I don’t think I will actually do this, but I was toying with the idea of starting a regular feature called “Ask a Sithrak Worshipper.”
Between Monday Meslier, Argument Clinic, Ask The Strategic Genius, and Vendredi Voltaire I have bitten off far more than I can chew.
self portrait, 2017
I generally don’t celebrate Halloween. For me, any day is cosplay day. The robe and hat and accessories were by one of my favorite ebay costume providers, honestdragonchina [hdc] who have patiently, and quickly made a variety of weird things for me. I’ll be posting pictures of a few more of those in my next installment of Raiding My Closet pictures [stderr]. The skull is a resin anatomical model I got on ebay (!$19!) and I assembled it by cutting the oak spikes on my table-saw, hammering them in through the back of the orbit for proper Sithrakian effect, then filling the entire skull with polytek foamit-4 urethane foam, and sticking a stick in it. The skull prop is so solid, with the foam fill, that I could probably use it as a fairly effective mace if I run into an apostate. Although, why would I bother punishing an apostate? Sithrak’ll fuck them up in good time.
Yes, I thought about soaking the skull with ether and lighting it, for a brief burning effect, but it’s really hard to get flame and strobe to render cleanly because of the light/exposure difference. Typically, I’d just photoshop in some flames. There’s a bit of photoshop in this but it’s minimal.
The eye makeup is red mica pigment which, it turns out, sticks to eyelids for days.
Authoring “Ask a Sithrak Worshipper” would be pretty easy, wouldn’t it? “Well, you’re gonna get fucked up, see?”
Lighting was one large octodome to camera right. You can see the reflection of the octodome in my eyes, which gives a proper worshipper ‘pop’ look.
(And now you know why Sithrak has been on my mind. The way I edit postings is: I have a temporary directory I stage images in. So every time I went to add an image to a blog posting, there was my Sithrak worshipper cosplay staring at me.)
Oh, but I’d love a Ask a Sithrak Worshipper series! Even an irregular one. Just think of all the stupid quotes in multitudes of articles every day. Just pull one for the series, any one! Because you look adorable, and well worth eternal torment.
Ok, well, I’m not sure how to collect the questions. I suppose I could set up a mailbox or something.
Or maybe I could follow the timeless tradition of “ask me…” columnists everywhere and ask myself the questions.
Okay, in my latest post, there is this quote:
You could use stuff like that, even though it’s not in the form of question. Hmm, maybe “A Sithrak Worshipper Says…” or something like that.
Caine@#3:
Hmmmm….. I think I can do that. So I can just reference other FTBloggers postings and answer stupid rhetorical questions that may be contained in them. Then I can claim that they asked me offline. It’s a lie, but so what? Sithrak’s gonna punish me anyway so I may as well lie a lot before I die!
Yes! I agree wholeheartedly with Caine. I think we could easily do without the Voltaire or that piker Meslier.
Exactly!!
There ya go! And how did you not know mica would stick to you forever? I told you, it’s like glitter! Evil, man, pure evil.
No, no, Voltaire and Meslier must stay.
Whatever.
We can’t give up the Closet stuff. That is priceless and hilarious.
I still have almost no clue who Sithrak may be/have been/ will be but the picture suggested a Catholic cardinal with a hang-over.
Keep up the good work
jrkrideau@#11:
I still have almost no clue who Sithrak may be/have been
Sithrak the Blind Gibberer is a god in the world of Oglaf. He’s a bit of a jerk, who hates all his followers, so when the die he abuses them in various horrible ways. Sithrak worshippers are pretty happy with that, because nothing makes you enjoy your life like knowing that after death, your god is going to really fuck you up. But Sithrak’s pretty even-handed about it, so they also take comfort in his general fairness. Until, one of his followers gets a chance to talk to him and he repudiates all that stuff as “childishness from my dark period.” The followers then have a crisis of faith – they can’t tell if he means it, or if he’s just fucking with them more.
https://oglaf.com/sithrak/
http://oglaf.com/outreach/
Sithrak was once a god with a featureless humanoid form who judged the dead: “all stand alone before god”. Then some mighty ruler was buried with pottery warriors. The warriors overwhelmed Sithrak, drove spikes into its eyes, set its head on fire, and cast it down from its throne. As a result, Sithrak became a horrible misanthrope who didn’t bother judging any more, simply sending everyone to unending torment.
http://oglaf.com/throne-heaven/
delurking to add my 10/10 would be stoked to read the hell out of an ask a sithrak worshiper feature!
What other Oglaf gods are there? I can think of
* easily-bullied god who hates sodomy and slugs (http://oglaf.com/leverage/)
* inattentive god who accidentally flooded the world (http://oglaf.com/parenting/). Based on the artwork, these two might be the same.
* god of reverse psychology (http://oglaf.com/bitterfruit/). This one looks the same as the previous two but has different colouration.
* brutish-looking god of arbitrary and capricious rules and violent retribution (http://oglaf.com/assorted-fruits/)
There’s also the mighty goddess of sex and war, but we just see her statue and priestess, not the goddess herself. And the fun-god is dead.
@Marcus Ranum, #12:
Sithrak (purportedly) hates everyone, not just his worshippers. Technically, everyone is supposed to get tortured. We have not yet seen how his priests cope with other gods, who actually are as real as Sithrak is supposed to be. I think they just deny that those gods have any reality, or maybe just deny that they have any power in the afterlife.
They don’t have a crisis of faith — they act like presuppositionalists, where the presupposition is that Sithrak hates everyone and wants to torture everyone.
Imagine if a fanatical presuppositionalist Christian had a near-death experience, and found that Dionysus was in charge, but didn’t deconvert. They instead claim that [the Christian] God was testing their faith by allowing a demon to pretend to be god. Like that.
@unperson, #13: I am less than convinced of the origin story’s veracity.
@unperson, #15: You missed the most recent one:
* the volcano god who wants to have a potential spouse contest ( http://oglaf.com/magmachamber )
(I find myself wondering if the real punchline was that the woman they threw in is actually a sorceress immune to fire who likes messing with the priest’s head)
And how could you leave out….
* The tapeworm-goddess within! ( http://oglaf.com/goddessextraction/ )
And….
* The god who turns himself into golden rain ( http://oglaf.com/danae/ )
The resin skull has some serious problems with her teeth.
I hope you didn’t have any customer meetings before it wore off.
.
BTW, the lighting/costume makes it look (to me) like you have a pronounced boob on the right side.
Also signing on for “Yes, do Ask A Sithrak Worshipper” and also “You look adorable”
Like a squeezable plushie cultist.
Please tell me you have shown this image to the author of Oglaf.
Everyone. Only a Sithrak deals in absolutes.
abbeycadabra@#22:
Like a squeezable plushie cultist.
I actually do make a squeak sound when Sithrak drops 16 ton weights on me!
Please tell me you have shown this image to the author of Oglaf.
I tweeted it to the @Oglaf twitter and apparently it must have been let through because I have a bunch of “likes” on it and some retweets. So, yeah.
Owlmirror@#16:
Sithrak (purportedly) hates everyone, not just his worshippers.
You are correct. Here is a powerpoint that may help clarify!
By the way, did you know that Sithrak may have invented Powerpoint? Actually, Sithrak theologians theorize that somewhere after Office 95, Sithrak took over the entire Microsoft productivity portfolio and redesigned the interface for his own mysterious ends.
Two paths to getting an image of fire on the skull:
First is the obvious one. Start with the given photo, open Photoshop, add fire.
Second is to take two images. One like the one you have, one with the lights out and the skull on fire and a very long exposure. Add them together, turning up the brightness on the latter enough to get the effect to look right. This way, the image really does have the burning skull.
Have a fire extinguisher on hand. Might want something on the floor holding the skull in a stationary position so you don’t need to stand near a burning skull in a dark room.