I love the Arcana! (nsfw art and text on blog)

Warning: Spoilers for the new Tale in The Arcana–A Mystic Romance by Nix Hydra are under the cut.

This is a mixture of analysis, fan theory, and personal head canons.

I will be the first to say this is written from when I was still excited from the update, so bare with me if parts of it seem disorganized.

NOW THEN-

I think that that's why Lucio seemed to focus more on hurting Asra emotionally, too. Lucio couldn't physically harm him, but he could lie to him and tell him that he had his parents executed. He could threaten to hurt Muriel if Asra didn't do what he told him to (all while he lying to Muriel and saying that he'll hurt Asra if Muriel doesn't do what he says).

Ahhh I'm probably not the best person to ask this, as I mostly sit in my little corner and moderate the heck out of my dash. Also I prioritize Lucio content a lot so keep that in mind haha

I think the only still-active Arcana blogs I follow are @arsenicxarcana (for that sweet sweet goat content) and @epoch-smog (OC content + the lore conspiracy board). Also greatly enjoying a lot of work/posts from @helpiminhell / @sketchyabyss

Asra 

Gladly grabs the mail on his way back, but will defs just leave it all piled on the nearest countertop. This will pile up over time, even when he actually goes through it. Like, he’ll take all the important stuff, but then leave the junk there to ‘take care of later’. Later never comes though XDDD

Apologizes for mixing colors in the laundry, but is all too happy to point out how cool everything looks now! Easiest tie-dye ever am I right?

We already know he’s a good cook, but his version of cleaning up after usually involves just leaving all the dirty dishes in the sink until there’s like, a spoon or something all the way at the bottom of the sink, then it’s time to clean everything in there

Gladly helps to fold the laundry, but will also totally goof off by doing some clothing origami XDDD your favorite sweater looks even better when folded to look like a swan

There’s always either some scented candles or incense burning somewhere. This is non-negotiable, and he brought it up before you guys even signed the lease

There is somehow always glitter somewhere!! You’ve asked a million times, checked every room, but neither of you have ever bought any, and yet… somehow he’s always lightly sprinkled in it!!! Sure, it makes him look like literal magic, but why can’t Instagram filters be enough!?

Nadia

Let’s be real here, Nadia doesn’t need a roommate, she just wants to help out a dear friend to save some money. She never makes you pay for much, but if you insist she won’t argue

Not nearly as clean as people would assume, but it’s not a literal tornado of chaos either. There’s little daily messes that show someone lives there, but the weekly maid service helps to keep things in order

She tried making the two of you dinner… once. There may have been some fire, and a contractual agreement that she would never again approach the kitchen with intent to anything more complex than either coffee or a salad… You guys eat out or have meals delivered a lot. For safety

There’s  specific slots for all the mail. There’s one for junk mail, your mail, her mail, the slot for the old man who lives two levels down but the post office constantly keeps getting the mailboxes wrong.. There’s also hooks near the front door for all of the keys, so it’s always a no-brainer when you need to find them

Because of her job, sometimes has to have either fellow business people over for dinner parties so she can do some networking. You’re always welcome to join in if you like, but she wouldn’t force you to. Also gives you as much notice as possible because it would be rude otherwise

Can sometimes literally disappear into her bathroom all damn day for some mandatory self care. Hair clipped up in a hot towel, bubble bath, shades drawn, wine in hand, light snacks nearby, and spa music playing. She’ll put up a small ‘Do Not Disturb’ plaque outside her door, but she’s never too upset if you need to come in and speak to her about something

Julian

For the first few months after signing the lease together, aside from his shit being in there, you weren’t really sure he ever actually moved in. Yeah, Malak was there, and it was obvious he was getting fed and attention, but like… the ‘how’ was the freaky part

Quickly learns how you take your coffee and makes sure to do it perfectly every time. “You take two spoonfuls of sugar with 2/3 cup cream? Well then you’ll need a larger mug to accommodate; here, I get most of mine from this website. You can even ask them about custom designs on any size!”

Will get the mail on the way back from his shift at the hospital, but is likely to forget it as soon as he sets it on the nearest counter. His mind just goes off in too many directions, so you’ll have to remind him a few times if he got anything important

He’s more than happy to help with the prep work for meals, just don’t ask him to actually cook anything. If it’s more complicated than instant ramen, he’s just never been that great at it. However… he very much knows how to prepare instant ramen in at least sixteen different ways!! THANK YOU COLLEGE!!

