#Miss Pochicha out

[avokado-hyperfixates]

Buckle up your seatbelts. I've been waiting for a long time to spill the tea.

I must say, I was incredibly surprised when a huge amount of users started to comment every post of the arcana about the goat man before his route was released. I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I mean, yeah, he's a character designed to look attractive and his also charismatic but that it's a thing made on purpose to make you realize that monsters don't have to necessarily be scary, because in the real world all monsters use human faces. I could name a politician or two that had done and said terrible things acting like childs that are enormously egoistic but people don't mind because they're charismatic, or artists that have committed different kinds of abuse on others but people don't mind because they're hot.

But welp, who am I to judge other people's taste and try to change their ways and vision? Why should I in any case...

So I respect that between the arcana community there are lots of Lucio stans and it's ok (same goes with Valdemar. I can't understand how, considering of how they were with Julian and how our doctor trembles when he hears about them but o k a y, love them if you wanna)

Another thing that I accept is that in this website you are in a safe space to share whatever it is you wanna share, including your sexual fantasies, and it's okay! I've seen good quality content from lots of writers in here, even some graphic art tho I don't fancy that kind of things a lot, but I don't oppose to any of it! On the contrary! I like to see other people's creativity flourish.

What I can't tolerate it's the fact that all of what the devs tried to share and "teach" us through the game gets completely lost when you start to make couples like these:

Lucio x Asra/Muriel/Julian, and any other person who suffered any kind of abuse from him.

Valdemar x Julian. (though I won't talk about it today)

The devs made a game that yes, it's about romance, but it's not the only content of it. Besides the mistery and intrigue, you can witness a journey in every main character and sometimes also witness a secondary character of the plot having a huge development. There's a background story, there are traumas, flaws, mistakes, guilt, grief, support, friendship, trust, love (not only romantic) and that's is one of the reasons I really love this game. It's not only a "date game". It's a visual novel. And if you read it, if you play it, you'll discover that some characters really suffered enormously thanks to Lucio (I'm going to stick to him on this discourse, let's keep the doctor aside).

I feel really uncomfortable when I realize the degree of objectification that the characters reach thanks to these contorted fantasies. I mean, they aren't human beings but the mere fact of putting a theoretical someone into a position that would be terrible for them only because you want to feel pleasure at the thought of it it's not precisely relieving. Better to humanize them than objectify them, in my opinion.

Asra lost his parents when he was still a little child because of Lucio. He was left alone. Then growing up he had to hide from Lucio (we learn this from the Tales). Afterwards he had to obey the Count in order to protect Muriel (which was a scam). The plague was in Vesuvia thanks to Lucio, and Asra lost MC and that was the last straw that hurt him the most and literally split his heart in two. (So don't come now @ me now that we're on this saying that Asra is the antagonist because NO). Now, having all that in mind, knowing how much genuinely Asra despises Lucio, why would he want to be with him?

Muriel. Oh boy. Now, I won't blame Lucio for his parent's or the entire Kokhuri's death. That was a tribe thing and Lucio had none to do with it, so Lucio stans don't worry. BUT he was a nightmare for Muriel even when he was a kid wandering through the streets of Vesuvia. Muriel had to fight in the coliseum to protect Asra. M U R I E L. F I G H T I N G. That gigantic being is only that big because he has the biggest of hearts, he might seem fearsome but he's truly one of the purest characters of the entire game. He's pacific. Completely. Now imagine all the pain he had to go through by killing other people for years until Inanna appeared. He clearly suffers from post traumatic syndrome. He asked to Asra for a spell to disappear from people's mind. He hates himself for what he had done. And the coliseum thing isn't something related to the ritual, it isn't something the Devil told Lucio to do. He was a monster to Muriel and that's it. Why, tell me a good fucking reason why Muriel would want to be with Lucio?

Julian. Seriously? Julian was decided to kill him in order to make the plague disappear but I doubt that that was the only reason he had. Put it this way: if Nadia was the reason of the plague, do you think that he would had rushed through the stairs to Nadia's room to kill her in an instant? No. It would had been a really hard thing to do for him, they were friends. But why the situation is different with Lucio? Oh. Do I have to remember you that Lucio force-fed him with a beetle and that Julian was dying from the plague afterwards? Don't tell me it was the only way to make Julian found the cure and that it was necessary because, oh gods of the Olympus, you don't want to start an argument about it. Julian also despised Lucio. He was willing to kill him. He couldn't stan him. Why would Julian be with Lucio?

Now. I've been playing his route. I don't like really that much his character and I wish they were more options of less physical interaction but he's the romantic route so I won't complain about it. But I've been playing it to understand him better. I think he's not exclusively a monster. He can be a dork, he can be truly protective and caring and he has difficulties facing his mistakes and I feel honestly sorry for him and wish things would had been different. But that doesn't make up for all of what he has done. You can't justify all the terrible things he did because "he was hurt". All the characters in the game as well as ourselves, had passed through hard times and bad moments in life but we aren't pricks that go here and there hurting people just because, are we?

So yeah. I don't like Lucio either but I respect that lots of fans in the community do.

Keep making wonderful fanart and keep writing amazing fanfics, but please,

for Faust's sake, don't romanticize him with those who suffered any kind of abuse from him.

I.

Do not.

Like.

Lucio.

-Don't At Me You Bitches