#that has nothing to do with personal opinions its literally parts of their story unless im remembering wrong

[marblerose-rue]

click for better quality!

the planes of existence

[mdhwrites]

Okay, don't you think you're being harsh to think Dana Terrace is incapable of creating anything good and dreading it when she creates something? Like, the idea Owl House never should have existed (based on what that one anon said) is way too harsh and insulting to Dana.

Like come on, Dana's a pretty nice person. Heck, a lot of the people and creators who work at Disney TVA like Alex Hirsch, Matt Braly, Frank Angones, Matt Youngberg, Daron Nefcy, Chris Houghton, and Shane Houghton have nothing but nice things to say about her. Ditto with the rest of the Owl House cast and crew (a ship is more than its captain after all) being saying nothing but nice things about Dana.

And it's not like Dana's the only Disney TVA creator who has caused people to go against Disney. Alex Hirsch has badmouthed Disney several times (even making a Twitter post on how much Disney meddled with Gravity Falls), Matt Braly was frustrated with the last minute True Colors delay and expressed frustration with them here ( https://twitter.com/Radrappy/status/1746706435080323397), and Bill Motz has made comments on how Disney treated Molly McGee that worsened the opinion of how Disney treats their animated shows.

So I had considered saying that the ask did go a bit far in how angry it was at Dana. I mentioned that being unprofessional does not make you a bad person. Some of the actions are frustrating to me but I am not trying to say Dana is wrong for having made a product in such a flawed way. I am at least trying not judging her as a person, just as a creative. I also don't think TOH simply shouldn't have existed. It had plenty of good ideas but at the end of the day, its captain should be the one who is in charge of those ideas and making sure that they're focused on telling the story and staying consistent. Dana wrote Reaching Out, one of the episodes of the show that most destroys both character potential and the believability of the world. It's also not by any means the only episode with a main writing credit for her like that, such as The First Day. As a writer, I genuinely just don't get the impression she has the attention span to be leading such a large project, especially if she is going to complain about not having full control over it while also lacking more concrete ideas to what it is. When I say I am not interested in the next work Dana is the director for, I just mean director because these flaws in her style make me think that unless it's an anthology series, anything she makes is going to have me get frustrated by the work over time.

NOW as for the stuff about her being unprofessional: Time and context is HUGE here. Matt getting upset about True Colors leaks? The COMPANY is also going to be upset by them and while it might berate Disney for lack of security, it is a genuine fuck up on their part to do with his show and him lambasting the leaks also pushes the audience not to spread them. There's nothing unprofessional about that nor that might harm the show. Alex Hirsch released that video about the censor board for Disney on Gravity Falls YEARS after the fact (this also goes for the tweet that you quote from Matt which is literally two weeks ago, well over a year past when Amphibia ended). The show was already a success and a video like that might make Disney look a little silly but it won't harm how people see the product or trying to get into it. In fact, with the current state of things, it might actually be seen as a PR bump.

Meanwhile, Dana was shit talking her own show and blaming it on the company she CHOSE to work with regarding literally half of the content that was out at the time. Worse yet, the first half. The half that theoretically needs to sell you on the show. What is a new viewer supposed to think of that if they haven't seen the show? "Well, even if it gets good, even the creator admits the first half is at least underwhelming. I don't want to have to put up with half a season of subpar work just to get to the good stuff."

And as I said with Hirsch: How people feel about Disney, and how clearly Disney actually does want the rep in TOH to be a selling point for them (they immediately were willing to do Lumity marathons or have them featured on Disney+ for Pride Month, as well as Lumity being the only t-shirt released by Disney that wasn't of just The Owl House members or the logo), means that Dana getting upset about them for the homophobic acts in Florida probably was seen as at worst neutral. Buuuuut that shifts when she starts trying to accuse the treatment of their programming onto their homophobic ideas because suddenly part of the company's selling point on the show is being actively damaged by the creator. Worse yet, she is doing it as speculation rather than sticking to the reasons given by Disney. Feeding into people's anger about the company while eschewing responsibility for why the show was shortened like it was. This is admittedly less of a strong argument, I do still support her lambasting their homophobic politics, but it's a moment that has stuck with me for something I'll get into later.

This is also without getting into the fact that one interview with her specifically mentions her first response to the shortening being to end S2 on a massive cliffhanger and then just GTFOing on them, a statement that is going to make ANY production company start sweating about you as a creative they want to work with. After all, the crew and other creatives may love Dana... But what do actually publishers and people she has to clear this stuff with think of her? You know, the people who decide funding on these matters because that is just a part of the majority of animated work currently unless you somehow manage to get enough patrons to be able to go independent like Vivziepop with Helluva Boss.

All of this also gives the impression of someone who would rather blame other forces than learn. Honestly, one of the best things I've heard her say is that the shortening did push her creatively. Force her to make decisions and try harder. That gives me hope... But she spent so much of TOH complaining about corporate oversight or riling up her fans against the company who shortened her that... I don't know if she'll take that to heart. If she's going to treat this as a learning experience or if she'll double down. Again, one of the biggest regrets she has is not getting to do more Raeda, despite their one episode already being almost entirely pointless.

Even if she is a wonderful person, from a publisher's standpoint, she seems like a high risk gamble for honestly not that incredible of numbers. Someone who might turn on you if you ever force a decision she doesn't like or push her too hard. That's not something a big corporation is going to want. It makes it sound a lot more like she's someone who indeed should just go independent if she really found working for Disney so rough.

I would love to be wrong though. I would love for her next work to be a knock out of the park. I just know that I'm probably going to pick it up AFTER it's done and I know it actually knew where it was going instead of just scrambling to put the tracks in front of it.

======+++++======

I will probably try just not to talk more about Dana as a creative because I REALLY don't like talking about the creators themselves instead of just judging the quality of their work. I genuinely wish Dana the best but... Man, after I've had so many people dismiss everything I've ever said about this show because of the shortening, or because Disney was too restrictive on LGBTQIA+ elements or because they forced Hexside onto Dana, ruining her plans, excuses Dana has herself pushed for the fans to use by using them herself...

It made learning just how little of any sort of plan she ever had so exhausting and infuriating, amplified by just how much this fandom screeches about TOH's unfair treatment when I don't see any of them going to bat for Molly McGee right now the same way. Not in my corners at least. Edit: I have been corrected that people are pretty mad for Molly McGee which good. They should be.

[sleepy-vix]

ok guys i finished the poppy war wtf. i feel so hollow right now. i feel so... unsatisfied by the ending but not necessary in a bad way??? i have to read the other books and see what happens but at the same time it feels so hopeless and i dont approve of rin as a main character anymore (tho i am aware that it doesnt matter whether i "approve" of her or not) but i will still definitely read the other books bc i loved the book overall. i just think that the storyline rn is very... surreal?

also,

(spoilers below)

i NEED TO KNOW what the fuck happened to nezha bc i just know that rf kuang has smtg cooking for him. my personal theory is that he didnt die from the gas bc he secretly is connected to the god of healing (hence why his spine healed so fast and enki speculated abt his dragon insigna) and so hes alive and maybe imprisoned? maybe he was sent to a science lab to, or he somehow ran away, or he pretended to join forces?? idrk but im sure that hes alive and its got to do with his dragon insignia

im so sad that everybody from sineguard died/isnt in the story anymore (other than kitayyyyyy thank god. im so glad he reappeared) bc i tbh dont feel much of an attachment toward the cike members 😭 like idk i love Qara and Chaghan but the others are eh to me, like i would trade their presence for Irjah's or Raban or Niang or EVEN JUN 😭 tho im just being sentimental, i dont actually mean it. (tho i would like to see a jun reappearance and redemption...)

oh btw i think i rate this a 4/5 star read

my criticisms are as such:

- the middle part where they kept losing was very dreary (tho i imagine kuang was trying to make it seem desperate/devastating and tense, it was just droll to read tbh).

- the sudden reconciliation between nezha and rin felt very unnatural (like i understand the feeling of "who cares abt our petty rivalry when theres literally a whole ass war happening?" but then again, this is just fiction and it wouldve been nice to read their familiar banter- or at least have it dragged out a bit before the reconciliation). i feel like it was just very unnatural, unless.... unless nezha fell in love with Rin when she erupted into flames at sineguard???? if THAT happened then i feel like the reconciliation would make alot more sense bc when nezha came to khurdalain it was like he was desperate to make Rin like him/forgive him ???

- a few things were pretty predictable. it was pretty obvious that Jiang was the gatekeeper, which was disappointing because if that was a little less obvious, i feel like the scene were Rin and Altam discover Jiang in the Stone Mountain would've had a bigger emotional impact on the reader (me)

though here are the things i liked:

- Rin at the first half of the book was the best mc everrrr

- Kitay. i have nothing wrong with Kitay. he's my favourite for sure

- Jiang's style of teaching (i loved how they just conversed and would come to nonsensical philosphical questions that made Rin frustrated but made Jiang delighted. eg "Why do people dream what they dream?")