Everything is clean, but it’s like almost pulling teeth to get more out of him than that. Yeah, the laundry is done, but it’ll stay in the bin until he needs to do another load. Then it’s just dumping the last of the clean stuff on the bed (which at that point is honestly like, three shirts, a few pairs of socks, and two pairs of boxers), loading up the dirty clothes, then maybe shoving the stuff on the bed over to the side he doesn’t use much so he can try taking a power nap

It’s a bit of a hazard when you come home to find he’s got his headphones on XDDD yeah, he’s a really good dancer when he wants to be, but when he doesn’t care and it’s just about havin’ some fun, it’s like trying to avoid falling missiles on an active battlefield

Portia

Ok, let’s be real here, nobody is going hungry living with Portia Devorak. Absolute best chef out of everyone, and is totally cool with doing the food shopping and meal planning. It’s like living with a fuckin’ five-star chef when you live with her! …just make sure she remembered to put her hair up before she gets going, or you might find a long, curly, red hair in your food

Tries to keep up with brushing Pepi, but it honestly tends to get away from her sometimes in the summer. Hope you don’t mind having cat hair on everything, cause it’s gonna be there no matter how attentive she is XDDD

Plants everywhere!! Roses on the dining table! Daisies by the front window! Begonias in the bathrooms! Carnations on the dressers! And succulents too! Get some of those adorable prickly boys and put them in some super cute hanging planters!!

Just about everything that’s hers has offensive cross-stitch on it (I will die on this hill XDDD)

Not super clean, but it’s not bad either. Like, she’ll still make sure it’s all clean, but she may go around another 2-3 weeks before feeling like it needs to be done all over again. It’s a lot of extra work on top of her job, so it’s gotta feel worth the loss of a perfectly good lazy day!

Right off the bat, the first day she moved in, her first priority was when you guys could have a fun movie night! And it had to have just, everything! Big, fluffy blankets, popcorn and snacks, a pile of 3-5 movies to start, candles, and of course some choice drinks! Ooh, or maybe milkshakes! Milkshakes? MILKSHAKES!!!

Muriel

Like Julian, after signing the lease, it was hard to tell you even shared a space with someone at all. But after about a month you actually started seeing him around

The mail person has learned that they can just give your stuff to Inanna, and she’ll bring it back. Obviously it can sometimes have a bit of drool on it, but she’s such a good, considerate girl, and she doesn’t have opposable thumbs, so it’s okay!

Usually spends a lot of time in his room, but if his door is cracked, then it’s his way of saying you can come in for a while and talk if you want

Surprisingly decent cook! Nothing fancy, obviously, but usually whatever he decides to make is pretty good! Also always makes his own bread. It’s actually kind of hypnotic to watch… seeing him turn those ingredients to dough, all those muscles working it into the perfect consistency… WE WEREN’T STARING!! HONEST!! we were totally staring

The most chill roomie ever. There’s no crazy, sitcom antics when living with him, that’s for sure. At least, none that start with him… they usually end with him, but he’s almost never where they begin

You honestly can’t remember the last time you had to change a light bulb or replace a roll of toilet paper. It’s like anytime something like that may need to be done soon, it’s already taken care of! How he always knows is literally a mystery you don’t care about solving

Lucio 

You learned real quick that unless you do something drastic, like flushing the toilet in your bathroom, he’s gonna be using up all the hot water in those two-hour showers of his. Honestly it’s a shock he even has enough time in the day for anything when his whole morning routine can take almost all damn morning!!

Let’s be honest here, there’s almost nothing you could ever do to get Lucio Morgasson to take out the damn trash. Well… unless it’s after telling him you bet he couldn’t do it. Then it’s done loudly, and full of spite, with every action yelled so you know exactly when it happened. Don’t forget to make sure to cap it off with ‘well, you sure showed me’ when he gets back, or he might realize it actually wasn’t his idea

How does one person have so much makeup everywhere!? He doesn’t even use that color! Why is it almost gone and partially on the counter!? He has a combination of expensive soaps and Axe in his shower, but all you can ever smell is Axe!! DOES HE EVEN USE THE OTHER STUFF OR JUST BUY IT AND POUR SOME OUT!?

Always orders in for meals. At least it only took one near disaster for him to figure out he shouldn’t be cooking anything for anyone who doesn’t want to die

As cute as they are, he’s the only one who can’t stay mad at M&M when they chew up your shoes. Yup, even with those adorable faces and big, beautiful, mis-matched eyes of theirs. I mean, come on!! YOU CAN ONLY EXCUSE SO MANY PAIRS OF SHOES BECOMING CHEW TOYS!!!

The Hike of DOOM

All new adventures! There is cake and cake, and chest and cake and sweat. Some hurting feet. Cake!

Text free under the cut

Hey bros is it gaey to have a quicky in a hallway closet with your homie?

Anyway ...... Full image here, shows Jin and Julian slapping skin

the assistant:

*Youtuber voice*

Below are the opinions of an uneducated individual on what could’ve left the majority of The Arcana audience dissatisfied. I will explore the plot, tropes, themes and morals of the Muriel route and try to explain what may have gone wrong. I will be treating the game as a novel since it's advertised as one.

I’m going to jump in on the question of trauma from a counseling and psychology standpoint. Five of the six LIs have significant trauma histories. (If Nadia does, it isn’t clearly presented. She has family dynamics issues and needs to be assigned to an Adlerian therapist or an LMFT, in my humble opinion. Portia doesn’t seem nearly as affected as Julian by nearly drowning and losing parents at a young age. I’m going to set her aside as resilient for the moment.) That leaves Julian, Lucio, Asra, and Muriel.

Fair warning. I’ve spent too much time working with my own headcanons, so chime in if I’ve confused those with canon, but I think my argument will stand.

The implied backstory of the game appears to set up the question of trauma and processing trauma as a major theme. The MC didn’t just experience an event in which they thought their life was threatened - they actually died! Julian - in addition to the shipwreck, military experience and the trauma of being a healthcare provider during an epidemic - has a death/near death experience prior to the beginning of the story. The extent to which Lucio experienced childhood trauma is debatable based on the information that we have, but he has a history of traumatic amputation of a limb. Asra and Muriel both lost their parents at very young ages, and then were left to fend for themselves.

The devs created traumatized characters and a setup that makes the most sense when considered through a trauma-informed lense. Then instead of following through, they side-stepped. The MC never responds fully to learning that they’ve died. I might give that a pass based on the limitations of the medium, if it weren’t for how badly the question of trauma was handled in Julian and Asra’s routes. (I won’t even touch the hot mess of Lucio.)

Word of God turns Asra into a perfect, angelic sweetheart despite setting him up initially as a rather shady (and complex) character - the archetype of the Magician. Yet, I think Asra’s pre-game actions are best explained vis-a-vis childhood trauma and attachment disorders. He was powerless to save his parents. When the MC dies of the plague, he is no longer powerless to save one of the two people to whom we see him consistently portrayed as attached. Raising the dead is certainly tempting when you’ve lost someone you love, especially when you’ve lost so much. I’ve experienced times where if I had the magic Asra does, I would certainly be tempted. But that’s not the way someone who is mentally healthy grieves, and given the fall out, it wasn’t a selfless action. Yet, even in his route, he’s a fairly static character. He doesn’t grow or change in any significant way.

While Julian is more dynamic, his route devolves into the “power of friendship” trope that was ultimately unsatisfying to me. It’s an easy way out.

Muriel exhibits the most textbook symptoms of PTSD: hypervigilance, flashbacks, withdrawal, etc. (I think that Julian and Muriel are the only true good aligned characters in game.) The experience of profound powerlessness is one of the hallmarks of trauma, and Muri has experienced powerlessness as a child, and then later when Lucio forced him into acting as his executioner. I had high hopes for his route for the first several chapters - they seemed to be setting up scenarios wherein he would have choices and freedom to act, and a plot that would recapitulate the traumas of his childhood/young adulthood in such a way that he could reexperience them as the protagonist rather than as passive victim of circumstance. But, as MB notes, Muriel is never really allowed to take the reins in the story. If he isn’t exactly coerced into becoming a leader in the resistance, he’s still not the agent of that action; he’s the object of other’s adulation. He doesn’t find his own source of power. He’s just ‘saved’ by the MC’s love.

