Hex: Devour Ass

So this piece is sort of inspired by this post I made on my main

I saw a recording of the digital ticket of The Summoning and obviously they sing the line “dance around the pentagram”

And in the digital ticket I noticed that the lords in black would switch their little dances **in the shape of a pentagram** and I lost my mind (I may be wrong but the idea stuck with me)

So if you go through the names of the lords in black in the same order of the summoning and trace the crown I drew in this photo, it goes in the shape of a pentagram (though it doesn’t connect back at the end)

Now for the religious analysis of this!!!!!!!

I’ve wanted to draw Grace with a crown of thorns for a while because I can’t shut up about her Jesus parallels

For those not in the know in the Bible Jesus is put in a crown of thorns and spit on and beaten before and as he drags the cross to its place

The crown is meant to be a mockery of him supposedly being a king and messiah, and as they beat him the thorns would dig deeper into him

It’s this contrast between a crown, a sign of status and power, and thorns, an object of pain and suffering that really interested me when I drew this

(especially the concept of thorns being self inflicted torture as a theme but that gets into hamlet and “my love is sick” and we don’t have time for those analyses)

So when I drew Grace in the crown I wanted it to play into the Christian martyr complex and how she wants so desperately to be a savior and be that perfect image of a Christian,

but also how she has a power complex at the same time (her fantasy of max is a “one way ticket power trip” and she uses The Black Book as a source of power) and she mentally places herself in the role of god unknowingly

It has *always* stood out to me how when Grace becomes a prophet of The Lords she breaks the Ten Commandments THE VERY FIRST COMMANDMENT MIND YOU

1. You shall have no other Gods before me

And then the second

2. You shall not make idols

Also earlier in the show she definitely breaks the 3rd

3. You shall not take the lords name in vain

(Yes interpretations of this verse vary but I mean specifically when she said “it wasn’t my plan, it was Gods plan” putting Gods’s name on her unrighteous actions)

Throughout NPMD Grace constantly violates the code she claims to abide by over all else

And I think it’s such a good critique of how fundamentalist evangelical Christianity spirals so quickly into hypocrisy

There’s this strict dogma you have to abide by but often the people in power ignore it or find loopholes to utilize religion as a tool of power

Obligatory “not all Christians” which I probably should’ve put up the top

And also I’m not going off of how biblical scholars say the Bible should be understood in its historical context, I’m specifically evoking the modern, conservative and American interpretation of the Bible because that is the framework Grace uses

I doubt all of this came through the drawing cuz it’s actually pretty simple lol

(The digital painting was a pain though)

Fun fact this was all with the hard round brush on ibis paint!!!!!

If you got this far hello!!!!!! 👋

Edit:

OH ALSO FURTHER CONTEXT

The reason Grace has the black stuff dripping is because in that portion of the gospels when Jesus is praying in the garden he is so distressed about the crucifixion and losing Gods favor and becoming sin (its a whole thing), he begins to sweat blood from every orifice because he’s that stressed

There’s this verse I don’t remember the address of (is it an address? ‘Tis been a while guys) that’s like “he made him who knew no sin to be sin”

Jesus was perfect, but he had to sacrifice his perfection to bear every imperfection of mankind

And also lose the favor of his Heavenly Father (who is also him, trinity shenanigans yall)

In this moment Grace is about to give up not only what she values most, but what she thinks is most valuable about her in the eyes of the church and the eyes of God. She is going to go from pure to wholly impure in a single act (obligatory purity culture is messed up and virginity is a social construct).

Again the Jesus parallels with Grace are just ahsnhfhegdbjwkshfnwhdhdh

Also in discussions about the dubious consent and the trauma this event did or didn’t cause Grace, I think people should also understand that under purity culture Christian women will feel guilt after having sex with their husbands, the one man they’re supposed to do it with

So whether Grace wanted it or not, giving up her chastity is definitely a traumatic event for her BECAUSE THIS GIRL HAS UNPACKED NOTHING

bonus version bc i couldn't make up my mind

and the ref: