#long post!!

[jesncin]

Happy National Coming Out Day! It's been about half a year since our middle grade graphic novel, Lunar Boy, released! Today we want to reflect on the concept of Coming Out, and how it's fictionalized in media.

Check out Lunar Boy wherever american graphic novels are sold, or check it out at a library! All the support means a lot with getting stories like this out there.

[falafels]

blank check to yap about the Thea Triplets or Ravens women 🫶

oO YIPPEE YAY OK SO (and my apologies now because there is NOTHING like structure going on here just straight up dump of incoherent thoughts) also long post warning

Thea is a triplet and she has two brothers, Victor and Felix.

Victor is as if not more high-strung than Thea but was too unlikeable for team sports (not in a deliberately mean way. just in a bit of a trying-so-hard-to-be-the-best-that-he-becomes-insufferable way) so got really into academic competition with anyone who cared. His and Thea’s relationship pre-high school was at the point of actually thinking about killing each other but it calmed down a lot once they kind of called dibs on respective disciplines. Thea was still academically smart and Vic was still pretty decent at sports but there was a clear line drawn for who gets what. Most of the first 15 years of their lives looked like this (Felix with smoothie)

These days Victor is a Chef at a fancy New York restaurant he co-owns with his college roommate (Emory, business school), and recently broke up with his fiancée Clare, an NYU molecular plant science research postgrad. Their breakup was one of the only times he’s spoken to Thea since (and obv during her time there) she left the Nest, because he’s too proud to talk to anyone in his life about it and Thea manages to somehow hit both criteria by being a borderline stranger and by being his sister who already knows him too well. He goes to one of her first few pro games without telling her, then again when her team makes semifinals and that time he sees her after for an extremely strained drink. They’re both insanely driven and competitive and intense people, so it’s only really around each other that they look or feel more normal.

Which brings us to triplet 3, Felix Muldani. Felix is sort of the Klaus Hargreeves of them, wildy bisexual and usually drugged out of his mind. Infinitely more chill than the other two, due somewhat to being high most of the time but also in general disposition he’s always been more easygoing. He never really cared for competition the way the other two did and was content to just hang out. He was smart too, not particularly sporty, but Felix was always more focused on making friends than being exceptional. When he was 13, his best friend since kindergarten Joseph was killed in a car accident and he took it quite hard. He might have been ok, but Joseph’s older brother offered him painkillers at the funeral and he had one of those “holy shit. i feel so much better. i should do this every day of my life” moments and he was gone from there. Felix kind of swans about now, drifting off the face of the earth for months on occasion and just turning up again after being presumed dead. Once Thea leaves the Nest, he’s relentless. She won’t smile, she refuses to speak to anyone in the family, she won’t say what’s happened for the last five years. Something is so, so wrong and she doesn’t want to be therapied at, she’ll snarl at people who talk gently to her, so Felix goes with what he knows and decides he’s going to irritate her until he sees something familiar. He rocks up at her apartment in Houston and crashes on her couch, brings over garbage snacks to eat loudly and messily (he’ll eventually wear her down and she’ll eat a dorito), wearing her clothes and pissing her off because how do they look better on him, calling her Ted. Teddd. Teddy Ted Ted. Theodore. Tedward. Teddyyyyy- WHAT until she snaps and he grins at her and she rolls her eyes so hard she finally looks like his sister again.

Felix is also kind of a grounding point for Thea in terms of coming back to life, not just because of this but because despite every ounce of raven conditioning she still cares about him and worries. It’s a bit harder with Vic because, truthfully, he’d have thrived as a raven, but never Felix. He’s everything they aren’t.

Thea’s life in Houston is slow, slow going. She doesn’t have to adjust to being alone rather than a raven pair the way she thought she would have to because Felix is lounging about in her apartment most days, but it’s still so much easier than she thought it would be. The raven pair system was never something safe for Thea, and even though the conditioning runs deep, a lot of raven rhetoric is somewhat easier for the women to unlearn because the difference in treatment by gender is so obvious (and so omnipresent and unquestioned that no authority figures ever even bothered trying to lie/justify it) that identifying one injustice made it easier to identify the rest.

She has an overly friendly neighbour, a 55-year-old recent divorcé named Jonah who is trying to start a community garden on the rooftop. She doesn’t have any interest in befriending him but sometimes when she can’t sleep because of those 16 hour days, she’ll go up and weed the garden. Sometimes he’s up there too, and he can see she doesn’t want to chat so they garden together in silence.