I appreciate bringing in Dragon Age, especially DA2. Despite the game’s flaws, the characters in the game are wonderfully crafted. Fenris and Anders (foils for each other) are both highly traumatized, coping in different ways, and their visions of the world are deeply limited by what they’ve experienced. I’ve played through twice, once romancing Anders and once romancing Fenris. (I haven’t read any of the media outside of the games.) Here’s a critical difference from the Arcana - Hawke’s love doesn’t save either of them. While Fenris’ arc isn’t the sheer tragedy of Anders’, he’s still conflicted and angry, and certainly not healed from what he suffered. Hawke’s love and support clearly helps, but Hawke can’t fix everything for Fenris, and the narrative doesn’t try to make that the case. The ending of DA2 is bleak. And I found it bizarrely satisfying in part for that reason.

The Arcana has, thus far, failed to accomplish that. Perhaps it’s punching above its weight. Perhaps it’s a matter of changing writing teams. Perhaps it’s a matter of not wanting to be “too dark” because there’s a loud section of fandom (general) that can’t seem to deal with dark things. I don’t know, but praise Jibbers for fanfics, etc.

i am not against interactive games allowing the players to do questionable stuff, its a controlled environment to test out different courses of action. but a game with a young audience such as this should be mindful of the message its delivering by telling its players, whom likely wouldnt have met a man suffering from trauma, that manipulating him into complacency is the way to earn his trust.

you cant heal trauma, period. you cant cuddle your way through it. love doesnt save the day. it helps, but its a slippery slope. i personally never got the impression from muriels general demeanour that unprompted physical contact would be desired, it seemed to me like those instances would agitate him further, but i can look past that since its more of a "feeling" rather than a concrete diagnosis. but i dont think combat being a trigger can be shrugged off that easily.

i like the trope of a non-violent character being challenged when their friends are in harms way and is forced to fight. i like when they have no other course of action, that they feel they must. but theres a reason that that trope is almost always portrayed as their low-point, rarely as a triumph. muriel doesnt improve when he picks up arms, hes worn down by MC and morga.

now, id be cross if muriel was coddled to no end too, for sure. that was one of my beefs with julians route. there are triggers that need to be worked on, like if you were attacked in an elevator and are afraid to take elevators, you would need to learn how to separate the specific environment from the affair but the way that muriels route was laid out was so on-the-nose that if it was applied to this example it would be like training yourself to get attacked until you get desensitized.

there are memoirs of war vets and ex-mob folk that document this specific trauma. they explain the feeling of being trapped, how they compartmentalize and normalize the violence and how they feel fear for so long that it solidifies. what i mean is its not a niche occurrence so i can only assume that it was a deliberate choice on the companys part.

the Arcana presents a diverse cast with very strong cultural inspirations evident in its character designs. if you ever at any point followed the @/behindthearcana account on twitter you'd know that a lot of research goes into the design (and really only in the design. it's kind of shallow and research in the writing remains to be seen), what doesn't go into it is a single lick of sensitivity reading or forethought.

NH makes a decision that seems cool in theory and does not consider how messed up it will look in context. it's an absolute himbo of a game. pretty look at but dumb as rocks. and you cannot even try to point this out in front of NH because at best you will be ignored and at worst you will be "corrected" and at risk of being dogpiled.

but that's just their little oopsies god i fucking hate that they said that. NH also does messed up things on purpose. look at how they treated the Kickstarter backers, the very first fans of the Arcana. NH kept them in the dark for years, and then ripped them off, only giving them a pass after the main three routes were finished and then trashing the concept of a PC port they promised because, idk they probably can't stuff that one with microtransactions.

if i remember correctly, there was even an issue with the devs vagueposting about fans on their personal twitters, being actively antagonistic towards parts of their audience, and at one point even calling certain fans 'undeserving' of the content they provide.

Nadia has ideas

Mild spoilers for the new tale, this is not how it happens in there, but it is how it happened because I said so, if you get the idea.

Minors DNI

Under cut some spicy ideas she had.

I just read lost in Prakra and realized I haven’t drawn my apprentice and Nadia in forever!