#asra tale

[what-do-you-mean-theyre-evil]

The worst part about the Dorian Asra tale is the fact that it's not even good.

Like if it was actually good then maybe I could get over it but it's so bad, ooc, and it constantly grasps onto the little fandom in jokes and turns them up to 11 to drive the story rather than maybe learning about their character in order to write them properly.

[dontaskmehowdontaskmewhy]

I started reading it and didn’t even get halfway. 2/10. AND THEY MISGENDER THEM THE ENTIRE TIME LIKE IT SAYS ABOVE. Awful.

Sooooo I’ve screen recorded the new tale on dorian (besides the paid scenes because babes I’m broke and my coins mean nothing here…😎🥲)

It’s through Google drive because of the file size. You’re all free to grab screenshots and share it and everything. This is so all you guys don’t have to download the app. Enjoy XD (yes. That’s sarcasm. Nothing really to enjoy here…🥲)

My Thoughts: (Slight Spoilers)

Gonna start off with saying it’s not as bad as I had expected, but also not great. Not for what it is.

The writing feels lacking and dry.

The characters feel very OOC- especially Asra. Very cold and rude and just not him.

The MC is just written as kinda dumb again.

The storyline is confusing and kind of hard to follow. Like I actually do not understand why this sequence of events happened.

It feels like it’s rushed, yet also spends an ungodly amount of time on filler scenes.

The lack of music makes a difference. And makes it less redeemable or even enjoyable.

THEY MISGENDERED THE MAGICIAN FOR THE WHOLE THING!

The whole thing is anticlimactic for what it was.

The ending was unclear.

The normally free CG (for tales) was behind a paywall.

And apparently all the scenes you unlock, you only unlock once and have to re unlock every time you play.

The game was still a little slow (technologically speaking). And as you can see, some characters sprites weren’t even fully there.

It feels like they just tried to shove things together and call it a story. It didn’t feel planned out at all. It felt like reading fan fiction. Not that fanfic is wrong, but you can often feel each authors own spin on thing. And it just generally lacks the arcana vibes. Now yes, it’s only one? original Arcana writer doing this with others, but still. It’s not that great. Definitely a bit above the other stuff on dorian, but nowhere near the level of the arcana or fictif.

That’s my general thoughts on it, but I’m bound to have more.

[alpinechamomile]

new tale art really said *tilts head at you adorably* 💙💜💖 (all cgs by Gabriella Rossetti)

cgs were gathered and posted by @ask-count-lulu 🫶

[thetreeturnedoff]

heyyy, so i may or may not have compiled the entire new asra tale into a google drive for people to see for those of y'all who don't want to give dorian any downloads or money. if there's anything missing or that you think needs to be changed, or if something isn't opening (i have to set my phone browser to desktop mode to open some folders and i'm still trying to figure out why), just lmk and i'll take a look!

[paperstarwriters]

ModernRoomate!Muriel x Reader, where Muriel collects you up after you've returned from a party. Perhaps you're exhausted, perhaps you're drunk, but you swat the lights of the room until it's turned off, and you flop onto the nearest large-enough surface you can find. Maybe it's the couch, maybe it's the table, maybe it's the floor. You don't know, and you don't care.

Muriel on the other hand, does.

Of course he does.

He collects you up off the floor. Not scooping you up, lest your delirious brain swivel and swirl in your skull, till your eyes ache even worse, and your stomach flips upside down—no, he simply ushers you up and off of your sloppy sleeping place, offering an arm for you to lean on as he slowly guides you to your bedroom.

You mutter something, drowsily, incoherently, and in that warm, rumbly hushed voice of his, he hums, asking you what you meant with as little sound as possible.

"Makeup," you manage to mutter and grumble. "need t'take of my makeup...just take me to the bathroom."

He does as you ask, and the lights of the bathroom are flickered on. Miserably, horribly bright, but mandatory for your needs.