- the way Kuang described the god realm vs the human realm. it was all very believable and assured. it wasn't vague at all, in my opinion. theres ofc alot of questions abt the different planes still, but the genius of it is that she wrote about it in a way that assured that it was normal to have questions, and even more normal to not get answers for them, and that we should just accept it (idk, thats the vibe i was getting. like, she didnt say "just believe it" as an excuse for lazy writing, she said "just believe it" because, well, just believe it.)

ok yeah thats all i have to say for now :)

if you've read the poppy war, PLEASEEE INTERACT (no spoilers tho pls)

[obm-avenquire]

extra luke thoughts i couldnt be bothered to edit

my tone in more edited writing often ends up sounding a bit. melodramatic and over-think-y, but i dont really perceive luke as a sad character! he's someone incredibly resolute, and even if his surface level opinions seem harsh, they're brittle and easy to break through. i think luke worries too much about being fragile, when that fragility can just as easy become /flexibility/. i believe this flexibility built on his foundation of genuinely strong morals will make him - already makes him - incredibly strong as a person. 

i do think there's some inevitable heartbreak that will happen - luke idolises too much for that to not be the case - but i don't think there is much that is unsurvivable for him. part of why i'm so irritated by a lot of the excessive infantalisation and chihuahua jokes about him is that like...he is the character who has received the most development in obey me. like he has changed a LOT throughout the story, and while i won't spoil anything there is a clear arc, and even WITHOUT that luke is already incredibly up there so far as strength in character (as a person, not as a literal character). the jokes just feel...so misplaced, i guess? like he's not some over eager annoying brat that wants everyone out of the way so he can take over, he's genuinely eager to learn, and his hostility to demons is completely understandable and the reasons he has for fearing them (being evil) is literally something a lot of the demon cast take pride in for a good chunk of the plot. 

admittedly i think a lot of my frustration also comes from chihuahuas being notoriously mistreated and boiled down to accessories (hence why theyre often aggressive and yappy. theyre small, their needs arent being met and they cant defend themselves any other way) because i sure do lack the parental/older sibling urges needed to feel like...protective or genuinely attached to luke in any sorta way. he's like bottom 3 on my list of charas to care about and thats not out of dislike, just out of apathy. but i also cant stand for slander and hypothetical injustice (/lh) so im gonna complain!!!

ANYWAYS if nothing else i think. lukes belief is important. like he really trusts that people like micheal and simeon are good, and will be good and keep that strength. by that same virtue he can have a similar confidence in himself, not arrogance, mind, just. yeah. hes good. he knows that!! he needs to learn to be better since the racism isnt ideal but yknow-

speaking of learning hes REAL determined like!! hes genuinely happy to keep working and trying. he doesnt want to be coddled because he genuinely wants to know and be better.  like. he DOES think like a child. he wants to grow up so fast, but he has so much time, so much more than most, but if he has all the time in the world then why not NOW? (course, waiting is easy for patience, simeon, someone who hasnt let time move for himself in centuries)

i think theres a sorta. inevitable conflict with simeon and luke coming whether solmare mentions it or not but like. dynamic wise. because simeon refuses to see change in others unless they dont let it be ignored, he needs everyone to be within his perception of them and the role hes assigned them in his mind. but luke is someone who WILL change, and is changing, and simeon can only infantalise him for so long before it genuinely becomes a problem, especially when it’s balanced/offset by the way that him and luke very much begin playing the roles of a struggling parent and over eager child. while luke is strong, and good, and genuinely skilled, he also needs time to be none of those things. everyone does, but it’s especially important for child development, even if said child is over a thousand years old. 

its something that id argue does give us way more insight to the celestial realm than a lot of other vague exposition we’ve gotten. while luke is considered especially talented, there never seems to be any indication that he is odd for an angel, adult or child. that combined with how vacant the celestial realm feels, how emotionally detached it is, gives some interesting extra details to the basis of the celestial realm not being holy and happy in the way it’s implied/perceived to be. which isnt a new revelation by any stretch, but...context, yknow? extra supporting evidence. idk! these are my rambles that i am putting out many of which are years old and some that i thought about literally yesterday!!!

[arcplaysgames]

slurps tea loudly

okay as I recap this I am gonna try to navigate my emotions

Oh its the Fortune Arcana boss from Persona 3 but not as good! But the whole point is Sae's cheating anyway so it's not supposed to be fair or fun, that's fine. After proving she's cheating, she turns into her monster form.

She looks like if the SAW movies were a person, jesus christ.

Anyway, lets get to the meat of the situation; the big escape.

Even though Sae's treasure was stolen and the Palace Ruler has been defeated, the casino is not coming apart like normal. (Which is because the treasure they're taking is a decoy, but more on that later.)

And finally we return to the cold open, which admittedly: I fucking loved this. I love that nothing is changed at all, it's just the same sequence again, but now you have context for what the fuck is happening. Now the face the player can use their persona makes sense, now the presence of shadows in a 'real' location makes sense, everything comes together.

No matter how I fall on my opinion on this game, I have been convinced that Joker is the best protagonist of any of these games. With the unfortunate exception to the lack of Gay Options he gets, he is an enormous improvement from P4MC in every metric. I know who this character is, even absent my own input, and he's weird and funny and kind of a huge bitch and salty as the Dead Sea.

Huge fan.

This sequence becomes such a victory lap. Like, I'm still figuring out how I feel about the Whole Thing, but this moment of handing the player control and going "Hey, remember this?" and letting them fucking RACE to the end in the hopes of finally figuring out what the fuck is going on, it's a pretty clever trick. /slow claps for the devs

It's still fucking weird that Kasumi is here tho.

Also: Kasumi has the worst mask of everyone in this game by far. Every time i see it I wanna give her literally anything else.

I do wonder if its a Bebop reference. Oh well.

In the present, Sae offers Reverie a plea deal if he gives her the other Thieves. No go.

His beat-up face is so soft and sad, I just wanna hug him close. He needs a bag of peas against his cheek and a hug from dad so bad.

holy shit the fucking pancakes. Morgana was the one demanding pancakes when the team was talking in the hallway before the studio recording and Akechi walked in saying he heard something about pancakes. He couldn't have heard that unless he'd been to the Metaverse before. He's always known what Morgana's saying from the moment everyone met.

HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT

That's really fucking smart honestly. Like, I sussed out Akechi because I'm the audience and I know tropes and story structure so it absolutely had to be Akechi. (Also there were a lot of other hints.) But I'm happy there was a hard piece of evidence for the characters that was more concrete than "have you MET him, he's a murderer."

As everyone and their dog guessed, when Futaba grabbed Akechi's phone, she slapped one of her wiretaps on there. That part's easy.

After that is where things get tricky.

The last thing Reverie does as Sae leaves the room is convince her to take his phone with her and to show it to Akechi.

I am completely convinced that no one in this game has met the real Goro Akechi. Not Sae, not Shido, not anyone. That facade is made of four layers of reinforced cement and the windows are all mirrored glass. He's kind of the inversion of Adachi, who looked like there wasn't a since thought bouncing around in his vacant gaze. Akechi is nothing but loud thoughts, but the container is soundproofed.

Also, it occurs to me right here that someone is directing Akechi, someone has a hand on that leash, and I wanna know what the hell keeps Akechi from spinning around and killing that guy.

Anyway, Sae shows Akechi the phone, he's like ?????? whatever? and they part ways.

Akechi waltzes in, deep-sixes the guard with his own gun, and shoots Reverie in the head.

Your hair has never looked worst, Beige Boy.

"A TRULY SHOCKING TURN OF EVENTS," MEMBER OF LEOPARDS EATING PEOPLE'S FACES PARTY SAYS AFTER LEOPARD SHOCKINGLY EATS HIS FACE.

Out of images.

[bapydemonprincess]

Did they fuck behind the scenes or what??? how does this mating thing work? 👀 Also next part when. WHEN.

GSDJYKGLHOIJ ohhh sweet summer anon... there may be some big time sexual tension, but in this particular sebard storyline... they've only kissed as many times as I've written, and nothing more 😈 I know that must be torture to some of you smut enthusiasts, but despite my own bisexual horny frustrations, I LOVE writing long game, slow, romantic shit 💖 So ya'll will have to endure.

And the mating bond concept is a thing @grelleswife and I came up with and have explored together in our collab writing The Owl and the Raven, a Sebamey centric story. But I realized in that last sebard drabble that I absolutely wanted to explore it again, just with a different ship. uwu It's basically a familiar concept of like, bonded souls or something I'm sure most people have seen. Like the whole "red string of fate" trope, but make it DEMONIC. Lmao. Basically if a demon such as Sebastian grows close enough to develop feeling of a romantic nature, but of course in whatever way demons feel it, they start to connect to that person in a way deeper way than physical and literal like we humans do. It's a logical way, in my opinion, to explain why maybe you don't hear or read about demons being romantic or demon courting, unless its in a bad or smutty light like seducing scenes. This bond that forms unconsciously with this other the demon wants to eventually be with, even if they themselves don't realize it or deny it in many cases, is like an extra intimate special way a demon can stay close to their "mate", as they call them. So it's no surprise that this doesn't happen a LOT or is unheard of. What demon who wants to hunt souls greedily and have fun their whole lives tricking and messing with humanity wanna suddenly be weighed down by a lover??? So I think basically these sorts of things only happen at a certain POINT in a demon's long life; like when they no longer NEED to eat souls as much, and no longer wish to mess around with humans. Like finally feeling like settling down and having a family like humans do! And it works out pretty interesting I'm sure with a demon + another demon; how it SHOULD go normally. The demons come together, court each other in whatever ways they do for the types of demons they are (like a crow/bird demon dancing and flaunting for their possible mate and bringing them shiny presents to show they care 🖤), and once the bond forms between them on BOTH SIDES, they can feel each other's emotions, talk to each other mentally, find where the other is much faster than if they weren't mated; and over long long looong distances too! So it's only natural and meant to happen between these two.

