#media: faith the unholy trinity

[museum-of-cool-vids]

by user emeraldkyber on tiktok

[bucketinyourwalls]

Papa Emeritus Gary Miller au send tweet

[fizzzyz]

Arsentropolis masterpost

2D dystopian horror game concept

This is the masterpost for my current project; Arsentropolis. It’s my point and click horror game concept that takes place in a sinister dystopia cut off from the world. It’s mainly religious horror but also contains a lot of body horror and weird stuff, along with uh …medical horror? Idk what it’s called but it refers to surgery, needles and disease and such.

I’m working on this all by myself at the moment, though I really hope I’ll have a game development team a few years in. Some credit and special thanks to my friend for helping me with opinions and decisions… (you know who you are 🧍)

Here’s all the posts with content and information.

More content will be added so stay tuned :D

[angelmeateater]

Idk why but for some reason it never occurred to me that throughout the entire events of the game John isn't a priest at all, I assume he dressed back up like one again in order to regain his authority over the situation, though I can't actually be sure of that, I mean, obviously he liked being a priest, the fact he kept his clothes shows that he never wanted to give it up, or implies that he was always subconsciously planning to return. This leads me to wonder why he ever married Molly in the first place, some people interpret his marriage to mean that he is freed from his life as a priest and that it's something he always wanted to do, given that this all happened within a year. Though I don't agree with this because he was obviously very loyal to his priesthood, but his faith is shaken after his first encounter with Amy and then his awful time in the psychiatric ward, John is a very vulnerable man, personally I believe that he probably got married because he believed that's something he had to do as that's all he seems to know about the rest of society, I mean, he grew up in a Church orphanage and decided to become a priest instead of living up to any of the other Christian ideals. Of course one of the main themes of FAITH is destiny, John was always going to be a priest, he was always going to go back, ever since he was in that orphanage his connections to Gary's cult were always going to come back to bite him, it is telling that the only time when he tries to have any free will, he goes straight into trying to live up to the societal standards of a man.

[jennicatzies]

Hey chat guess who got into yet another thing [ dumps almost all of my sketchbook Faith doodles on the table ]

not a fan of drawing mouths sometimes 🧍

[bugmatics]

michael you wonderous creature (og ver. below)

[hotfudgecherryrosy]

Its very important and dangerous to me that every single character in FAITH is bisexual.

[sincerely-angel1]

Hi

I’m here to talk about religious media.

I know some people will find this yuck, but I need to know if anyone shares this obsession or if it’s just me..

So I’m an atheist, you can probably figure that out from my profile, but I LOVE religious media.

I’m not talking about gospel music or Christian propaganda or “he is risen” shirts, I’m talking about genuine down to the book religious media.

I love learning about religions, not just Christianity, all religions. They’re so interesting to me. I love exploring the different denominations of Christianity, particularly Catholicism beliefs.

And it’s not a worship thing, I have never found myself thinking of them in that way, I just enjoy learning about them.

I love religion based movies or tv shows that aren’t on the side of worship, but on the topic itself. Examples being: The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Mother!, and Noah

I also really enjoy religious topics in more horror or fiction entertainment based movies and tv shows like Midnight Mass, The Exorcist, Good Omens, etc..

I love the game Faith, and yeah, I just want to know if anyone shares this weird obsession. Am I weird for this?

[angelsick]

lol why tf do people think 34 is old?? john being 34 is not old i am losing my mind lol

[randomartguy]

[riondisease]

i’m watching a video about the game faith and like. i’m just sick of ignorance about satanism being spread like this through media.

the game is really cool and interesting but it’s upsetting to me to see what’s basically an attack and stereotyping of my religion made by a christian person. satanism at it’s core is about worship of the self, equality, activism, not letting someone control you, etc. and faith’s depiction of satanism is. well, you know. cults, murdering children, animal sacrifices, demons killing people.

at one point in the game there’s this door with the Baphomet on it, i right away got excited because Baphomet is a symbol i love. it represents peace and balance in the universe! but in the video the person calls it “a goat head demon” and then describes how you have to preform “demonic actions” to solve a puzzle. these actions literally consist of killing 2 people for no reason, making a pentacle/inverted pentagram, and sacrificing a child.