You're about to paw the area for your makeup wipes, but Muriel tugs you back before he pulls out a little unmarked bottle of... something and begins to clean your face, letting you close your eyes, as he wipes away the smears and marks your makeup left behind, running lukewarm water over your face, enough to build little puddles of water around the small sink. You feel clean when he's all done tidying you up, a little dry perhaps, but that might've been from the drinks, or the sweat. You expect him to lead you back to the bedroom then, but he fishes a more familiar bottle from the messy shared sink space, and rubs your moisturizer into your face.

Finally done with that, he leads you back into your room, drapes a blanket over your shoulders and helps you to tug the worst of your party outfit off. You're mostly covered by the blanket, but whatever skin shows is covered by the lights still left off in your room, though the washroom lights linger, exposing a sliver of skin to any eyes who may choose to pry.

Muriel's green eyes catch gold from the old bathroom lights. Even in the dark, he still looks away, insistent to give you your privacy.

Maybe you're naked in the end. Maybe you manage to worm at least some portion of your pajamas on. Regardless, Muriel simply tucks that blanket around your shoulders to cover you better, and helps usher you into your bed.

He's about to leave, but you hold him back, clinging to his clothes, perhaps, or wrapping your fingers around some of his own before he can pull away.

It's dark. You're exhausted. The only coherent thing you can manage to say is, "I didn't know you could do that."

"Do what?" His voice feels lower somehow. It's certainly quieter, but the low rumble of it makes you lean towards him, towards the sound of him, even as your head continues to ache.

"Remove makeup. Didn't know you knew how to do that."

He hums, soft and deep just like before, and he hesitates by your bedside. Maybe he wants to reply, maybe he doesn't want to explain. You don't care either way. You want him to linger by your side.

He leans closer towards you and you can feel it more than you can see it, the brush of his clothes as they drape closer towards you, the warmth of his chest, of his hands, the tickle of his hair against your skin.

Light passes through the window, gold and red illuminating him for a moment, to confirm your suspicions, but halt his movement. He hesitates, still standing over you when the light fades from the window, that car somewhere far away by now, and he leans back, squeezing your hand as he goes, soothing his thumb over a patch of your wrist, as he leaves.

and all too soon, he pulls away.

[fifthpilot]

So About the New Asra Tale by Dorian...

The plot was, not great. It was pretty boring, but it did touch up on a few interesting points from Asra's main story; like how much of his memory did he loose, his past before MC's death, and what extremes he had to go through because of MC's death like erasing his own memories of certain spells, which in my opinion is a very interesting scenario. Things did seem rushed considering the fact that the story had two endings depending on whether you chose to use the spell or not; and how the supposedly "bad ending" kind of implied that you and Asra somehow may have brought back the plague? or Lucio i.e the plague? It was left up to interpretation. The writing was, not good. I think they did try their best to stay true to Asra's tone even if it was a bit too on the nose at times and a little overbaord. But it was mainly the MC and the Magician that felt most off note to me.

That all being said, I like many others don't consider this a part of canon, it does ultimately give off a very wattpad feel. But in all honesty so did some of the main content after probably halfway through the main 3's routes. I think many people forgot just how erratic and disorganized the Nix Hydra Team was and how many people who came up with the original storyline had left the company before the end of the M3 routes. But a lot of people don't seem to notice that because all the content was in one place, the arcana app. Which brings me to my next point.

I think a good portion of the hate Dorian is getting is mainly due to the fact that their app is terrible. The UI is confusing, the app lags a lot and it's very slow. The game looks different on the dorian app, the font is wrong, there's no music, the character sprite animation is messed up, and the LI never says your name. And a lot of people have demanded that Dorian uploads the new conent to the Arcana app. But after thinking about it I personally think it's a good thing that the Dorian content and the "original" content stay physically seperated, so we know where one starts from where one ends. And I know a lot of people would disagree because using the Dorian app is a hassle, but like I mentioned before. Dorian is making fanfiction (but worse). They're using whatever's left of the arcana fandom to make some cash. This whole thing with Dorian creating new routes and new content is just another marvel-like tactic of beating a dead horse with a stick. And, they're even using the same Nix Hydra trick of placing the best content behind a paywall.