She doesn’t reach out to anyone from the Edgar Allen ever. No interest whatsoever in any one of them. The handful she has to see at US Court practices are a necessity but she won’t socialise with them. A couple of former ravens reach out to her to offer help, but she won’t call them friends for a long time. (Jonathan Stringer, a former captain, now a coach, would have fit in better at USC and has had a lot of therapy, now does what he can to try and help fresh raven graduates to save them from the isolation and spiral he went through. Also Lydia Shetfield, easily the most disenchanted raven who walked away from exy entirely. Thea only even meets her again as a visiting friend of Stringer’s, and is massively hostile to Lydia’s staunch anti-raven stance, but Lydia is quite persistent with texting her every day until they’re something like friends)

Her first actual friend in like eight years is Phoebe March, vice captain and striker for the Houston sirens and former Penn State player, who is like a friendlier Dan Wilds in that she’s scrapped to be there, she’ll wear that with pride, and she’ll stick up for you but won’t take any shit from anyone. She’s butted heads with former ravens before, and really isn’t a fan of Thea’s attitude, and takes her aside after a few weeks to ask her what the hell her problem is. Thea is hostile and rude to her, criticises her too-lax attitude (only in comparison to ravens, Phoebe is actually pretty neurotic) and her long shots on goal when she should rebound closer first instead, and somewhere in the rant Phoebe realised that Thea actually doesn’t mean any harm and is even more ruthless with herself than she is with anyone else. And being hard on herself means she’s being hard on Phoebe’s teammate, which is unacceptable, so Phoebe starts inviting Thea (then when she doesn’t show up, dragging Thea out of her apartment) to go on morning runs with her. They chat about team strategy, plays, review games and scrimmages, and talk exy for weeks and weeks until they start to talk about other stuff almost by accident. Thea mentions that she used to swim and Phoebe tells her about the pool near the sirens’ court, Phoebe complains about her competitive sister and Thea has some experience there, occasional pot shots at whichever teammate has dodgy facial hair going on that week. Thea is the one who eventually harangues Phoebe into accepting her US Court contract, which she’d been holding out on on account of the handful of ravens on the team, but now she’ll be there with Thea and she’ll cheerfully throw hands with any raven who makes a comment at either one of them.

[bunnithechubs]

the devil works hard, but simxmoi works harder.

small cameo of @duusheen's Jasper Dove and @riverofjazzsims's Raiden Katsumi

[near-seth-experience]

It's been a few days and a good handful of chapters since my last TWI Progress update. I'm nearing the end of Book 9's Audiobook "Tears of Liscor", (Through Interlude-Pebblesnatch and Garry)

I last left off with these update posts with Tremborag having just killed Quietstab. Since then, in the most succinct of a recap as possible:

Tremborag couldn't keep Veltras' wife's name outta his mouth and got killed, we learned some stuff about Tremborag, Velan & the old Goblin Lords, Reiss & Garen's story, Rags took in most of Tremborag's tribe, Eater Goats descended by the thousands and Pyrite looked super cool taking them on, Reiss revealed his plan to raise the dead in Liscor, Rags hated it, so Reiss hit Rags with a surprise attack and all hell broke loose, Garen decided to let them fight and continued south, Pyrite took a bunch of death bolts from Reiss, Rags hid under some bodies in the carnage, Pyrite didn't die because he's Pyrite and I love that for him, Redscar is leading the panicked tribe south towards liscor.