HOWEVER, for this bonding to at some point "activate" with a human the demon has been around and close to long enough... oh boy it's quite a trip. Almost embarrassing in some cases. Basically like a demon's equivalent of "WHY DO I HAVE A CRUSH ON THEM??? I DON'T WANT THIS!!! 🙈🙈🙈" And also the fact remains that a human is a human, they can't feel at all a bond forming on their end. 😭

So sometimes I'm sure these things don't last long and rarely happen at all, seeing as the smart thing to do is to move away and separate themselves from that particular human! ... If they really, really don't want this, that is.

But.. for a demon who might grow curious and hopeful, for they have grown to.. at least like this human in particular..

Well it's certainly seems like the beginning of something different from this demon's usual interactions with humans. 🖤

Finally... I will admit I don't know for certain when I will continue this, I can't promise anything, anon!! TwT But know that because I did enjoy getting to this point, I'll def. likely come back or keep going with my own little take on sebard 🥰 So thank you for enjoying my writing!!!

[majormeilani]

opinions on Vanessa and mj (asks the Vanessa and mj guy)

my onions on vanessa and moonjumper. hrm.

okay for vanessa, i have a few thoughts.

i do like to still assume her powers are the result of a curse of sorts, like in the og concept. this of course by no means excuses any of her actions or behavior but i don't think it really helps her either. i think she often was taught that she needed to uphold some kind of image but it put a lot of stress on her. whether it was society, her parents, herself or a combination of all those things together, this made her sometimes an unpleasant person to be around and most only admired her for her positive qualities and wouldn't bother trying to understand her. all except for the prince.

because of the fact that he tried to understand her, vanessa fell quite literally, madly in love with him. so much so that the mere thought of being without him shattered her. for the most part in the beginning, everything was good between them. vanessa seemed to shift into a whole new person and she had a light and a glow to her almost.

unfortunately tho, at times throughout her relationship with him she tended not to be the best partner. she often tried making decisions for him and would kind of be an influence to make him make choices that weren't always his own. he told himself though if vanessa was happy, he was happy.

their relationship did have its ups and downs. even after a fight of sorts would break out between them, they would still hold each other and vanessa would apologize profusely. she would apologize and promise not to act like that again but something in her found the habit hard to break. sometimes she felt herself getting worse and worse but didn't have any means to get better. or sometimes refused help, screaming in her own room when her prince was gone about how unfair the world around her was.

eventually this all began to spiral though when vanessa misunderstood what was supposed to be an expression of love from the prince as his devotion to someone else. from that point forwards, she resented him for breaking their promise to one another and abandoning her, for essentially in her thoughts "casting her aside when she was too much to bear"

we can see in canon that this essentially turned her into a monster of her own making and her grief has warped her into someone so bitter that no one is immune to her wrath. i do like to think that part of her feels remorse for what she's done but she refuses to admit to herself where she went wrong, finding her actions to be what she thought was necessary. when she is confronted with the things that she has done, ultimately she probably crumbles to herself and asks herself over and over "why why why" to no one at all.

now personally despite all that, i don't hate vanessa like many other people do. but more i do feel extremely conflicted with her. i find her character to be interesting and compelling and hold a lot of potential but i'd never prance around with her and pretend like she's done absolutely nothing wrong. i don't even do that with some of my favorite ahit characters.

and i also find any discourse surrounding her kinda silly sometimes. i think some people forget that antagonists are allowed to do terrible things and be bad people but have parts of them that people like. i don't think people liking her character makes them abuse apologists or anything like that (unless they're literally claiming those around vanessa deserved their mistreatment in which case like? seek help please?)

but to me she's just like the rest of the ahit character cast in that she's allowed to be Terrible and do bad things. she's just a character in a story written to do the things she does.

the only thing really that also bothers me though is when people turn vanessa into a kind of "creep" of sorts or make her do HORRENDOUS things in fanworks just to make her Worse than she already is in game. it's one thing to explore concepts about what you think her relationship with the prince was like but some people have taken it way too far and implied stuff like her sexually assaulting the prince or something and frankly i think that's waaaay too out of line.

i do have thoughts about vanessa beyond this but i'll stop here for now so i can talk a lil about moonjumper:

when it comes to moonjumper, i'll be honest here and say there isn't much i really can say about him. while i do find other people's interpretations fun and compelling, i do agree that it was better off he was left out of the game.

his role did ultimately complicate things more than they needed to be in subcon but i'm really glad people have fun exploring his character on their own. he works really well as a rather threatening antagonist and i can see why people like his character.

i just don't know tho about my own thoughts about him because he doesn't really have a solid purpose in the current story anymore. i can't really think of what i would personally do with him other than be a future antagonist for hat kid to face. i'd of course welcome a future installment of ahit that features him if gfb felt compelled to make one though!

i do find it rather neat tho that aspects of him were reworked into the final game so we can still see his influence in the story.

i also think the connection with the moon and him and the horizon sounded like cool concepts for exploration but i personally don't know all that much about it other than bits and pieces.

tho i do find your moonjumper concept to be rather neat and probably one of my favorite interpretations of the cut character.

[undertaleofficial]

This is my called shot, if Deltarune continues to follow Live A Live (spoilers of LAL below)

All things in brackets are things that happened to Oersted from LAL which may not be applicable to Deltarune's variant on it but it's worth noting the exact circumstances just in case I'm right

A single new party member will be added every chapter [and the previous members who aren't a part of the hero triad like Noelle may not recur as playables in the Dark Worlds ever again until the finale where they could potentially be used one last time to face off against the final boss].

The seven revealed chapters will turn into nine chapters. (Likely 6 and 7 will be released together as supposedly the final chapters, but it'll actually be revealed that 8 and 9 are unlocked when 7 is completed like in LAL.)

Kris will kill someone important (most likely Susie) after being tricked/forced into doing it and then framed afterwards.

The perpetrator of this would have to be Ralsei as he is the only one so far who matches up with Oersted's wizard ex-friend who frames him (and Ralsei is also literally called 'prince of the dark' which is incredibly similar to the title used by the big bads in LAL, 'Lord of Dark').

To back this 'traitorous Ralsei' line of thought up since it's very controversial in the Deltarune fandom, Ralsei is the one who taught Kris how to use their 'proceed' ability in Chapter 1's jail segment and he mentioned it at least once before that with very odd, specific wording to include it. He also is aware of the metanarrative as directly shown in Chapter 2's genocide route when he's upset that the narrative won't move on to where it should during both scenes with Noelle and Susie, yet he does nothing about the route itself. Unless his awareness of the metanarrative is extremely limited to the point he can't see any of Snowgrave happening somehow, that makes him incredibly suspicious on its own.

Also, while not proof exactly, Oersted's final boss forms in LAL directly inspired every one of Asriel's final boss designs in Undertale (even Omega Flowey)... this may explain why Kris (a knight, like Oersted) takes the role of Oersted and Ralsei as Oersted's ex-friend (also a wizard) since Asriel's story is not really similar to Oersted's and Asriel is still a good person when he loses Flowey's emotionlessness.

Somewhat related, one strange thing about Deltarune's Darkner prophecy as foretold by Ralsei is that the Angel is excluded from it despite its continued existence in the Light World's version of the sigil. This could be willful doctoring on Ralsei's part or just unknown to him, but in my opinion it's likely that there is still an Angel, who is someone other than the triad of heroes and decides the fate of the world similarly to the Angel of Undertale.

Kris kills Ralsei in a fight to the death after Ralsei tries to use his full power to destroy/take over the Light World.

[Kris's love interest (Noelle?) commits suicide after learning about the two murders Kris committed, without being aware of the context behind them. (I think this is the most likely bit to be removed/changed since I also think Noelle is the real Angel of the prophecy and is the most likely person to be the true protagonist after Kris turns regardless, especially if Susie and Ralsei are both dead by this point, but this mayyy be relevant somehow anyway since she's crushing on Susie.)]

Kris becomes evil[/a Lord of Dark specifically], presumably due to the contextless backlash of killing Ralsei and the victim they'd been framed for.

Kris will be killed by the combined forces of the rest of the party members [after Kris has become the latest incarnation of hatred like Ralsei before them], thus saving the world... but at a great cost, and with the knowledge that any person has the capacity to become filled with hate and evil as it is said in LAL.

This is just my best guess of what Toby is going for with Deltarune's finale using Live A Live's finale as an outline. Undertale's pacifist route was the antithesis to Live A Live and I think Deltarune may be the reoccurrence of Live A Live, possibly regardless of route as indicated by the game's central theme (and the fact that Toby has said there is only one ending). It probably won't be exactly like I've said but most likely similar in some instances (some characters may be switched around, the exact contents of the story events might be altered compared to the LAL counterparts, etc.).

[castiel]

re your poll about destiel on the winchesters because my comment was too much for tags.

in my opinion reciprocated destiel (or really any major character development for og show characters} belongs in a continuation of supernatural and not as a part of a winchesters season 2.

on the winchesters having dean and cas get together or appear to already be together would take all the audience attention away from the actual leads of the show, which would be a shitty thing to do to the cast because nobody would be talking about anything else, and at the same time the show would probably make the reciprocation a much smaller plot point than it deserves to be because it's not the focus of that show.

also it seemed clear from the winchesters finale and from jensen's comments after it that we won't see dean again on the prequel. we'll probably hear his voice reading out the journal entries because he left a journal with john and mary and that's where the voiceovers have been coming from, but there's no reason for him to appear on it anymore because he's no longer interacting with that universe. it would be weird and disjointed if he just had random scenes doing things in a separate universe to the show's characters unless they were going to interact again in some way, and it doesn't seem like there's any reason for him to do that again at least not so soon. story wise it just doesn't maek sense.

everything jensen and misha in particular have said about what might come next for their characters has always been in the context of a hypothetical continuation separate from the winchesters, as well. there was even that leak from a meet and greet a little while back where we found out misha and jensen talked about cas coming back for a cameo in the finale but decided that when we see cas again he needs more than a cameo role. to me all of that makes it seem like a continuation is something they've been talking about . and that's the only place i'd expect to see or even want to see dean reciprocate because it deserves to have a big focus that wouldn't be fair or logical on the winchesters.

ooo ok lol let me dive into this

first of all, i only framed the poll in the terms of being on s2 of the winchesters because that’s all that’s being talked about right now in terms of what’s coming next for spn. there’s the usual nebulous talk of a “reboot/continuation” but nothing solid.

this doesn’t mean i would ideally want a dean/cas reunion on the winchesters, just that i saw that as the only real possibility at this point in time.

secondly, i personally don’t think that jensen’s comments mean that he wouldn’t be in s2 of the winchesters. i just don’t think anything that he’s said has definitively ruled that out.

thirdly, no, not everything jensen and misha have said about coming back has been in terms of a continuation separate from the winchesters. they’ve both said that they had talked about having cas on the winchesters, and not just as a cameo in the finale. it seemed pretty clear that they wanted more room for their reunion, which wouldn’t have fit in the reduced 13 episodes s1 of the winchesters. misha has literally said that if s2 of the winchesters happens that he’d be happy to be cas in it.

and let me reiterate that this doesn’t mean that i WANT for them to reunite on the winchesters. i too would prefer it be in a different series. you��re right that it deserves its own space to really be fleshed out.

[dodo-begone]

The Mistake has Arrived

Pairing: Yan!DSMP!Techno, Yan!Ranbob!, Yan!Ranbutler x Reader

Request: Do you do continuations? If so could you make a part 2 with for the "mistakes were made" (aka the pregnancy one)? Like how they would act when the child is like actually born and causing mischief?? Please and thank you!

Summary: It seems that, after the baby arrives, things seem to change. It's hard to describe because things didn't change much yet at the same time managed to be the complete opposite of what they were before. Or maybe you hadn't noticed these things before. Who knows.

Word count: 2.1k

Warning: yandere, nsfw joke at the end of Ranbob’s section

Part 1 | Mistakes were Made

If this ever looks wonky/glitched, I have this properly archived on Ao3

A/n: the first part was implied AFAB reader because of pregnancy- and it probably still is but pregnancy is barely mentioned in this.

Techno

So remember when this man was absolutely terrified for you and the baby? Yeah that doesn’t get alleviated. If anything, that fear gets worse.

You holding the child, the perfect combination of you two, makes him truly realize how fragile the baby is. Like hello? This thing is his? And so tiny? Like a potato, a large one at that but still a potato?

Potatoes are fragile. Babies are fragile. Baby is like a potato, which makes them ultra fragile- oh NO.

Let’s get this straight; Techno is the infamous blood god. This huge hulking piglin hybrid who can easily kill anyone in arm’s reach. And then you got this tiny defenceless baby that is related to him? Like he knows how this thing works but it just feels surreal.

This anxiety feeds his distaste for holding his own child. He’s a monster and that’s a sweet innocent baby. He is going to severely harm the baby by even holding it. You never know what could happen- plus you need some mother-child bonding. It’s very important. Yes you may have been carrying that baby for 9 months but some more physical touch goes a long way. It grounds it more into reality for you. Yeah, that’s totally the reason.

The behavior can only last so long though. Eventually Techno would have to bond with his kid, hold his kid. You were getting fed up with how long he was taking. His anxiety over the situation was obvious and you were giving him space. So you did, but it’s been months and he still refuses to even touch them. His avoidance is annoying and it has to come to an end. And you will make sure it will.

One day, while he was relaxing and reading, you gently plop the baby onto Techno and go do some household chores that are usually hard when you have to keep an eye and ear out for the kid at every second.

Techno and the kid have a shared moment of “wtf” because the baby saw this thing before but he never touched it before. And they were left on it? By mother? Techno is internally freaking out while this baby tries to crawl on him. Really they’re just pulling at his hair and clothing. Anything they can get their grubby little hands onto. And gum on whatever they can get into their mouth. Oh god, this is going to be a long… period of time. He doesn’t really know when you’ll come back for them but he hopes it’s soon.

It’s safe to say that you did not come to Techno’s rescue in a swift manner. You made sure to take your time doing everything that couldn’t be properly done. Like cleaning or cooking a proper meal. Cooking had been left up to Techno mostly, and you really appreciated that he took that up and made good food but someone can only handle potato based dishes for so long. It was about time that something else was made. The potatoes needed a break.

When you come back to Techno and the baby, you’re so pleased to see that they’re having a little bonding moment. The baby was calm and Techno was finally relaxed in what felt like a century. Everything was perfect.

Techno was reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and your sweet baby child had long dozed off in his arms. Techno either didn’t notice or didn’t care and kept reading aloud, though it was mostly likely that he wanted to start education young. Even in their sleep. He started the education process already, in a way, by reading The Art of War to your pregnant stomach for months on end. You’d long grown tired of it, but the sight and sound of Techno reading still warmed your heart.

Ranbob

Nothing changes on his knowledge of babies. Not much, anyways. Some of the information he knows on babies came directly from you. The rest came from books found around Mizu.

In theory, he knows what to do. He read up on everything he’d need to know, after all. But in practice, it’s a whole different story. Anxiety occasionally comes to haunt him but he easily waves it off. He knows what he’s doing.

When Mizu was still populated, he observed the lives of others. There wasn’t much to do besides that. Children weren’t an uncommon sight. But babies? Now that wasn’t a common sight. Not many people brought their babies out. Nor were there many.

It’s understandable for him to not know exactly how to raise a baby. Unless you raised or helped to raise a baby, you aren’t exactly well versed in baby and are therefore slightly unprepared for said baby.

Though compared to children, he’s actually more prepared to care for the baby since there were so many books about baby care and stuff they’d need. Children are a whole different beast.

With children, it’s a more individual case-to-case deal. There aren’t any parenting guides on children. Well, there are. Though they all differ from each other. Each book has its own descriptions on why a behavior is happening and how to handle or fix it. So many differing opinions that overlapped were overwhelming. Ranbob soon came to the conclusion that childcare is more interpretive. Based on the child’s personality.

That’s way in the future though. Now he has to deal with a baby. A fragile little thing. It’s perfect in every way.

Now his anxiety starts to get the better of him. He’s so much bigger than it, much stronger. The baby is completely at his mercy and he is anxious that something bad may happen to it. Realistically, though, nothing bad is going to happen to his little family.

Once he holds the baby for the first time, all previous anxiety is taken by the wind. All that remains is absolute adoration. This leads to him caring for the baby almost entirely. Or when it’s least convenient for you, that is.

Like when your babe cries late into the night. Witching hour cries. Everytime without fail, he’d awaken and swiftly make his way to the nursery. All in an attempt to allow you to sleep. You’ve already done so much work to make the child. The least he could do was wake up and care for them. Plus you still looked so tired.

Although Ranbob was tired when morning came, it didn’t matter when you came out well rested. Or much better than the day before. Each day was a slight victory in his books. He only wanted the best for you, anyways. If sacrificing a few hours of sleep meant that you’d sleep better, then so be it.

He views your child as a blessing from Dream himself. A symbol of the union between you two. Just absolute perfection. Oh how lucky he is to have you and especially fortunate to have a child with you. His god has seen his hard work and has gifted him with so much more than he deserved. But he’d take it all the same.

If you two “accidently” had another kid, he’d be more than happy. Yes, he’s content and happy with the child you two already have. His life is perfect now. But if another addition just happened to come along? Well who is he to deny his god’s will?

aka he wants to weaken his pullout game to have another kid with you. One kid is enough but two? Oh that’d be swell!

Ranbutler

Compared to the previous two, Ranbutler’s reaction to the baby’s arrival would be labeled as “different”. Techno feared for his child, Ranbob was anxious, but Ranbutler? This man is ecstatic! Oh my gosh you two finally have a kid. Isn’t this just great?

His excitement level is astronomical. Come on, this man literally acts like this baby is going to achieve world wide peace or something. Like Jesus Christ incarnated. That’s the level of excitement he’s at.

Right from the get-go, Ranbutler is almost desperate in his attempts to hold the baby. Please? Pretty please? Why can’t he hold your baby? Our baby? Though as… desperate as he is to hold his child, he doesn’t want to disturb important mother-child bonding. Even if you carried them for around nine months, it’s still vital that you actually bond to your baby. Skin-to-skin early on is important.

At the next available time, most likely when you’re asleep or on the verge of sleeping, he’ll gently remove the child from atop your chest. Of course he’d go to the next comfiest and secure place he can and allow for some skin-to-skin between him and the baby.

According to some studies, skin contact with a baby supposedly “awakens” maternal or paternal and he was more than happy to test that out. If it worked? Then that’s great! If it didn’t work? What was the harm? It’s all good in the end.

Because of the nature of his job, you often don’t see him during the day. Both a blessing and a curse. This leaves you alone to care for the baby until he comes back. Even then, it wasn’t a guarantee that he’d help. That’s what you thought, at least.

No matter how exhausted he was or how irate he was from Billiam, the sight of your and the baby always made everything right in the world. All problems just dissolved away, becoming unimportant whispers of responsibilities.

Responsibilities that seemed to come from a whole different reality. Here, at home, the mess that’s Billiam doesn’t exist. Won’t ever affect his lovely little world.

Sometimes he comes home extremely late. So late that you already went to sleep, along with the baby. Occasionally you would try to stay up for him to come home. You were laying on the couch with the baby on your chest, what else was he to presume? That was obviously what you were doing, right?

On those nights, he would sit by you and just watch. Basking in the calm energy you exude. Even without talking to him, you always had a way of calming him down. Of making him feel loved and appreciated.

He would also take care of the baby's needs at night. With his occupation as Billiam’s servant, it really wasn’t the best idea, but he assured you that he would be fine. After all, he couldn’t bond with the baby during the day, so that only left the night. Even if it was menial tasks, he found solace in the presence of the family he was creating,

A question that kept reappearing was how he managed to get such a wonderful partner. One so willing to have a child with him. Deep down, he knew the actual answer, but it was hidden under so many layers of delusions that it’d be better and easier not to deal with that mess.

Now that you had the baby to care for, he was much more willing to leave you alone while he went to work. Yes, sometimes he still brought you into the room with The Egg. But that was only because you seemed stressed the day, night, or morning before he left.

How could he just leave his precious to flounder around so helplessly? A baby can easily be overwhelming. The Egg was more than willing to help you.

The kid, although a beautiful culmination of the love between the two of you, also symbolized another thing. They were a shackle, keeping you tethered to him.

There was no way you’d be able or wish to escape in such a fragile condition. Especially with the baby. How could you risk the life of something so innocent? Of something that did absolutely nothing wrong besides existing. You wouldn’t be such a horrible monster, would you? No, he knows you. Knows that you wouldn’t do that.

Once he has a taste for parenthood, he’s practically addicted. He absolutely loves it. Loves you. Why not have another? And another? And another?

Let’s be honest, he might just want a small herd of kids. Not many, like four or five. A few more wouldn’t do too much harm, but he doesn’t want to overwhelm you. After all, you’d be around them the most, being the primary caretaker for them all.

The desire for a large family comes into direct conflict with his desire to not make you overwhelmed and overworked. It was a hard battle, but he convinced himself that maybe just one more wouldn’t hurt. Just one more, and that’ll be the last he’ll want.

He’ll say that for the next three he plans to have with you. Can men get baby fever? If they can, then this man definitely would have it, just saying.

[lovee-infected]

I enjoy reading character analysis to understand them more and I've also noticed that some insert fics are like too exagerated and their personalities are far from the canon twst. I think some writers are just basing their fics to others and and makes conclusion about it and ignore important details or text on their cards?* And as a reader, I do sometimes think that "this" character are like that. Like Vil, being portrayed as narcisstic and beauty obssessed charac, I think he isnt like that and theres more to him than we think. Sorry for the long ask✌️

You're totally valid anon and I see your point, you know while I agree that each idea and interpretation on characters is worthy on its own and no one is bound to having a specific opinion or belief, getting too wild with personal fantasies and ignoring the originals can totally ruin the writing. Characters are often mischaracterized especially in reader insert fics and the most annoying part is that almost everyone is making the same mistakes about him-! Like some of the noticable mistakes would be:

(1) Femininely has nothing to do with Vil's terms of beauty

Oh lord what can I say- It's even against what Vil himself directly said through chapter five and how he cleared his point on male and female equal, and you can tell he is pretty strict about it.

Like did you just forget what he told Epel when he complained that he doesn't want to act like a girl: “a boy getting embarrassed about ‘acting like a girl,’ -- what year is your head stuck in??? did you take a time machine from 100 years ago??”

He doesn't seem to be one to appreciate the concept of labeling beauty as a female-only thing and on the other hand, he doesn't really seem to like the way women can be looked down on while being compared to men either. He seeks equality, and beauty wasn't ever defined as a feminine act in his dictionary; while there are tons of requests asking for: Vil forcing their trans s/o to wear more feminine clothes/ Vil asking their fem! s/o to wear more feminine stuff an look cuter/Vil complimenting s/o's appearance for not being feminine enough/... And literally TONS of requests like this. Please, you're forgetting one the most important parts of his personality, he considers male and female to be equal and it's so hecking important to show that he holds respect for all genders nonetheless.

(2) Vil's maturity is often ignored

Honestly, within all twst characters Vil's maturity on its own really impresses me. From the way he speaks to how serious and sincere he is all I gotta say is this man is waaay different from the way he's charactetized in most of the fics. Idk why but, he's sometimes charactetized as a guy who's ready to boil you alive if you dare touch any of his expensive make up pallettes or eyeshadows. Oh please, Vil isn't an angry child.

Also he often decides to keep his anger in, though you can tell when he's mad by just looking at his face. Clinching fists, trying not to talk and most likely, walking off or asking people to leave him alone until he calms down a bit is most likely his usual way of expressing his anger, but I've seen him being described as a loud, feral figure like Riddle is! Oh god no- Are you just ignoring how calm and collected Vil often tends to be?

(3) What's with the potato fetish?

While it's canon that Vil can sometimes call people around him potato. You may like to know that in some languages, potato is translated as "Apple of the ground", which can be an interesting reason of him using this nickname for people.

Watching Vil call students potatoes can be as entertaining as watching Malleus play with his tamagotchi, but again, it's important to realize that you don't have to only use potato when you're thinking of what Vil might say in a reader insert/situation!

Come on there are hundreds of different statements and sentences you can use other than just 'potatoes' and it'll get boring to read him saying the same nick name over and over in a fic. Good lord of course this isn't the only word he uses in communication so please try to avoid using it too much. This, is NOT the only word that he knows to use! (Seriously though I've seen being used like 6 times in a 500-word drabble)

(4) Please avoid spreading false information about him and his personality

Funny how I'm saying it here, but don't forget that you do not own him! Vil Schoenheit is a property of Disney/ Aniplex and all, which means that no one can certainly decide on his sexuality/ background/ unexplained character details unless it's officially announced.

Why am I saying this? Because some people are seriously going to far! I've seen people attacking others saying that Vil's pronouns are She/Her and not He/ Him like: EXCUSE ME...???

I don't want to get into details explaining how this drama is going but I've got to say something anyway, YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE ON HIS PRONOUNS! None of us do!

It's totally okay to have your personal preferences on his pronouns or anything else, but you must avoid spreading such information and forcing them on others as long as they aren't confirmed! Please keep your headcanons for yourself and don't confuse the fandom with them. Everyone's free to have their own headcanons but it's never okay to force them on others!

(5) Vil has a LOT to talk about other than just beauty!

Man... sometimes I feel like the fandom is just doing him dirty. Most of the reader inserts, fics , and even Vil memes have something to do with beauty while it's important to try and look through his personality as well instead of just sticking with the beauty aspect.

For example, through the Halloween event, I couldn't be any more surprised when Vil found the crying child who had lost their parents through the crowd and instead of just leaving them to headmaster or asking someone to take care of them he actually started to play with the child and entertrain and confront them on his own! That was probably one of his sweetest moments through the whole game and it really changed my mind about him! It was great to know that Vil as well can have a softer side when it comes to children, just imagine how good this can be used while writing a father AU for him!

His talents on the other hand need to be recognized, for example: his acting skills back in the ghost marriage proved how much of a great actor he can be and this can also give us lots of ideas to use in writings. On the other hand he's much of a celebrity on his own ( Woop- he's also got 2m followers on magicam) which gives us another great plot to write for him.

The way he is around close friends, how he compliments them and gets complimented by them in return, the way he manages Pomefiore and tries to put the students into doing their best in using their skills and lots of more interesting details that can be found through his stories are there to tell you that he's a lot more than just a beautiful Queen. A considerable part of his background as well is going to be released at he end of chapter 5 (Yes baby after the overblot Vil) and I hope that gives us all the opportunity to come up with stronger personalities and plots next time that we're describing or even, characterizing Vil!

Lmao I kind of rushed to finish this so I didn't get to talk about him as much as I wanted to, but hope that this is useful anyway.

[firelxdykatara]

Katara x Aang :3c

are you trying to get me in trouble

-cough-

no but in all honesty, my genuine feelings about kataang boil down to three major points: 1. it's boring, and does not jive thematically with either of their character arcs, to the point of, 2. actively hampering character development on both sides, and 3. katara deserved better.

points expanded under the cut. (please, if you're a kataang shipper and you see this, just keep scrolling. i've tagged it appropriately and put the bulk under a cut and at this point that's literally all i can do lmfao.)

send me a ship and get my (brutally) honest opinion!

1. It's Boring: This is the most subjective point on the list (I mean, in fairness, it's all subjective, but I have evidence from the show and post-canonical materials to support my other points; this one is just preference), but there's just... nothing to kataang. It's cute (when it's not actively aggravating), and... that's about it. It's not even that I dislike friends-to-lovers as a shipping trope (though it's not my overall preference), because there are a lot of friends-to-lovers couples that I do ship (kanej comes to mind, also will/elizabeth from potc, karolsen from supergirl, romione and hinny from hp, among others), but one thing that I think all of those couples have that kataang doesn't is that both sides of the pairing are teens or adults when they get together, with teen/adult dynamics and issues and stories to deal with, rather than one half being a teenager and the other being literally prepubescent.

And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with age gap ships in general. And as far as atla goes, Katara, at 14, has the same age difference from Zuko (16) as Aang has from her, and it's never stopped me--because both Katara and Zuko are well into puberty when they meet and I have no problem picturing them being into one another and growing together as they enter adulthood. Aang, on the other hand, is a child. And he acts like it. Which wouldn't be a problem, if the show weren't expecting me to believe he is a) ready for a romantic relationship, and b) ready for one specifically with Katara, who is not only older and far more mature but is specifically cast as his caretaker in a very maternal role for the entire show's run.

This show asks me to believe that a teenage girl well into adolescence is going to be attracted to and develop romantic feelings for a pre-adolescent child--and it asks me to believe this while showing us otherwise that Katara's type is actually older boys with fabulous hair and angsty pasts in all of her other potential romantic dalliances--and then enter into a relationship with him, all while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the fact that she was basically acting like his mother for the entire series to that point. (Something that is heavily lampshaded earlier in the very same season.) That just stretches the bounds of credulity way too far for me, especially when there's no evidence that Katara herself would get anything out of their romantic relationship.

There's nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. No delicious development, no parallels where they help each other grow, no internal conflicts that they have to work through together, nothing. Certainly no reason for me to actually believe Katara feels (or would grow to feel) anything for him other than the platonic affection of a caretaker. I can easily believe she loves him dearly, as a friend and quasi-little-brother, but I just can't see that developing naturally into romantic love--not the way it's presented in the show.

And even if they did manage to at least make the development of Katara's feelings believable, unless they changed something fundamental about the nature of their relationship, it'd still be boring, so.

2. It Actively Hampers Their Character Development--On Both Sides: I've written before (extensively lol im so sorry) about how kataang is actively detrimental to Katara and to Aang. In short (because ye gods this post is already getting long enough), Katara is narratively harmed by being shoved into a relationship that completely ignores her stated feelings--a relationship that had been presented as a one-sided puppylove crush for the vast majority of the series--and it inhibits her growth as a character in ways that become far more obvious in the comics and lok, where the very same creative forces that lead to her beginning a relationship with Aang in the first place reduce her to 'the Avatar's girl' and very little else, all the way through to the end of LoK (where she is a Healer and the Avatar's wife and, again, very little else).

As for Aang:

As to how this relationship is detrimental to Aang (other than the comics and LoK nonsense)? Just take a look at book 2, when he’s trying to learn Earthbending from Toph. Katara constantly coddles him. Much of the time, she’s afraid to be anything other than gentle and understanding with Aang--partly because of her fear that if she pushes him too far, he’ll run away. (Which he does, several times.) But sometimes, what Aang needs to grow is a sharp kick in the slats, which Toph was more than willing to provide--and which worked. Katara was great for teaching Aang to waterbend, but he needed more than that to grow as a person. And he can’t get that while he’s in a relationship with someone who will apologize for getting upset when he was very explicitly neglecting her.

In addition, it is pointed out by Guru Pathik at the end of Book 2 that one of Aang's chakras is blocked by his attachment to Katara. Aang takes this to mean (incorrectly) that he has to stop loving her in order to become fully realized as an Avatar, but this is actually part of the problem--because the issue isn't that he is in love with Katara, it's that he's possessively attached to her. He believes himself entitled to her love in return, rather than selflessly loving someone regardless of whether or not they return that affection. (This is obvious come the EIP episode, where Aang demands to know why he and Katara aren't in a relationship already--because he kissed her without asking [or even checking to see if she'd be ok with kissing him], which he phrases as mutual even though it very much was not, and he gets angry and violates her boundaries when she says that she is confused and doesn't want to think about it right then.)

It is his attachment to Katara--the need for her to return his love, the belief that she will and it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants--that he was supposed to let go of, not his feelings for her in general. Unfortunately, while he pays lipservice to doing this (far too late for it to be useful--if he'd stayed with the Guru for five more minutes and unlocked his chakra there, that battle would've gone very differently), he almost immediately backtracks on that development come book 3, and there isn't another single whisper of Aang maybe growing up and moving past his one-sided and possessive crush and realizing that even if Katara doesn't feel the same way, it doesn't mean she loves him less or that their friendship is less important.

What really needed to happen, for Aang to grow as a person and become fully realized as an Avatar, was for him to grow up. To realize that his feelings were not of paramount importance, and that even if he was in love with Katara, he was not entitled to her love in return. He should have been able to move past his need for her to love him back, in order to get past that stumbling block, unlock his chakras, and regain the Avatar State in time to face the Firelord. But he didn't. As a result, they had to find some other way to just give him the Avatar State (a well-placed rock) and the means to defeat Ozai without killing him (the deus ex lionturtle) and his entire character arc just fell apart in the third act rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.

3. Katara Deserved Better: This really ties into how her romantic relationship with Aang hampered her own development, but I'm still bitter enough about it that it gets its own bullet-point. And the biggest single reason I could never ship kataang--the thing that would've turned me off even if there were substance and a halfway decent storyline for them--is the fact that Aang kisses her without her consent (for the second time) in Ember Island Players, Katara gets angry at him and storms off, and then..... she walks out onto the balcony to make out with him.

With nothing to bridge that gap.

It's bad enough that a show aimed at children had a scene where the child protagonist kissed the object of his affections without her consent when she didn't want him to (made explicit by her angry reaction)--and this is absolutely an issue when the show is aimed at children and it may well be the first experience they've had with consent issues portrayed in media--but this moment is never addressed again. Katara just decides--completely off-screen--that she does love him Really and walks out to make out with him in the epilogue. There's no conversation, no apology for violating her boundaries, no discussion of why that was wrong or any indication that Aang understands what he did and why it upset her. They don't have a single one-on-one interaction between that kiss and the epilogue, and the only other time they are on screen together, Aang yells at her and storms off.

So, even leaving the comics and lok aside, Katara deserved much better from her own romantic plotline. In fact, she deserved to have one, rather than simply being the oblivious object of Aang's affections, given a couple moments where she blushes but otherwise remains completely ignorant of his feelings (she looks shocked and upset when he kisses her prior to the invasion, and then she completely forgets that even happened because she's confused as to what Aang is even talking about during EIP until he brings it up; that's not the behavior of a fourteen-year-old girl who was kissed by someone she was developing romantic feelings for), before the epilogue where it becomes clear that she figured all of that out off-screen and had feelings for him after all.

She's a main character, not a side-character written in solely to give one of the mains a love interest. She deserved a romantic plotline of her own. (She could have had one with someone else, with very few changes made to what was actually on-screen prior to the epilogue, but that's another conversation entirely.) She deserved to have her feelings considered at all important by the person she was going to be paired with in the end, rather than having him just assume she felt the same way and then get mad at her for never giving any indication of it when he'd never asked about her feelings to begin with. She deseserved agency in her own romantic narrative, and she just didn't get that with Aang.

So yeah, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with kataang is that it involved doing Katara dirty, and she's my favorite character and she deserved so much better damnit.

[thosch3i]

Hi hi! So the lost tombs and chronology all super confuse me. So tlt2 ended on a cliffhanger that was not resolved by tlt3 which is ultimate note, but now there is another tlt3 that I am guessing is made by the same studio as tlt2 (but not UN) that actually follows tlt2? And it has the same WPZ as tlt2 (but sadly different WX, ZQL though I’m sure these guys are great). You seem to know what you’re talking about so I’m hoping you can help!

UN also ended on a cliff hanger so I’m wondering if they’ll get a sequel from their studio that comes before tomb of the sea.

ahhh hello anon! yes ahaha the dmbj dramas are certainly very confusing--because they keep switching the screenwriters/entire production team between dramas. huanrui did tlt1 (2015), tlt2 (2019), and the sequel to tlt2 (2021). they're also technically the production company for un (2020), but linghe did like all the directing/casting/writing so its significantly different in tone and quality from the other dramas huanrui produced. npss (dmbj author) did sha hai (2018) and tltr (2020), with sha hai being in collab with linghe, so you can see lots of parallels with un and shared cast. (gonna add that i dont know much about the m9 because that’s not what im personally interested in, so i’m only going by stories with wu xie & the iron triangle.)

unfortunately, the dramas pretty have no continuity as a result of all the weird shit and multiple studios doing different dramas and messy stuff going on behind the scenes. the author's production company currently has all the rights back for filming future dramas, which is......imo, a good thing for book fans who love the author but a 😬 thing for book fans who like the original story more than what the author is now doing with it. I'll uh avoid saying too much opinion stuff though so no more on that 😅

that aside! yes 云顶天宫 “explore with the note” part 2......is the direct sequel to tlt2 and done by the same studio. unfortunately the writers are different and im not sure how much of the production team is the same either. idk how much you know about the novels so brief summary here--for the chinese version, the main story has 9 parts split among 8 books (though the official eng tls have each part being a different book) with some important content being as follows:

official eng title “cavern of blood zombies” (first time wx goes into a tomb, first t3j meeting)

official eng title “angry sea, hidden sands” (xisha seabed tomb, introduce a-ning)

official eng title “bronze tree of death” (bronze tree in qinling, wx & lao yang solo adventure)

official eng title “palace of doom” (heavenly palace on the clouds, introduce bronze gate)

official eng title “deadly desert winds” (golmud, introduce hei xiazi, desert, rainforest, tamutuo)

official eng title “graveyard of a queen” (the rest of that arc, wu sanxing & xie lianhuan reveal, jade meteorite, amnesiac xiaoge and escape, sanshu vanishes for good--also i think the official eng tl covers a couple chapters of the beginning of the next part too)

阴山古楼 (searching for xiaoge’s memories in banai, miluotuo cave, i think introduction of wu erbai)

邛笼石影 (auction/hotel iron triangle fight, introduce xiao hua & xiuxiu, wx & xh on the mountains alone while pz & xg go with granny huo)

finale (rescue from zhang family mansion, changbai mountain goodbye, 10 years promise)

after the main story are the main sequels:

zang hai hua (tibetan sea flower; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie a few years after xiaoge has entered the gate, searching to understand xiaoge’s past

sha hai (tomb of the sea; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie’s plan to wipe out the wang family, after zhh

chongqi (reunion: the sound of the providence) covers wu xie’s lung disease and how he recovers from that, set after they pick up xiaoge again from the bronze gate. thunder city and everything.

灯海寻尸&万山极夜 (still updating on wechat) don’t worry about this one since it’s still a WIP lol

btw between sha hai and chongqi there’s also ten years later (a short story) that covers how wu xie and pangzi pick up xiaoge from the bronze gate and take him home

the dramas Do Not Connect To Each Other At All, which the exception of tlt2 & tlt2 pt2 somewhat, but they go in this order:

盗墓笔记 / the lost tomb 1 (2015): covers part 1 but with major OCs and filler, and includes the auction scene from part 8 for some reason, so introduces xiao hua early.

怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 / the lost tomb 2 (2019) technically “explore with the note”: covers parts 2 & 3 but with major OCs and filler, introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu (and hei xiazi briefly) early. last couple episodes also cover the beginning of part 4. not a direct sequel to tlt1 despite being done by the same studio.

云顶天宫 / heavenly palace on the clouds (2021) technically also “explore with the note”: covers part 4 with major OCs and filler (and the same changes carrying over from tlt2). some episodes are identical to the last couple episodes of tlt2. works as a direct sequel only if you ignore the last couple episodes of tlt2 that take place in the snowy mountains. (those episodes of tlt2 were filmed after this drama was filmed, and im still not sure why they dragged the wu xie and xiaoge from tlt2 back to changbai mountain to film those episodes.)

终极笔记 / ultimate note (2020): covers parts 5-8 with minor OCs and minimal filler, also introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu early. the only adaptation that resembles its source material most of the time.

沙海 / tomb of the sea (2018): covers the second sequel with major OCs and filler. includes some bits from zhh and the short story “three days of silence”.

重启之极海听雷 / the lost tomb reboot (2020): covers third sequel with major OCs and filler.

in addition there is the prequel series mystic nine (2016) and side movies for the dramas that the author produced. there is also a single standalone movie--time raiders (2016) that is....well it’s. very strange. it’s fully subbed on youtube if you’re interested?

the best way to watch the dramas is to assume each one is its own self-contained AU set along different points of the dmbj timeline because even the dramas the author himself worked on don’t have continuity LOL (and with the exception of ultimate note & sha hai most of the time, also assume most characters are pretty OOC from the novels).

i uh regret to inform you though, that ultimate note will not be getting a sequel unless the author magically decides to not care about making money anymore and sells the rights to film the finale to linghe or something ^^;;;; it’s....unfortunate bc un is the most highly-rated dmbj adaptation on douban by A Lot, but it’s an adaptation that the author had literally nothing to do with whatsoever.

more information on some of the side movies/stage plays/manhua/donghua here.

summaries of the main novel stories (currently through zhh) here.

edited mtl (some of which has apparently been looked over by native cn speakers) of the novels following where official eng tls end here. (there are many scattered extras as well.)

you can get the official eng tl books/ebooks on amazon or elsewhere(?), but if you have problems purchasing them or like you just dont wanna support amazon or something, dm me off anon. (also i dont want to be mean but frankly the official tls are kinda bad too ^^;;;)

a rough timeline (spoilers galore) for the dmbj novels here. (fair warning im not 100% sure how accurate all of this is--they put three days of silence as 1991 but looking at the info in zhh, it seems like it should have been before the 1950s...but it’s more than fine as a general overview.)

anyway i hope that was helpful in some way? dmbj is a Very Confusing thing to get into ahahaha, one of my twitter mutuals has made a few carrds if you think they might be helpful: book, dramas (slightly out of date bc it says heavenly palace hasn’t aired yet), ultimate note (got its own carrd by virtue of being the only adaptation aside from sha hai sometimes that most og book fans acknowledge lol ^^;;;)

also anon if anything wasn’t clear or if you had more questions feel free to ask again sorry ahahaha im kinda tired rn @.@ 

[writingwithcolor]

Jewish and Muslim children of gods & biblical figures

hello! this blog has been an amazing help as a white, pagan writer and i just wanted to say thank you for that! 

i have a book i’ve been working on for about a year now, and the short summary is that it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does. from urban legends, cryptics, and religion.

the main story plot follows a group of teenagers who are the children of biblical figures (and later hellensism, since those are the religions i used to worship and now do), but several characters are different religions than that. i can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realize this, but isn’t it kinda… off? to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures? i don’t want to completely erase that part of them, and its also stated in the story that the religions they believe in are true, also, but i’m neither muslim nor jewish, so i don’t want to just assume it’d be okay.

(also, for context, the plot causes such a diverse cast of characters. they are brought together because of they are their children, like percy jackson, i guess)

Here is a recent post that listed our concerns with inclusion of Jewish characters in settings where polytheism is literally true: Can Jewish authors write polytheistic settings?

One way I might fix the awkwardness of having the child of a "Greek god" convert to Judaism (lol backwards Chanukah?) is if, as in the linked post, the "gods" aren't actually on the same level of divinity as the entity in our prayers, but are just like, mortal superbeings that just happen to have way more power than regular humans. As for biblical figures, well, there are tons of Jewish biblical figures so if you want to write fanfiction about them that's legit, just do your research to make sure you're using Jewish interpretations about them that aren't filtered through Christian analysis. (And there are also Jewish characters in the New Testament.)

Honestly as a Jewish person I would not feel left out if I was not included in one of those polytheism-is-true stories. I may off-hand wonder where we fit into the worldbuilding, but that would be less distressing than some kind of depiction of being stubborn, wrongheaded, backward, and ignoring the reality in front of our faces, which is hard to avoid unless it's clear the gods are just, as I said, mortal superbeings and not literally divine and on the same level as HaShem. Which would be the other way of making me cool with it.

--Shira

Shira’s answer covers most of it for me, but I did want to come back to this part:

>>it takes place in a world where if enough people believe in something existing, it does.

There are a couple of things about this that don’t seem quite compatible with our theology, at least as I’ve been taught it.

First of all, this seems to be suggesting that Hashem was created by humans, through their belief? I don’t love that. I pray multiple times a day to the ‘Master of the universe, Who reigned before any form was created.’ Proposing a deity that exists simply because people believe in it doesn’t answer many of the questions that religions set out to deal with, such as ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘What does it all mean?’ And it’s fundamentally not the God I pray to.

Secondly, although this is pretty much what Shira already said, I want to point out again that monotheism and polytheism are obviously not compatible, unless you add certain caveats. Our prayers and other sacred texts repeatedly emphasise the ultimate Oneness of Hashem. Judaism just can’t be right in a world where Hellenism is also right, unless you go with the Greek gods being nothing more than humans with superpowers. In the post that Shira linked to, we already talked about including Jewish characters in polytheism-as-fact settings, and we highlighted the diversity of Jewish opinions on this (Shira and Dierdra: Yes, IF…; me: Pass, BUT…). I thought this was important to bring up again, because this sounds like an ‘all religions are true’ story and I wanted to highlight that these are not as inclusive as they may at first sound. They’re actually very difficult to pull off respectfully. Usually (not always), people who write that kind of story are the folks who have never had to fight for their beliefs or have them seen as anything other than the norm.

Finally, I’m curious about what this premise means for racism and other bigotries. Many people believe in a type of monster called a Jew who controls government and finance and kills babies for fun. Does that exist in your story, too? I’m not saying you can’t go ahead with this premise, but just something to think about: maybe there should be some checks and balances on the it’s believed = it’s true thing.

On another note, as Shira touched on, I was confused by this part:

>> to have jewish and muslim characters be children of greek gods and biblical figures?

According to our own traditions, we are the descendants of Biblical figures? I’m not sure what you thought would be off about that, but it would be kind of cool to see a character being singled out Percy Jackson style because they were a descendant of Yitzchak and Rivka – as long as it was well-researched and executed in line with how we view these figures.

--Shoshi

The Muslim portion of this character is open to followers. Muslim mods are not active at the time of this answer. We’ll recruiting for more mods; Muslim writers, feel free to apply anytime! https://forms.gle/qywJmrwcZj3E28nh8 

[astaroth1357]

Unpacking the Angel Event (Through My Own Perspective)

Okay so uh… this was a very uncomfortable seat the Devs have offered us today and like all things that give me moral uncomfiness, I HAVE to analyze it. Blame the ethics classes. A full disclaimer, this is not spoiler-free and is pretty much entirely just me unpacking my own feelings here. What may bother or not bother me could really affect you and there is nothing wrong with that. You are entitled to your own perspective. This is just me trying to walk through all the stuff in this event that just… rubbed me the wrong way. So let's get to it.

The Costumes

So. Let's start at the beginning. Diavolo apparently had the bright idea to put everybody in magical costumes of their angel forms (or something like it in Satan's case). This is… problematic.

The reason the brothers lost their angel forms was because they fell after the Celestial War… who's greatest causality (in their eyes) was their sister, Lilith. So one could imagine that their memories as angels aren't particularly happy ones… By this point in the "continuity" (this is Post-Attic, more on that later), they would have known that Lilith didn't actually die which may soften something like this a little. I dunno, I'm not one of them and trauma is uniquely personal to the individual, but the bigger issue is that Diavolo thought this was a good idea to start with to which I say! - I'm not at all surprised by that. Hear me out.

Diavolo is heavily implied to have had a huge ass crush on Angel Lucifer. He's also uh… probably a little sheltered (as sheltered as the royalty of Hell can be) and probably not used to think of his subjects' feelings on the things he does before he just does them. This is fairly evident in other events where he'll order the brothers to do XYZ task even if they want no part in it. It doesn't surprise me at all that Diavolo would want to see them (Lucifer) as angels again and not take into account how that could affect them. I don't think that'd be malice on his part, just shortsightedness, and he likely would have apologized if any of the brothers expressed an emotional problem with it to him directly.

Do they have problems? Yes. But since the event kind of wipes them of their true selves, that's better discussed elsewhere. Moving on.

The Bangles 

Holy fuck, how do we even approach this? So Simeon, in conjunction with Michael (probably, at this point I have to wonder if he's telling the truth about this) gives the brothers jewelry, presumably to wear to the party, that would… I'm not even sure. Curb their impulses? Force them to be mannered? The important thing is he did not tell them about that little detail before they put the bangles on…

This is… also problematic. First, we can try to establish Simeon's intentions versus what actually happened: 

The bangles were (likely) intended to be removable. It was the mixing of the magic that locked them in place so we can assume he didn't mean this to be a permanent change.

The magic on the bangles was probably amplified by the angel costumes. What this means is though we can assume that Simeon never intended them to become quite so… different, we'll never know just how much influence he was actually trying to put on them. It could have been anything from suppressing their sins to full blown force you to say please/thank you. We'll just never get to know now… 

I won't be the first person to liken this to mind control (nor the last) because… that's kind of how it turned out. Even worse still, it would have been completely involuntary on the brothers' part. Simeon DID NOT tell them what the bangles were going to do. Now, he claims later that he would have eventually, but we don't get to know when that would have been. I presume at some time after the party, because like. These are our boys. They're not going to consent to wearing something like that, they're just not.

This poses all kinds of questions and problems ranging from issues of consent to anatomy and even the worth of good deeds done out of obligation vs. free will and… I mean quite literally when I say Jesus Christ, Simeon, what the hell?!

I could write a completely different post debating whether or not what Simeon did actually had any moral merit but I won't because it'd be very dry and boring. I think the most interesting thing to take away here is that Simeon thought it was okay to do like, at all, and with approval from Michael (maybe) no less… That reflects something on angel society that I doubt will get explored but I need to ponder farther…

This section is all kinds of sticky so we need to move on.

The Development(?)

First off, to new players, don't worry this probably isn't canon (at least to the main story continuity). The Brothers should be back to normal in the new chapters and this won't have a long term effect on anything (aside from maybe a tie in to the next event ala Beach event-> Games). That's how Obey Me has always treated their events it seems and I sure hope they stick to it now. But, these are still the same characters going through a unique situation and that can offer some insight so… Let's discuss.

I mentioned earlier that the brothers had problems with this… Unfortunately, I think we only get to see Lucifer and Satan's thoughts in any detail because everyone else is too far gone by the time we reach them… Lucifer can pretty much be summed up as troubled and unhappy because (you know) not a lot of great memories as an angel. I presume that his wounded pride after the fall may also contribute. 

Satan is… more complex. I’m honestly more bothered by his change than anyone else’s because even he expresses how weird this is for him... (We get confirmation that he never in fact had an angel form, btw). Poor baby is going through a full on identity crisis and there’s a certain part of his mind that he’s not even allowed to use right now... Anger. The Avatar of Wrath, born from Wrath, can’t get angry and… Something about that just bothers me at a deeper level, not even I can express properly…

Everyone else is too far gone once we reach them. Their personalities are completely different and they can’t even acknowledge that’s the case. They think that they’ve turned a new leaf but we know that’s not the reality, that leaf was very much turned for them and it doesn’t make anything feel any better…

This may be my own opinion, but part of me thinks that this portion (and only this portion right here) was actually what the Devs were going for. They wanted us to be uncomfortable by all of this for like, story reasons. It’s a narrative trick. Think of the phrase “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” I think they were trying to use the absence of the brothers’ usual flaws and traits as a weird way of celebrating them. Kind of like saying, “We could have given you guys these perfect brothers, but they’re not perfect and we know that’s why you like them. Look at these perfect guys, doesn’t it feel wrong?” The answer is, yes. It does feel wrong. And under other circumstances, it would be affirming like they’d be intending, “I don’t want this emotionally-open non-otaku, give me Levi dammit!” But when you add this intended discomfort with the already sketchy way we got here it just makes it all the worse… 

And absolutely NONE of this is helped by...

The… End?

I think the thing I hate about this event the most (actually legitimately hate) is how it ends. In that it doesn’t. It kind of just… abruptly stops right after Lucifer starts coming to himself again. Though I suspect that’s because they’re putting incentive into getting the event cards, this in NO WAY does the narrative any favors.

Most people are not going to get those cards. Even with Lonely Devil as an option, it’s a huge time/resource commitment to get there. Because of that, the majority of people are not going to get to see the aftermath of what happened. We don’t get to see how the brothers feel about what happened. We don’t get to see if they do, in fact, come to and if they have any takeaways from the experience or if they’re utterly disgusted by it. The player character doesn’t even get the option to comfort them after something that was probably terribly traumatic. It. Just. Ends.

What that means is all of that discomfort that we had just lingers… There’s no resolution or pay off. It just… stays… This is the worst possible thing they could have done. If you want your audience to feel uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but unless you’re telling like, a psychological thriller you gotta settle them back down again! Deep moral conflict is not a turn on!!!

Personally, I don’t hate that this thing exists. I don’t. The part of me that majored in Philosophy loves analyzing media like this so I can’t say that I didn’t get anything out of it. I don’t think all media should play it safe, it’s okay to leave the audience with no good answers or a feeling of unease, but you really got to be self-aware of it. The biggest flaw of this event, in my opinion, is that it rarely comes across as self-aware of its own horror. You get a very brief glimpse of it from Solomon when he comments on how creepy things are, but Simeon’s happy. Diavolo’s happy. And though he’s a little uneasy, Luke’s pretty content, too. Add that to the abrupt ending and we never get to know if ANY of them realize how awful of a thing this was to do to the brothers... It makes it all come off as an endorsement of mind controlling your friends into better people and (to me) that feels really, really wrong.

So in conclusion… I dunno. If the next event isn’t something along the lines of “Angelic Demons Part 2: Fixing What We Fucked Up!” then I think they really botched this one guys… I hope somebody was taking notes.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.