I'm personally not even upset at how terrible the app is, or how rushed and boring and generally just bad the tale was, I think I'm more upset that we won't put the Arcana Game to rest. And instead we have to watch as corporation after corporation uses the story for whatever means it wants to make money. I'm more upset that things can't just end and be celebrated for being. And how the way we engage with media has mutated into something more greedy and gluttonous.

What I'm saying is, we had a beginning and ending, we had prologues and epilogues and hidden scenes. We had plenty. We don't need more. Sometimes enough is enough.

[malithiae]

hi hi! sorry to bother, i need your help 🥹 I have a lot of content a little unpopular and I don't know what to post first... what would you prefer?

[apprentice-alwyn]

So I read the new Asra Tale “The Lost Spell” on Dorian and uh....that was...Not Great.

There were a lot of issues and I ended up thinking about what I would have done differently/how I would change the story while still trying to stick to more or less the core concept of it, and I figured I would share those musings here.

First things first, I would have made this story a more...personal one for Asra and MC involving Asra’s past and his parents. A story where Asra and MC are trying to retrieve something that was lost to his parents...I would have made this story not about a missing spell, but instead about lost alchemical research. Alchemy being the field of expertise for Asra’s parents, blending science and magic, and a field that Asra himself is most likely more unfamiliar with. (You could still make reference to this material/lost alchemical research being relevant to the current efforts to fix Vesuvia’s water system with a mention of how it could have been helpful I dunno)

This ends up being what leads Asra and MC to seek out The Magician for help  after digging for information in the palace records and library havent turned up anything and Asra’s attempts to track via magic havent been fruitful. Thus leading to the hint that what they seek can be found in Asra’s memories.

Instead of skipping straight to being told where to go to find the information, it could have been fun to have Asra and MC searching through the pools in Asra’s gate to find the right memory, giving us fragmentary moments from Asra’s past to witness as a result. Perhaps moments from, for example, when Asra and MC first met, a memory of Asra’s time on the streets with Muriel, the argument Asra and MC had during the plague, etc...until eventually they come across the memory they are looking for...one that is so old as to have been long forgotten by Asra, something a little raw and bittersweet...a memory from when Asra was a small child before he was separated from his parents. In this memory they find the alchemical research they had been searching for in the Alnazar home.

I dunno something along those lines could have been nice, while sticking to the idea of searching for some lost knowledge/magic.

[arcanablogbcimissthem]

meh first ever post about this topic..! its just me brainrotting about how the proposal and wedding with the first three LIs would go LOL not gonna share everything ive written so far but yea!!! :DDD i want this to be a real thing!! it’s just post-canon tooth-rotting fluff because mentally i am unwell and i need it <3 HAHAHA

Kinda want it to have the option to propose or wait to be proposed to like in Our Life!!!!! Except.. Dia had already proposed first lol. So instead it’ll go like, 

Dia - you give her her own ring

 Asra -  you both propose at the same time

Julian - you propose because umm! He is a dumbass. Waiting for ilya to propose first would be like waiting for rain in the desert. JOKE I LOVE HIM I PROMMY

[rubyfunkey]

every time i re-read any arcana route i comprehend the horrors a little more

[knight-engale]

When life was simpler, and things were better

It's Morgan, but six years old! Well, nearly six. Oh, and also her lovely, lovely parents ❤ Drawing this sparked so much joy

[gingerschnaps]

look at how they massacred my magician...

[agender-wolfie]

Oh look, they did it again. 🙃 And I saw in the comments someone wanted a Lucio and Julian tale. 🤡 It’s all unraveling, Vesuvia has succumb to the toxicity of the Dorian plague.

[warlordfelwinter]

warm up doodle before i attempt to draw our dnd party. the dm approved celeste eventually getting a displacer cub as a familiar and i just can't imagine it as anything but asmodeus' next attempt in his on-going effort to find out what sort of gifts celeste will accept since the usual devil strats of riches and immortality aren't working like

"i got you a kitten" [pulls out a six legged tentacled jaguar cub]

[thetreeturnedoff]

to everyone who followed me for the tales (and anyone else who sees this who's interested), i should have nadia's tale complete in the drive thursday or friday

[paperstarwriters]

Two Birds On A Wire...

[Obligatory Angst Warning]

has anybody talked about/considered how the relationship between Muriel & Asra seems to follow the nature of this song?

I mean, It's kind of represented between Asra and MC as well, but moreso for Muriel because he seems a lot like the second bird who refuses to leave. Who makes excuses and lies to appease the first..

I can't help but imagine their history through the lens of this song. What if it followed it closely? What if the two of them grew close from their presumed abandonment of their parents. But while Asra wanted to travel elsewhere, to leave Vesuvia, and maybe try and look for their parents, Muriel wanted to stay, because he was under the belief that one day his parents would come back for him.

Maybe the merchant who took him to Vesuvia reassured him of that whenever Muriel tried to ask. Maybe that was the merchant's excuse he gave to Muriel when he eventually left Vesuvia himself, or maybe that was the assurance the merchant clung to when he grew ill. Whatever the case, Muriel believed it as well.

But Asra didn't and though they tried to be a good friend, Muriel felt like they didn't believe him. Asra after all, might have believed that their parents chose to leave them. Maybe they had become fed up with believing that their parents might come back one day. Maybe they understood that maybe their parents were unable to return, but maybe they still felt frustrated that they didn't allow Asra to come with them wherever they had gone. Maybe to Asra, all they knew was that their parents went to the palace one day, and didn't come back.

And so Asra and Muriel are both trying to come to terms with their missing parents, but Asra feels like their parents left them which makes them want to go find them, while Muriel feels like he left his parents, which makes him want to stay still and wait so it's easier for them to go find him.

And maybe while Asra tries to understand Muriel's perspective, they can't help but see his hope as irrational. So Asra tries to leave and find places to go outside of Vesuvia, and Muriel, not wanting to be left alone again, follows them even though he doesn't really want to.

Maybe they make it as far as Nopal before Muriel brings up a good excuse to get them both back home. And maybe as the both of them slowly grew up, maybe they moved on a little from their parents. Maybe they settled themself into the thought that they'd never find them again. But Asra still wants to travel, and Muriel still wants to stay.

and maybe one day, Asra gets frustrated, and they argue. Maybe one day Asra meets MC and MC came from somewhere else, MC unlike Muriel was open to travel.

And so Asra, without Muriel, leaves.

Maybe they invited Muriel to come with them. To go with them and MC, but Muriel didn't want to. Maybe Muriel didn't even realize that they planned on coming back, because he would have been okay with that. Maybe Muriel thought the both of them were going to go to another forest or another city or somewhere far far away, and the two of you were going to have adventures and never look back.

But you do come back, and Muriel's elated to see you both...

but it's too late. Muriel doesn't recognize Asra anymore, the things they talk about are things that Muriel doesn't get or understand. He doesn't know how to talk to Asra anymore while Asra keeps talking about travel and the places they've been.

And maybe Muriel feels tempted to get angry and yell, but too afraid that it would encourage Asra to leave forever, he doesn't, so the distance between the both of them festers, while Asra gets closer to MC.

or! or! or!

alternatively, what if they were literal birds? what if Asra and Muriel were of some sort of birdlike species, but Asra wanted to live amidst the humans but Muriel did not.

Asra found a way to live amidst them they found a way to use magic to disguise themself, and while in disguise, they met and fell in love with MC exploring human culture and magic.

And maybe Asra tries to convince Muriel to come down with them, to see the human civilization for himself and to see the trinkets for themself, but as interested as Muriel is, he's still too anxious to go down, knowing his large stature would attract too much attention to his odd behavior unlike Asra.

but maybe one day, he does try. Maybe he follows a little bit behind Asra just to see what's going on, but he gets caught by a net or a trap made for his kind. and gets dragged off to the coliseum as another beast for gladiators to try and kill. Muriel is fearsome in defending himself, but he's terrified and scared.

Asra and MC find him eventually, and they protect and save Muriel from Lucio's clutches, but after everything is said and done, when Asra offers to go back with Muriel to their home realm, he can't. During the battles, Muriel's wings were destroyed and broken and he can't fly anymore. He want's to go home so badly, but he can't.

this is so angsty and sad I'm sorry.