The Antinium are poising to put up a token resistance, let the city flee into the hive, and emerge as its new stewards after taking it from the humans. This plan ruins the Free Queen's goals, and Klbkch doesn't like it either and might be facing some internal conflict. The homie hobs were vibin' when Greydath showed up to test them. They failed, but also sorta passed because they spared Erin from getting hurt, and that whole thing made the goblins feel that they couldn't stay. Bird nearly shot Greydath's eye out and became the victim of a thrown greatsword which destroyed his tower, he's alive and recovering in the hive, and Olesm made the dipshit mistake to ARREST THE HOMIE HOBS (and Erin after she decked him for it) Numbtongue got away, rallied the cave goblins, and protested the homie hob's release from prison. After locking away Erin and the Hobs, Olesm slightly redeemed himself by stepping into his authority as a City Strategist for once to demand reinforcements of the Drake cities by saying to them "if you're not helping Liscor right now you're an undisciplined incompetent coward with no honor or sense of duty to your species" via the scrying orb news team. Niers loved that shit. Meanwhile the Adventurers are carrying a door north as quickly as possibly in a relay towards Celum to get out of the warpath when the Halfseekers ran into Garen on the road. IT GOES DOWN. The Inn crew inntervenes (pun intended), Garen beats the Halfseekers up though, and Erin gets beat up, Inn team retreats except Homie Hobs and Halfseekers. We learn that Garen shared the Key details with the members of the Halfseekers he teamkilled, and the two Drakes in the team were horrified and tried to stop Garen from taking the key because they fearfully thought Garen was intending to become the next King. Everyone tells Garen "while the others instigated the conflict, you still KILLED THEM when you didn't have to, and ran". Homie hobs extend that logic to say "You gave the tribe to Rags, so when she left the mountain, it was you who should have followed". With everyone questioning his loyalty, he breaks a little bit emotionally, severely wounding all of the half seekers and ran. Mrsha had a day with Krshia and there were serious talks about the whole "Mrsha is a mage" thing, she tamed a dog, Gnolls discussed what to do about the coming siege, and voted to stay and fight. Big tribal magic spell gave everyone a little courage. Redscar eventually made it to the inn. Homie Hobs reunited with Redscar so now Redfangs are pretty much back with the Flooded Waters Tribe, now Rags just has to arrive and somehow get past Reiss and the humans in front. Erin basically has a Goblin day at the inn and the partying becomes an immortal moment. And then Garry won a goblin cook-off

Now the siege is about to go down. Assuming it's anything like The General of Izril, the remainder of the book is going to be the battle and brief aftermath stuff.

Before things resolve, I have a few thoughts about the above:

Tyrion was surprised that Tremborag knew him and he was like "of course I know you! You're the lord whose wife fell off a balcony" and I appreciate anyone who takes digs at Tyrion lmao

So, if I'm understanding everything correctly, Velan the Kind -- much like Rags-- realized the cycle of retaliation that the goblins live through, and initially attempted to coexist like Rags has been earning his moniker. Through Tremborag's death scenes and all those flashbacks there, it sounds like the Old Goblin Lords like Greydath are so stuck in their ways that they believe that embracing the cycle is what makes them goblin. They fight and pressure the goblins with potential to manipulate them into becoming kings and feeding the cycle. That's what Greydath did with the homie-hobs. He basically said "it's not goblin to be complacent here. Goblins need to grow strong and fight because the other races will hunt them" Even though the Inn is clearly in front of him acting as proof of coexistence, he's so set in his ways that he actively disrupts any attempts at peace. When he was initially testing Rags and Reiss I thought he was cool, but after hurting Bird and learning more of his motivations I hate his guts.

It annoys me so much how the drakes and Liscor in general allow Erin to have her relationship with the goblins because "it's only a few hobs and cave goblins", but when there's goblins in the thousands headed this way, it doesn't even occur to them to let Erin be Erin and see if there's anything she could do that could help Liscor be spared. Olesm's one big weakness as a strategist to me seems like he is too easily swayed by drake politics and Ilvriss. Erin is a huge asset when it comes to the goblins, and anytime he does not consult her regarding them ends up in a detrimental decision. Working with Goblins is not a Drake thing to do, so he doesn't consider it as a viable option. That's the big irony, I think. Goblins place importance on doing things that are Goblin, and yet, the Drakes have the same relationship to pride as a species. Like, when Olesm snapped in Palass, he was pointing out "Helping us would be the Drake thing to do", and that has the same weight as a chieftain calling another "not gobin". Back to Olesm, though, he needs to put his job as a strategist above his identity as a Drake. I'm hoping he will realize it sometime during this siege.

Really hoping for the Free Queen and Klbkch to eventually forsake the grand queen and revolt.

Predictions: The siege goes according to Veltras' plan at first, and goblins sweep into the city. But as the ones closest to the city only the Redfangs and Flooded Waters tribe push in, and rather than massacre Liscor, they help hold the walls because that'd make Erin sad. This ends up as a battle between Veltras & Liscor using Reiss & Rags as proxy armies. While that's ongoing Veltras will probably continue to pummel Liscor and eventually continue to push and herd Reiss' army into the walls while the Friendly gobs use the walls. Once it's clear that Reiss's forces won't get into Liscor unaided, Az'kerash will probably intervene some more and do some Necromancy shenanigans & use Chosen to target key Friendly gobs to rout them into the city, and I'll be sadly posting on here later about some Goblins I like getting killed by him. I feel like there may be more in store story-wise for a Bard and a Champion so I'm a little worried for Headscratcher, Shorthilt, and Badarrow since there are plenty of Goblins with combat prowess especially since Redscar, Spiderslicer, and Poisonbite are all present as well. Osthia Blackwing escapes into the inn where she tells Erin and company that Az'kerash is Reiss' master, Pisces reacts to that. Once it's clear that Liscor will hold against Reiss, Veltras leaves without taking the city, and the Antinium will pour out at a pivotal moment to make themselves look better in the eyes of the public even if they can't take the city for themselves. No major Liscorian casualties, Reiss dead, some Homie Hobs and Flooded Waters Tribe officers dead, Inn-goers are the only ones mourning and the city continues to refuse to acknowledge Goblin aid and sacrifice.