overall i’m just disappointed. i’m always nice and accepting of christian people and anyone of any religion focused on betterment and personal fulfillment. and yet for the last couple hundred years they’ve viscously misrepresented satanism and then accuse satanists of horrific actions that they made up.

i’m just tired. i feel like if games and movies were coming out with these awful and dangerous stereotypes about any other religion people would care and defend that group but because people fundamentally don’t understand satanism and only know stereotypes, no one speaks up for us.

i hope you can understand how specifically using real religious symbols (i.e. Baphomet, the pentacle) to represent horrible actions is harmful to people of that religion.

all i ask is that people think a bit more critically about the representation of satanism. because it is a real religion and many people for centuries have been hurt by these same stereotypes.

[that-angry-noldo]

watched wendigoon's explanation of faith the unholy trinity i am so not normal

[angelmeateater]

Right, so I've talked a lot about how one of the main themes of FAITH is destiny, but of course the more obvious theme of the game is faith and John's relationship to God. These two themes aren't independent of eachother, in fact the topic of free will/pre determination and faith are some of the driving forces of the game, hell, the tag line is literally'what I am about to do has not been approved by the Vatican', and I know I keep coming back to this because I just can't get over, JOHN IS NOT A PRIEST. Now, I'm not a Catholic, in fact I am a Quaker, which is going to sort of lead this trail of thought, a big part of Quakerism is your direct relationship with the spirit/God, it's your journey you lead it, there are no leaders, no one can tell you want to believe, as I gather Catholicism is practically the opposite of this (and most other forms of organised Christianity) services are lead by a Priest, you come to a Priest for guidance, the Vatican effectively tells you want to believe and what you have to do. What's this got to do with John? Well, we've already established in my previous rant that John doesn't know what to do with free will, being raised by the Church it only makes sense that he wants to climb the ranks, what else is he going to do with his life? Obviously by the events in the game John's faith is wavering, though I would wager that he never had a very stable relationship with God given how passive of a person he is, if people tell him God is like "this" then he must be. Of course we mustn't ignore that he chose to become an Exorcist, he probably could've just stayed in his Church in lived put the rest of his life giving to the community, but he didn't, this is probably his first real act of free will, and it all goes horribly wrong and on his first mission he literally makes a deal with the devil. Not to mention the fact that the devil appears as exactly how God is thought to look. John's ideas of God. Shattered. He's spent his entire life being told God was "this" and then the second he actually tries to do anything himself, it's directly proven to him that. Yes. God is probably definitely real. No he is nothing like what you've been told. Perhaps this is why John became an Exorcist in the first place. So he could have real proof that God is out there. Which already tells us that his faith is built on sand (ha) because the first idea of being a theist is that you shouldn't need any physical proof. So yeah of course he's loosing his faith even though he's just been given more proof than he could ever want.

Next he looses his priesthood, the Vatican want to cover this up and everyone around him, everyone in every Church thinks he's insane. He's lost everything, that's what he gets for trying to lead his own journey, trying to find God. But John does not stay down, and after a year, he dresses up as a Priest again, he's not one and he certainly won't ever be again, but at least this way he have some marginal amount of spiritual freedom, he was a priest, he guided the people, he read the script and he interpreted it, but now he must leave the script behind because there is a real world put there and it's not as he's been told. On many levels it is hard to tell if John's actions are really his own, and there not really, they're yours, he's literally played by somebody else, John's fate is determined by the actions that you take. But that's where the idea of the different endings come in, free will is certainly possible in his world as there is a time before and after events where you haven't controlled this character and aren't going to. Sure he has no free will because its a video game, he was always going to dress up as a priest again, it doesn't matter to you that he isn't actually a real certified priest anymore, it doesn't matter that he shouldn't even be able to go on this spiritual journey, that this journey is an example of why he was always going to get kicked out of the church, it's the same thing that Father Garcia recognises when he meets John. He may be a passive character, but that isn't his nature, the game is a battle between him letting the events of the story happen to him and choosing what to believe. His faith really is the driving force of the story, of course the mission he was about to go on wasn't approved by the Vatican, HE'S NOT EVEN A PRIEST. His faith and by extension your own cannot be dictated to you by others, it is your journey to go on alone, people can read you all the stories you want but that's not going on a journey. If the only way that you can have faith is by denying the experience of others, then you haven't got any, having faith is not something you do every 10am on Sunday, it is something you live and that is what John comes to realize by the end of the game. Faith is his free will. And that is the theme of FAITH The unholy trinity.

