#i feel bad for arcane

[maddiesbookbag]

do you ever think about the tapestry of percy and annabeth sitting in arcane’s cavern for almost a year waiting for annabeth to arrive? more specifically, do you ever think about how out of all the moments from annabeth’s life that aracne could’ve woven she chose to depict her at one of the happiest moments of her life—finally together with a living percy post-war? do you ever think about arachne, basically alone in this cavern for decades, cursed into monstrosity for daring to best a goddess, weaving this image of pure love? of a connection so strong that it would send the pair depicted through the crumbling floor to tartarus together rather than be separated ever again? even as that tapestry, that image of devotion, crumbled with them?

no? just me?

[nadia-cannot-think-straight]

"Biden or Trump?" Jinx we need you more than ever, please do your thing

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[fernflowerss]

HEY RIOT??? WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN???????

[dykesevika]

fortiche studios please make her a canon dyke please and thank u

Men DNI

[realitycanbewhateveridesire]

i know i'm horrible but someone needs to make this image into a meme

[babyblueetbaemonster]

I think it's cool Manni embroidered his message on a zombie and sent it to us. (yes I was attacked by it but it's still cool)

[starry-nights12]

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!

There are actually 8 HEARTS!!!

[eggbertith]

[haemosexuality]

funniest part of seeing someone react to arcane will always be "omg mylo is so annoying shut up kid" *mylo straight up dies* "😨"

[arowyn-m]

Some friends and i were talking about this earlier and the conversation was pretty relevant to current expectations for S2 so I’m posting a general summary here!

So in this article from June we all heard that Arcane has “nearly six hours” of content. Due to the way this is worded many people (including myself) took this to mean that S2 would definitively be about 6 hours long, maybe a little less.

For context, Arcane S1 was 6.2 (370 minutes) long, clocking an average of a little over 41 minutes per episode.

It may have just been me, but I was lead to believe when people were discussing this that the article explicitly states that Arcane S2 will be roughly 6 hours long, period. But looking at it now…this portion of the article could also just be explaining where they were in production at the time of publication (June ‘24)—I mean the article section is even titled “Ongoing Production”.

The rest of this post is assuming that’s the case and using some math to try to predict how long the season may end up being.

S2’s production beginning was announced on November 20th, 2021.

We know from BtR that Arcane S1 and S2 were written in conjunction, so assuming the actual animation portion of production starts at the time of the announcement, the team has had about 550 days between Nov ‘21 and June ‘24 to create 6-ish hours of footage (roughly 360 minutes).

360 minutes of animation / 550 days = 0.65 minutes of animation created per day.

Assuming that trend continues and they wrap up animating sometime in September to allow time for final touches and fixes (iirc in BtR the team focused their efforts on final touches about two weeks before launch, so this provides a small cushion of time for hiccups in production), that gives Fortiche roughly 90 days between June and the end of September to complete the animation.

90 days x 0.65 minutes of animation a day = 58.5 minutes of new footage.

Combining 58.5 minutes with the (roughly) 360 minutes of animation they had during the publication of this article = 418.5 minutes or 7 (6.97) hours of footage.

So if we DO get 7 hours total of content by the end of production, that could either mean each episode clocks in at an average of ~47 minutes OR that the average hovers around the S1-typical 42-ish minutes and we get a whole extra episode to cap off the series.

I honestly don’t know what’s more likely, but I do know that Arcane’s finale season being “almost 6 hours” long is very unlikely given everything that has to happen.

TLDR; That one article noting that S2 is less than 6 hours long may be misinterpreted—it could be referring to how much completed footage they had back in June. I did the math and if they continued animating through September then we would be getting roughly 7 hours of total new footage, making a 10th episode a very real possibility.

[schneiderenjoyer]

This part has provided and honestly confirmed an insight that's been implied occasionally, but never openly stated as much as this moment.

Arcanists are less durable.

It's mentioned a handful of times how it's important for combat between arcanists to be quick and efficient. While they can be physically strong even beyond human standards, their limits are far shorter in comparison. They're far more prone to taking physical and mental damage quicker with their quick healing/recovery to make up for it, but not change just how fragile they are.

This is very insightful too as to why arcanists would be more inclined to fight using arcanum instead of physically as much as possible. Their arcanum gives them an upper hand where their physical stamina is lacking.

[erebusbored]

Guys I want her so bad it's not funny

[mastersofunlocking]

when arcane s2 comes out im warding off caitlyn haters with bug spray who joining me -dani

[samtamdan]

There's nothing they can do to make me feel bad for piltover

Like, oh nooo! the council fulls of guys who treated zaunites as less than people dieeeed thats sooo saaaad :'(

[literaryspinster]

I don’t know who needs to hear this but

Sky dying was Viktor’s fault and him covering it up was bad actually.