I'm gonna continue listening after I post this, so I'm curious to see how similarly events unfold compared to what I'm expecting.

[glitchthedemon]

I have a pair of Toriel slippers I got not too long ago, and to me it hasn’t felt like I’ve had them that long at all, maybe a few months at most, but the other I looked at them and I realised they didn’t look as white as they did when I first got them, sort of a greyish-off white now, mostly around the ears where it’s closer to the floor, and it made me wonder, is that how Chara felt?

They fell down and almost immediately got adopted by the Dreemurs, and for a short while, they had a happy family. Then their plan with Asriel failed, and they died, the last thing they saw being the face of their parents. Due to Chara being dead, they probably didn’t notice how much time had passed before Frisk fell down, if they noticed time passing at all. But imagine it - they’ve woken up, excited to see their family again, but as Toriel arrives and greets Frisk, Chara is shocked. Did their mother always looks so tired? Was her fur always that grey? Did she always move that slowly? Chara begins to realise a lot more time has passed than they first believed, their mother hasn’t been a mother in a long time. She’s gotten old.

Entering Toriels home, they notice how quiet it is. No more Asriel running around, no more Dad cooking in the kitchen, just their mother lolling after a kid that isn’t them.

Frisk enters a room that hasn’t belonged to anyone in a long time. Chara enters their room again. Frisk looks into a dusty toybox that hasn’t seemed to be touched recently. Chara looks into their toybox, just as they’d left it not too long ago. Frisk sleeps on the old bed. Chara watches someone else lie down on their bed. Frisk is given Toriels pie. Chara watches their mother bake for a stranger. All these things haven’t been meant for them for a long time, but to Chara it only feels like a short while. How could so much time have passed already?

And what about Asgore? Seeing their dad living alone in the castle where they died, with nothing but golden flowers to keep him company. Chara remembers they time they accidentally poisoned him with those flowers, but that was years, maybe even decades ago. They stand at the Barrier, Asgore is looking at them but not at them. Six souls glow faintly behind him. They should’ve been one of them. Chara looks away, too many conflicted feelings. As Frisk dodges, they see a serious look on their fathers face. They finally realise this is not the underground they had left not that long all that time ago.

[lilbirdblu]

so! here are all the playlist covers that ive completed so far:

these are completed but are likely to be redone:

and then here are a couple pairings + the animations family:

[pikkish]

Alright here we go, wraith time. Long post ahead, lots of headcanon and extrapolation, all of it only somewhat organized. I’ll likely revisit and refine this stuff down the road.

Things we know from canon:

The wraiths created Argent D’nur, or at least the life on it

The Argenta people worshipped them, but they were also apparently destructive enough merely in existing that the three of them that were awake on Argent D’nur had to be lulled to sleep

even sleeping they were powerful enough that possession of them was enough for the Slayer and the Night Sentinels to hold their own against Hell, the Maykrs, and the traitor Sentinels

Similarly, the three sleeping wraiths’ souls were enough to create the Well in 2016, a seemingly limitless source of Argent

 prior to the fall of Argent D’nur, Argenta leaders would go to the World Spear and, should the wraiths/the guardian spirits outside determine that they were worthy, they would be given a “shard of the Spear itself.” These would appear to be the sentinel crystals.

the crystals and/or the wraiths are powerful enough that even the Father/VEGA went to them for crystals to power the Gate of Divuum, and maybe more.

The World Spear is actually a ship containing some unknown number more of wraiths, presumably sleeping or in stasis.

There might be a couple more things but this is the bulk of the canon information we have on the wraiths, and it’s. not a lot. So now here are things I’m inferring either from implication or context or just straight up making up because I want to.