Thank you for reading my religious essay/ramble. (I am aware that the practice of Catholicism is not as cut and dry as that but I am going off simply the ideas for the sake of my point)

[sunbeamstress]

i've noticed an increasing trend in game names that are like

TITLE OF GAME: ENTIRE OTHER SEPARATE TITLE OF GAME

and it's kinda fascinating to see! i'm a little obsessed with naming trends, names themselves, and their natures, being a subject of endless personal fascination; for most of my entire life, works of media in the US were typically given just a single TITLE. if you make a sequel, that's TITLE 2. if you make a spinoff? sometimes it's a different TITLE, but sometimes it's TITLE: SUBTITLE.

except now we have tons of games in the public space that are called TITLE: SUBTITLE as singular works!

the evolution of the SUBTITLE component of these names is so interesting. usually it was something descriptive that hinted the work was derivative (The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall; Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts; Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty; etc.), but the SUBTITLE's role is changing.

here's a fun trend: games with simplistic (possibly difficult to trademark) names, with a tacked-on subtitle whose job it is to better illustrate the primary title

is "smalland" the actual name of the game, or do we say "smalland: survive the wilds" every time in accordance with the 2005 Pimp Named Slickback ruling? do you say "divinity original sin" as a singular noun or are you meant to inject a little micro-pause where the colon should be?

better yet though, what if the SUBTITLE didn't have to clarify the TITLE? what if it could just be a whole-ass other name for the game?

i totally get why you can't just name your game "metal," that isn't what makes this game name so deliciously weird. the name's components are clearly related, but they seem to point to different spheres of information.

what is this game actually called? do you just call it "metal hellsinger"?

is "metal" meant to hint at the musical lexicon and the game is just "hellsinger"?

is the main character the hellsinger and is she herself implied to hellsing?

does "metal:" imply that this is a singular title in the Metal series?

what if they make a sequel with an EDM or a rap soundtrack? do we get "Drill: Barspitter"? actually i'd play the shit out of that.

btw you should try this game, it fucking rips and it's on sale for like USD$12 right now

by this point i think i got across what i was going for, so now we're just taking a tour. this one's fun because both of these are pretty good names for games, but they couldn't seem to settle on one so they just took both. i respect it!

bleak faith is a game of putting on airs; it wears the trappings of a soulsborne but like most derivative soulsbornes, it assigns its own rules to combat, character building, etc.

it also wears the trappings of my favorite TITLE: SECOND TITLE naming convention, but decides to toss the rules out the fucking window. there is no other Bleak Faith game, so this isn't simply the "Forsaken" offering of that series. and "Forsaken" kinda illustrates "Bleak Faith" like, a little? it pays lip service to it? they both give vaguely Judeo-Christian vibes but honestly the Forsaken bit isn't pulling a lot of weight here.

if Read Only Memories glommed on to two perfectly serviceable titles, this is a great example of a game that really only needed one. "Bleak Faith" sounds pretty cool; "Bleak Faith: Forsaken" sounds like i'm about to enjoy 2-3 hours of a 20-hour indie title

and yet Faith: The Unholy Trinity says "ah but what if the game's primary title was so meaningless you literally couldn't even hold it in your head?" i don't know about you but i am looking at this screenshot i took from Steam myself, i'm reading the name, and my brain is still telling me that this game is called "The Unholy Trinity."

now we're talking! these ones are fun because the subtitle isn't a subtitle at all, it's describing what the game is like - and yet you gotta have it there. it's a style thing.

remember when you'd fire up Metal Gear Solid and it'd SLAM the title on the screen and then there was that stylish "TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION" thing at the bottom alongside some minimal katakana? fucking peak aesthetics

this is a game name that feels like there should be a colon there. it absolutely should be called "Bomb Rush: Cyberfunk". artistic integrity, and a less-than-subtle nod to the precursor (Jet Set Radio) have rescued this title from the Tyranny of the Colon.

unfortunately the latte i made this morning has not rescued me from the Tyranny of the Colon, so if you'll excuse me this is probably a good place to stop

[littlemoondarling]

A critical review of a Wendigoon video, pls read it all if you're interested and pls be civil♡♡

Uhm so we all know wendigoon right? Beloved horror youtuber, for good reasons too, his videos have such a comforting vibe that I rewatch them whenever I'm feeling depressed, but recently I got to thinking about a couple of things and they are making me.... slightly uncomfortable with his videos.

The first and biggest thing comes from this video which is about the game "Faith: the Unholy Trinity" which is a game about demons, possession, baby sacrifice, exorcism, etc. All told from a very Christian pov (as most media tends to be) which is no problem, the problems start when we delve a little deeper into the uncomfortable implications about the main possessed girl Amy and her story.

Tldr, she started volunteering at a what is clearly supposed to be an abortion or neonatal care clinic where a demonic cult uses it as a front to sacrifice babies for the evil causes... which idk if you can start picking up on the very concerning implications of that.

Now Wendigoon spoke with the creator of the game who explained that the (what I will call) corruption route that the mc goes through is to make it clear that someone doesn't just get possessed by demons, that they have to go out of their way to get to that point.

And we know that Amy was a good girl before she volunteered in the abortion clinic, which when u visit it (starts in the video at about 2 hours 12 mins) it is made clear immediately that it is not... great.

You first see a letter from the owner who tells the who I assume is the secretary to notify him before returning any calls from the health department because they don't want another "surprise inspection" (the owner is revealed to be a demon and a cult leader btw :))

When you walk further into the clinic, you are met with a disturbing and grotesque demon (which is usual for a horror game but please try to see how the underlying message is clear) where a cop (who is 100% a good guy and hasn't been indoctrinated into the cult) helps you int defeating it. There are also stretchers covered in the blood of the sacrificed corpses under them. It is also made clear that they are injecting the women who seek treatment there with a substance to make them hallucinate and so they don't wake up during the "procedure".

And if you want to get a secret ending, you have to go back and fight a demonic lady who unleashes demonic babies at you who look a whole lot like fetuses but that is just my opinion.

The whole game revolves around a demon cult leader who made an abortion clinic to use the 'babies' as sacrifices and to experiment on the women. If that isn't the most right-wing reactionary Christian pro-life talking points, idk what is.

The issue is that Wendigoon doesn't address the blatant demonising of neonatal care/abortion clinics and the disgusting pro-life implications that are baked deep into the game's DNA, he just keeps praising it and it's creator without batting an eye at any of this. And the comments don't even acknowledge it!

This isn't to cancel wendigoon or anything, I've just been thinking about this specific video for a while and I want to get my thoughts somewhere bc I personally didn't see much talk ab this.

[dorkfruit]

i put this together using my computer's trackpad so the new year is already starting out . bad .

posts: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D

template

reflections on the year, my plans for the future, some studies i did, and wips for the next year all down below for those who are interested

tldr; we will be ianthing next year so watch out!!

oh dear lord it's been another year. 2024! can you believe it! i don't talk much on this blog because i have a tendency to talk too much, but it's my little new year's treat, so here we go.

