#mod telos

hi, anon, welcome back to the fandom! we hope you have a good time here!

the problem is not with the arcana application itself, the problem is with the dorian app version. dorian bought the arcana from its former owners, nix hydra, and promised to keep the original app running while adding new arcana content (ie new arcana tales) to the dorian app. all well and good, but dorian’s made a few choices with their app content which we’re side-eyeing over here.

for example, a new asra tale came out on their app last week. they misgendered the magician (they/them, was referred in the tale as he/him), they completely ignored the soft magic system asra and the main character’s tarot magic runs on in favor of using spells with names (which don’t exist for any magic system in the arcana game, really), that sort of thing. we initially chalked the issues up to growing pains for the new devs, as learning about the worldbuilding and most character pronouns requires actually playing the game and taking notes (the arcana fandom isn’t the most curative out there).

then nadia’s new tale came out yesterday and the dorian devs broke the one meta rule of game design: choices matter. instead, they locked the “good” end of nadia’s new content behind a paywall. the original devs never did that. they hid raunchier/hornier/far more romantic moments behind a paywall, but nix hydra never hid endings. you always could get the entire plot for free with a little bit of patience.

the dorian devs further doubled down on hiding the good ending by giving the player choices throughout the route which, obviously, do not affect the ending. no matter what you picked, if you chose free paths only, you got the negative ending. but that discrepancy between the "choices" and the f2p ending meant that players caught on to the hidden good ending a lot more quickly than they would have otherwise. you paid to win or you didn't.

they then tripled down on hiding the good ending by changing how the paywall works. with nix hydra, you paid once and then your account had access to the scene forever. with dorian, you have to pay every single time you want that hidden content.

LUCIO THE DEVIL

The Devil is a card about power and control, who and what has it in your life. This can manifest in a myriad of ways, from feeling out of control to obsessing over things and people to actively controlling others. The Devil is usually a warning card, a sign that something or someone has an unhealthy hold over you (or that you have an unhealthy hold over someone). The Devil also deals in materialism and the obsession with status. Again, this goes back to the power and control domains. Some interpretations also add ignorance to the Devil’s domain, which can also be traced back to his control domain. If you are unaware of something, you cannot take control of it. The Devil asks you to reevaluate and reassess what and who you allow to have power in your life. It asks you to retake responsibility for your own destiny.

Lucio begins his route as a literal shade of a man, a shell of his former self, unable to interact with the world he so slavishly desires. This is the debt he has accumulated through a lifetime of irresponsibility, an obsession with instant gratification, and a desperate need to be seen by others as powerful, desirable, and control. In his quest to become the most powerful man on the planet, he has instead wound up with nothing, completely ignorant as to the cause of his circumstances. This is why he is stuck as the Devil's least favorite whipping boy. If Lucio had taken responsibility and come clean, even back when he was dying, he could have avoided the worst of his problems.