The wraiths have unusual forms, covered/no eyes, 3 sets of wings, voices capable of inciting fear, and incredible power, all things present at some time or another in Biblical angels. They also have the eye motif thing going on in the World Spear, which I think makes up for their lack of eyes all over their bodies. also the first concept art for them was literally winged humanoids. they’re angels.

the codex says the sentinel crystals are part of the World Spear, but looking at the pedestal you get it from in the World Spear level, it has a certain similar vibe to me as the altars the wraiths are bound to in 2016

combine that with the fact that power can somehow be siphoned from the sleeping wraiths, I’d like to posit that Sentinel Crystals are wraiths’ souls, or fragments of them

(this could then lead to the idea that the entire World Spear is actually grown out of the wraiths’ souls, and the wraiths inside aren’t so much sleeping as just... straight up part of the World Spear, built into it to sustain it. Uncertain if I want to go with that, though.)

The only other place we see the wraiths’ eye motif is on the Gate of Divuum (also: rings within rings and covered with eyes, anyone?) so I like to think that they were more involved with it than just providing a power source. Either they were involved in its operation, or they built it themselves entirely. Either way, they were aware of Hell independent of the Argenta and Maykrs (re)discovering it via Doomguy’s insane ranting.

the three wraiths allowed themselves to be put to sleep by the Argenta. They were aware of the destruction their presence could cause, as well as aware that the Argenta were at a point developmentally where they gained more from using the wraiths as a power source than as wild destructive idols

this, and giving Argenta leaders Sentinel Crystals, means they were voluntarily giving up their souls to be used by the people they created

the Argenta called the raw power wraithsong, bc of the wraiths’ powerful voices. I don’t remember if it’s ever actually called wraithsong in the codexes or just wraithcall, but it got stuck in my head and I can’t get myself to call it wraithcall instead so I guess that’s what I’m calling it *shrugs*

but this is why wraithsong is, despite still being soul power, so much safer and more stable than Argent Energy. It’s given willingly, versus ripped out of tortured people

Night Sentinel weapons are made from wraithsong

this is why a crucible is one of the only things capable of keeping a titan down, it’s literally part of a wraith’s soul combating the titan’s immortality.

I’m deciding the wraiths are as old as or older than Davoth and come from somewhere outside his sphere of influence. Idk where, but they weren’t made by him.

Further connection that the wraiths were aware of Hell: there are a lot of similarities between the Maykrs’ appearance and the wraiths (or what little of it we get to see.) The funky octopus lower body, the humanoid head with some Adjustments, the Khan Maykr has her life sphere where the wraiths have a Big Hole (maybe an awake, live wraith has some form of its soul in its chest there?) So Davoth was also aware of the wraiths, and when he made the Maykrs, he looked at the wraiths and went  “ah yes, angels. I want my angels to have these traits too.”

VEGA was aware of the wraiths’ power, but not their influence outside of Davoth. Post VEGA-Lies-And-Says-He-Created-Everything, the Maykrs (the Khan Maykr specifically) are generally kept in the dark and are even less aware of the nature of the Wraiths. The Khan Maykr thinks of them as lesser deities, the primitive gods of the Argenta (despite the fact that one of them could probably vaporize her just by looking at her.)

The wraiths decided they liked Doomguy, and it was partially through being on Argent D’nur, under their influence that allowed him to recover (that is, “””recover”““) from going mad after being in Hell for so long between Doom 64 and arriving on Argent D’nur.

I think they know he’s a primeval. I think they know what he is and what those are. Maybe they conceptualize it differently though. I don’t think they think the same as people do to begin with.

Haven’t decided if they are primevals themselves, just a different branch from Davoth and Doomguy, or if they’re a different but equally powerful race entirely.

VEGA is the fallen angel to Davoth’s being the creator, but what if Davoth was a wraith or came from the same place as the wraiths and was cast out for his destructive tendencies? Double layered Biblical allusion!!

Not sure I want to go with that, but then you could also play with the idea that Doomguy was also a wraith/came from the same place in the past, but rather than being cast out, he chose to leave to beat the snot outta Davoth. Cuz I mean, hey, if we’re not sticking with the “he’s just some guy” origin story anymore, we might as well take the “he’s actually a heckin god” one, crank it up to eleven, and run with it, right?

Whether or not Doomguy and Davoth remember their origins in this version is up for debate. I vote no. They only know their goals.

(that said, I’d also say the wraiths themselves are aware of who Doomguy and Davoth are in this version. they get to be all cryptic and say absolutely nothing about it then.)

And I thiiiiink that’s about it for now. I’m sure there’s more stuff I’m forgetting and will remember later. If you made it this far, feel free to add on! Questions, comments, ideas, and headcanons are 100% welcome!! I want more wraiths content!! Come talk to me about the funky space octopus spider bats!