RECAP

i started taking drawing "seriously" in December of 2020, starting to do studies and stuff, and each year since i've ramped it up more and more. this year, i did. a lot of studies. there's probably like at least 200 more in my folder now (not including the 300 days worth of gesture drawings i did), with things like painting, faces, feet, poses, etc. anything i was struggling with, i went right into studying it. my art has been mediocre for a pretty long time now, and it's only the past few months where i feel i'm starting to get the hang of it, which is exciting!

more importantly, i started posting a lot more on this blog. i really like documenting my progress, looking on where i was before and seeing how i've improved. everytime i draw some fanart, im like, oooghh i can't wait to show my (: followers (: !! lots of locked tomb art of course. i've been trying to nail the energy of the different characters, which is why i enjoy books so much, because you get a lot of creative control. drawing ianthe is my fav of course, cause she's my lil nasty, but also i enjoyed doing designs for characters i hadnt thought about before, like judith.

in addition to the locked tomb, we had some new fandoms that got brief moments in between iantheposting: Fear and Hunger, Postal, Faith The Unholy Trinity, and a couple of old ones too, like We Have Always Lived In The Castle and The Merciless.

i posted about 115 times this year, although most of those are shitposts LOL i love posting stuff on my blog and showing people my stuff <3

THE FUTURE

my plans? do more ianthe art, of course. ill be working on more studies, probably going to work on developing a style, and figuring out how to paint. i'd like to do more actually finished pieces, but let's be honest, it'll still be mostly shitpost doodles. i'd like to do more weird stuff. i've been messing around with some gore and NSFW near the end of the year, and it's fun to draw for me. i like idk art that evokes some type of emotion, especially discomfort, and so i find that type of art fun to do, so if you don't enjoy what i've done thus far in that direction, perhaps this isn't the blog for you. i really like horror media, and so i want to do some stuff like that too.

for specifics, i like western type art, a comic book-esque style i'd like to aim for. but i'd like it to be a little more. weird with it. i find comic books often draw all the characters the same, and make all the characters traditionally attractive, and that's boring to me so i'll have to work on finding a way to keep things weird, while also appealing in a graphic sense. the worst thing my art could be is bland and forgettable.

locked tomb wise... more tridentarii art. need to be really weird with it. i have lots of wips planned, like i have a whole page worth of just thumbnails, so i wanna get some of those done. also i had a few animatics i wanted to do. mostly stupid shit, once i learn how to do animatics, then we'll do actual serious ones. id also like to do more comics. i have some comics storyboarded out with my girlies, i like telling a story so, need practice on that. id also like to develop a way to consistently draw them, for convenience sakes, so i'm not fighting for my life every single time i draw these characters. oh and i wanna do some outfit stuff. i draw them in like. generic clothes everytime but i'd like to come up with a few actual outfit designs, that i can just reference back to. and, of course, more shitposts. lots of stupid shit in 2024 for sure. there was something else i wanted to say here but i can't remember.

ART

oki enough rambling, here's some IMAGES for yall to look at i know everyone loves to look at images.

began this year by warming up with gesture sketches (almost) every day. i started with 20 poses (30 seconds each), and then in november i was like. ugh my hands suck i need to get better at hands, so i switched to doing 10 hand sketches (60 seconds each). i want my art to be very energetic so it's important that i do these !!

anatomy studies of extremities because i'm flopping at those -_- ive gotten better with hands but they're still a struggle. i hate feet tho still

need to get my painting game up. i joined an art forum to get advice, and the biggest suggestion i got was working on my values, so i did various value studies. also lots of faces because my faces flop !!

random doodles to work on drawing from imagination. on my "sketchbook" pages, as i like to call them, i'm usually pretty loose and messy, since the point is just to be drawing so often these will suck, but that's fine. i don't think very much when i draw faces on here either so they end up being in my Instinctive Style i suppose you could say

ianthe wip. i was planning to do a few drawings based on the idea of her having Missing Arm nightmares, but the lineart was intimidating to me so i haven't worked on this one more yet /: also there was going to be a toontown gay homosexual toxic yuri comic that i was gonna put here with it but the page is way too long so umm guess that'll have to wait.

...

anyways. thank you for reading if you got to the bottom of this! i appreciate all the support that i've been getting lately (extra big kissies for the same like 5 people who always reblog my posts youre the best). and we will be ianthing soo hard in 2024 so watch out!!