Azula because of this counsel? Absolutely not. The Mai we know thinks for herself 100% of the time, it's basically her thing.

Oh, cool, there's a 10 image per post limit. Well. I'll keep going in reblogs and indicate when I'm done. Bear with me, friends.

[shadelorde]

okay because i feel like i need to reorganize my thoughts because my posts don't. ever usually get this much discussion

Bryan and Mike have definitely engaged in the fandom in ways that have incited fighting and drama, and have been pretty unkind in some of their commentaries/interactions

Yang has ABSOLUTELY been an asshole towards Azula fans and did not write his comics very well, leading to further fandom rifts

The ATLA fandom is absolutely allowed to feel angry about how these people have treated them, as well as a character who is a teenage girl, and making posts about that makes complete sense

and

Faith Erin Hicks IS a separate person who wrote separate things - on top of Yang's assholery some of her writing may have come across in poor taste, but she has since clarified that is not what she meant

The ATLA fandom harassing her on social media because they jumped to conclusions too quickly isn't okay and shouldn't be justified, because harassment is still harassment, especially towards a writer who did not incite or mean to exacerbate this conflict

[zuko-always-lies]

Showing Verses Telling: Ashes of the Academy Edition

Young writers are frequently told to show, not tell. An unspoken corollary of that is that if the reader is told one thing, but shown another, they're probably going to believe what they were shown, not what they were told. That applies to Ashes of the Academy very much, since there are some important contradictions between what we're told and what we're shown.

We are told that there is a real chance that the Academy will cause Kiyi to go bad like Azula, but what we are shown suggests there is no chance of that. Kiyi is simply heroic.

We are told that Azula took a decisive turn for the worst when she started attending the Academy, but what we are shown doesn't back that up at all. If anything, what we are shown suggests the opposite. She was always cruel and the Academy only gave her more opportunities to express it.

And perhaps the worst of the three, we are told by Mai that Azula "was terrifying and cruel. But also, I couldn't help but want to be around her, because she made me feel like I mattered." However,

We are not shown Mai wanting to be around Azula.

We are not shown Mai enjoying being around Azula.

We are not shown Azula making Mai feel special.

We are shown Azula being terrifying and cruel.

We are shown Mai disliking Azula

We are shown Mai disliking being around Azula

We are shown Mai faking being friends with Azula, for the sake of Mai's father and his ambitions.

What we are shown and what we are told completely contradict each other, for no good reason.

[thephilosophersapprentice]

Kaladin "I have more faith in the humans around me than I do in divine beings" Stormblessed, meet Herald "stop worshiping us" Ash.

[inspiredbyjesuslove]

[samtamdan]

Its impressive how Faith's writing gets worse in every comic.

In Spirit Temple, she made an impressive work, she gave us hope by showing Azula in a more empathetic light, but since then, her comics feel like a Yang comeback.

Part of me wants to believe that in the Azulas comic, Bryke barely put their hands on it, so Hicks was able to give us more than the usual "crazy psychotic azula", but after that those two were too much involucred in the last two comics, bc being honest the story feels like it was going to be other but they changed it at the last minute.

idk im just trying to justify the writing quality downgrade

[under-the-knife]

Nevertel // Losing Faith

[willnotacceptalifeundeserved]

Why did I decide to watch all of Banana fish in one day what is wrong with me help -

[dnddykes]

I need karrion Kross to be in 100 main events, numerous steel cage matches, ladder matches, just EVERTHING! He’s such a viscous character, the interwoven strings with the fiend (I’ll cry if I think too much about bray) are so interesting and I need wwe to dive into more !

[mongooseundertheporch]

[Open] Things to know if you’d like to rp with me :o - I need communication, so if there’s anywhere you want to go in particular or any issues you’re having, tell me please - Asks are open, as well as dms. I also have a discord which you can ask for and we can arrange things, or an insta… When it’ll let me in >:[ - I’m an adult, so anything sexual if you’re a minor is a no go. Full stop. - Mostly versed in whump or ERP, but anything is allowed :> - In many, many fandoms, so Hannibal isn’t the only one you have to ask about [list below]

Fandoms: [not full list, thinking of more as we speak, this is just what I remember]

- Hannibal NBC - ULTRAKILL - Faith The Unholy Trinity - House Of Ashes - House MD - Sherlock BBC - Star Trek

OC rp is also welcomed and very encouraged :>

[zeldapikachu188]

[theoneandonlylobster]

One is a hero for invoking their Powerful Grown-up and the other is evil, evil I tells ya and that's literally in the same comic

The double standard could not be more clear