I s2g if you add the layers of these comic pages together, it's over 350 layers. THIS is why I don't do full color for my comics lmaooo- ANYWAY EVERYONE HERE HAS AN AU APPARENTLY, SO THIS IS A BRIEF GLIMPSE INTO MINE. I don't know what to call it yet but I'm thinking of calling it "famous prophets" because 1. I like that car seat headrest song, 2. it's about shamura who is prophetic, 3. it's about trying to outrun fate with the Power of Love (and failing. Like the song!!!). It takes place when all the bishops were teens/kids during the age of hundreds of gods at war, and were trying to survive as a family.

I'm really excited to work on stuff for it but it's all gonna be drawn out of order. Maybe I'll write a full explanation of what it's gonna be about when I have a better idea...I want to channel my eldest sibling angst in a productive way, and maybe establish a QPP between shamura and a completely random npc everyone forgets about <3 also kallamar is trans too cause I said so. I'll do a comic about it eventually. Instead of an absence of gender he has TOO much gender. It simply cannot be contained.

I like that nonbinary genders are normalized in cult of the lamb to the point where nobody singles anyone out for being a they/them, it's not like "THIS IS MY SIBLING SHAMURA. THEY ARE NONBINARY AND USE THEY/THEM. ALRIGHT BACK TO KILLING YOU", it's just like "don't you fucking dare make my poor sibling wake up from their nap to kick your ass. Cause they deserve better than this."

But at the same time I like having the freedom to be more specific, and say "shamura is voidpunk and their gender is best described as the feeling that overtakes you during the first snow of the year, when everything outside is deathly quiet". This comic is actually derived from the time I was walking through a forest that's been torn down for a few years, and came out to my little sister as trans. I must've been like 13 or 14 and she didn't really get it as a 10 year old, but it was better than my mom FREAKING OUT about me coming out. So it was a nice little bonding moment between just the two of us. I don't have a good memory so I don't recall how it went unfortunately...

Now, the climate is a little different. My sis tried out transmasculinity for maybe 5-6 years before feeling happier as a woman, my mom is trying to be Based and flaunt her Woke trans children, and my dad remembered "oh yeah trans natives have existed before colonization. Maybe me being transphobic is a product of my culture being erased" and has gotten better about calling me the right thing. I have a mustache (thanks pcos!!) and wear skirts and am not a repressed "tomboy" teenager anymore. But I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I could've been like shamura and just...been nonbinary without people being fucking weird about it. Or been born as a badass war god who will tear you to shreds before you can perceive my birth sex. I know they're fictional but they are my ultimate gender envy GRRRRR BARK BARK BARK

Here is the secret image for this post- I listen to mostly EDM when I draw cause it keeps the energy up, but as I was finishing up shamura's poetry part, I was like THESE ARE JUST KMFDM LYRICS so I made this

I posted these on reddit a while ago and I've gotten multiple messages asking if I had any other social media? Which I didn't at the time, but after years of not bothering to post my art I think that was the boost I needed to finally re-emerge from the rock I've been living under.

ANYWAY uhhhhhh I've drawn these guys so much since I posted this that they might look a little different when I eventually post my newer art of them. Mostly because I don't bother drawing the little crosses on their heads anymore besides on leshy because frankly the antennae are really funny. If anyone has any questions about my hcs or what I intend to do with the characters, my ask box is open and I don't have anything better to do than endlessly ramble about gods that 100% would rip my head off immediately if I ever encountered them!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the reception I got for these on reddit was way more positive than I was expecting which I am immensely grateful for, but there was definitely some miscommunication about the afab shamura headcanon so I'm just gonna dump about that below the cut if you want to hear me ramble about my nonbinary-ness for a while:

OKAY SO it's canon that the bishops were feral little animals before they found their crowns, right? Leshy and Shamura both talk about it during their follower quests. Feral animals do not have a concept of gender, only biological sex, so if they ascended to sapient godhood they would suddenly have a grasp of gender. My hc is that Shamura was a female feral spider, ascended to godhood, lost their bio sex in the process as with all the other bishops, and was just like "you know what? I don't want to be anything. This is kinda swag actually" so they just became War and Grief and Cosmic Horror incarnate. I am fucking desperate for any relatable enby representation in the media I like, so I just want to clarify me saying they were female at some point just is me going "I am living vicariously through this character who shed their mortal flesh prison to be an eldritch spider war god devoid of any sex characteristics" and not "I'm one of those numerous people who for some reason lumps this canonically agender character in with a binary sex". Anyway thank you for reading this far, here's an unfinished voidpunk shamura from a pride flag color palette thing I did of the bishops:

ohhhhg ky god i LOVE how u write shamura's non-binaryness ,,,, sorry if that sounds weird but it's EXACTLY what i think abt my own identity too. i am not a boy or a girl i am just tha darkness between stars and the last beats of a dying heart

(i also love kallamar having 'too much gender' bc ,,, same also KEBEKRYDJSYEJ)

I finished this yesterday but Home Stuff was happening and I couldn't post it, ANYWAY- WOW THE WHOLE TRANSGENDER GANG HAS ARRIVED! And...specifically the pre-injury versions because I just am tired of drawing bandages! I'm actually really happy you liked how I wrote shamura's gender explanation thing because like...I've always gotten euphoria from things that aren't other people, but felt like it was a weird thing to do? I made a joke comic about it forever ago where my gender envy was stuff like john carpenter's the thing, the collector from darkest dungeon, and the mystery flesh pit monster. So having a freaky eldritch spider cult leader be canonically nonbinary and having their gender be respected by the other characters was like a dream come true for me, ESPECIALLy since there's enough wiggle room to make my own interpretation of what they are. If anyone can see themself in the way I write these guys then tbh that's all I could ever hope for, so I'm really grateful you let me know your thoughts!!

My hc's for the family is definitely shamura being voidpunk, kallamar being genderfluid, and leshy is just a Dude. A Funny Little Guy. Idek why I strongly feel like he's transmasc but it's probably the fact I grew up with a transmasc younger brother who's also a little shit lmao--