#I’m sorry this the fanart I made ells

[bearlytolerant]

“If I were in a different form, would you still love me?”

“Of course I would. It is your spirit that I adore—though I am fond of your form as well.”

I read this fic by @ellstersmash and this idea wouldn’t leave my head. I love them.

[samcarter34]

I’m sorry because I feel a lil out of the loop, probably because I don’t eff with twitter and I’m only an occasional lurker in fandom spaces, but I thought t*ss f*wler was on good terms with cr? Like, the reason I knew of her was from cr shouting out her fanart of vm. Did something happen I totally missed?

Well, first off, you're a lot smarter than me re: twitter. After all of this I've made the decision to to place CR twitter in the 'don't go there' pile along with reddit.

Now to your actual question, from my understanding they used to be on good terms. Then they weren't. From my understanding, she felt that CR didn't get back to her in time re: a statue of Jester she was designing for them, so she responded by deciding they were screwing her over and cutting all ties with them. Despite this she still sold the statue and CR prints for a time.

The only other times I'm aware she's acknowledged them since were during the LB incident, wherein someone falsely accused them of hiring him as a sensitivity consultant and then denied him wages (her response, in my opinion, was extremely hypocritical considering she had no problem retweeting a statement from [I believe] Dark Horse Comics naming one of W*rren Ell*s' accusers), and now, claiming that they're being a delusional, greedy corporation who're trying to fuck over artists by protecting their IP.

So all in all I'd say she took the thing just a tad bit personally.

[nbapprentice]

there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

[pozolegirl]

I'm sure you've probably gotten this before, but do you have any webcomic recs?

Sorry it took so long to reply!!! I’ll make a list for you!

Disclaimer now though, this blog is totally SFW but some of the webcomics I read have language or slightly more nsfw elements to them. 

1. I Love Yoo

So fantastic, a good drama with a hilarious and amazing main character. I really love this one. It’s got angst and drama and romance, all really well made!

2. Boyfriend of the Dead

HILARIOUS, I love the idea for it, and I’m excited to see where it goes. I really enjoy this zombie story. (I usually can’t handle them haha) (Also, the art style is simple enough that any ‘gore’ in it, isn’t hard core and pretty safe for anyone)

3. Love Advice from the Great Duke of Hell

Another comedy that is really funny. Not a ton of episodes so far, but really great.

4. Hooky 

I’m not done reading through this one yet! I was originally drawn by the cute and beautiful art, and I thought it was just going to be a cute happy go lucky comic, but DANG it’s getting more and more intense and it’s a cool mix of fairy tales and witchy folk lore. I really enjoy it.

5. True Beauty

This one is hilarious. I know it’ll get more serious as it goes on, but honestly, the use of memes and expressions are amazing. It’s about a girl who is a slave to makeup basically, and I have a feeling she’s going to become more comfortable with herself as it goes on. :)

6. The Strange Tales of Oscar Zahn

Absolutely incredible, very spooky but still heart warming and interesting. The art work is phenomenal, and the stories are amazing. I highly recommend this one.

7. Cat Loaf Adventures

To be perfectly honest, I can only handle this one in small doses because I... am not a fan of pun humor. But the art is super super cute and it’s a very sweet comic that is fun.

8. Lore Olympus

Absolutely gorgeous art, a very interesting retelling of Hades and Persephone, that is semi modern based and IDK just very very artsy. I adore it with all my heart. It does deal with sensitive subjects though, beware.

9. Tales of the Unusual

Alright, I actually read so many horror comics, I love them so much. This one is probably my favorite that I’ve found besides Junji Ito’s work. The short horror stories in this comic are more psychological based, and it really comes across as Twilight Zone-y to me. I really enjoy it, and I’m not finished reading it all the way through. (The story with the old man seeing his dead wife’s memories made me straight up sob for like an hour while reading it, LOL) (Most of the stories are creepy though)

10. Siren’s Lament

I’ve been following this one for years, it’s always been beautiful and exciting. If you like mermaid stories, COME READ THIS.

11. Miss Abbott and the Doctor

THIS COMIC IS LIKE CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL, IT IS THE SWEETEST MOST LOVELIEST LITTLE ROMANCE YOU’LL EVER READ, EVERYONE IS SO CHARMING AND THE MAIN CHARACTERS MAKE ME SO HAPPY, AND THE ART STYLE IS SO CUTE, PLEASE READ THIS COMIC.

12. My Boo

Despite the less encouraging title, (it’s a pun) this comic is such a beautiful, thoughtful, and sweet story about a girl who falls in love with a ghost. It is completed, and it’s so wonderful.

13. Bastard

An absolute masterpiece, one of my all time favorite comics, and AUUUGH IT’S JUST REALLY GOOD. Super sketchy though, please be wary. This comic is about a boy who’s father is a serial killer. He has to protect the girl he has a crush on from becoming the next victim. Lots of gore, a very intense thriller, I’ve read it twice now it’s amazing. (And completed!!!)

14. Third Shift Society

I found this one awhile ago, and it’s really cute! I mean, it’s kind of horror, it’s about ghost hunters and stuff, but I love the main two characters. One of them has a jackolantern for a head. :)

15. STAGTOWN

Another fantastic horror comic. It’s only gone through one arc of story and the new one is starting (and looks even more horrifying than the last one) and I’m SO READY. It’s very creepy and very good.

16. Edith

This one is currently being edited and will be posted as a featured comic sometime soon, so it’s kind of on hiatus? But I’m really excited for it, I love it so much. It looks like an exciting romance, and I relate to the main character on an almost uncomfortable level sometimes. >_>” It does deal with more adult themes, FYI. I love the art style so much, it’s so cute.

17. Unlucky as Lucky Does

This one is hilarious. It’s a comedy and the art is done by such a talented artist, who mixes simple random styles with gorgeous detailed work, it always makes me laugh. I love the main group of characters and I hope I get to read their adventures for a long time.

18. Dazer and Eleanor

I found this beautiful (SO BEAUTIFUL AND DETAILED) comic awhile ago, it’s a sweet little slow burn romance, and since then I’ve become friends with the author! She inks everything traditionally, and it’s mesmerizing to see how detailed all of her panels are. She works really hard, and it pays off, definitely check it out!

Alright now time for some webcomics that are not on webtoons.

1. Mias and Elle

I’ve followed this artist for A VERY long time, and her art is just gorgeous. I love this little comic so much, and I hope I get to read it for a long time! Definitely has some adult themes in it, nothing too crazy yet, but eeehhhhh I feel like it might get there, haha.

2. Countdown to Countdown

WOW this art is absolutely incredible and I the story is engaging and exciting so far. I’m really excited to see where it goes. Please check it out, just LOOK AT THE ART, IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL. It inspires me so much. The artist is on tumblr too, @velinxi , you may have seen some of their beautiful fanart before.

3. Anacrine Complex

A gorgeous comic by @lightlybow, I’ve followed it for years now. (You’re amazing Sae) The panels are always so beautifully built, the art is exciting and beautiful to look at, and the story is very interesting! I love it!

So I know there are some I missed, and there are a ton of comics I didn’t add to this list, but here’s a little compilation for now! :)