#more to be and see.

[lordrandreaming]

Unwanted Arcana opinion that might put me in hot water below:

I think the writing is incredibly lackluster, for personalities, interactions, and so on.

I noticed, as I neared the end of Julian's route, the writing lost it's fire. It seemed.. Confused. Like whoever wrote it had no idea where this was all going. You can tell, there was a change in writing.

Lucio, Muriel, and Portia are especially victims of this sudden change, because it just felt like they were given 'filler' personalities and stories. No one is hit harder than Portia. Followed by Muriel.. Followed by Lucio.

Now I like Lucio. But.. He wasn't done justice. You can say, that living the pampered life turned this count whos been in various bloody fights, raised out in the cold harsh winter environment, would make him this squishy, soggy idiot we know.

But.. His characterisation really could have been better. I see him more as 'Sorry not sorry I did that lol' not 'I need everyone to forgive me or im crying' (its not actually like that, but it's pretty close.) And then fucking off for adventure.

In my opinion, which yes, is just an opinion, Lucio should have stayed in Vesuvia and make up for what he's done by lending a helping hand. Yes everyone hates him, as he was written to be the *worst* character..

I think it's unfair what happened to all the routes by the end. Im assuming, If Julain's near-ending was so cobbled together, that Nadia and Asra's routes suffer the same fate.

As a writer, I care about the character's I am writing. I can see clearly that in the end, none of the M6 were cared about. They were made to be appealing and draw people in, because it was "the Thing" at the time.

It makes me incredibly sad, that now I see how cobbled together everything is. Some amount of thought went into the story, but it could have been so much better..

There isn't alot to do, for one. And I know.. 'Its just a game!' However, as a consumer of said media, it's extremely lacking and doesn't stimulate me like I'd hoped. It's like a false promise- but there was no promise to begin with.

When I first seen the Arcana, I was not at all interested. And for good reason.. As advertised was not what we got. I got into it about, two years ago now.

Yes, I was late, but.. The fandom was near death when I came into the scene. Yes yes, I know, people of course are still heavily into it, and I still love it myself but.. It makes me sad.

The character's clearly weren't cared about. They were put out there for visual appearance to lure in lonely gay people. Lesbians, Bi, everyone. They included everyone so they can pull in more people.

Nothing wrong with that- alot of games and industries tend to do this. But they never stick with what they said..

You can say: Mori, why are you bitching about this? It doesn't matter anymore!

Or

If your so unhappy, why don't you just stop caring?

Because.. It started out as a passion, you can see, and quickly as people left, new people kept coming in and that passion was quickly lost.

It saddens me, as an artist and writer. The love was lost.. And the Arcana became hollow anymore. As I played through it a second time, it just felt empty. It was so thrown together- the ingredients just didn't mix.

Id re-write the whole damn game if I could. And like hell I'm going on Dorian.

I appriciate that the people who still love the fandom, want to make and create and that Dorian allows that to happen, but I don't vibe with the fact that anything you post on there is now Dorian's to claim and use.

You can be mad at me, say that I'm wrong because Im dumb and didn't play all the routes, or tell me that I'm just seeing 'face value'. But I'm not changing my opinion because people are mad at me.

This isn't a post meant to rile up or insult anyone. Im not starting a debate. This is just my heartfelt opinion, and that opinion is the state the Arcana was left in was shit. It could have been more interactive, we could have had so much more, but ultimately, we are left with a hollow possibility of what could have been, but never was.

[bitchfitch]

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[unforth]

Y'all I know that when so-called AI generates ridiculous results it's hilarious and I find it as funny as the next guy but I NEED y'all to remember that every single time an AI answer is generated it uses 5x as much energy as a conventional websearch and burns through 10 ml of water. FOR EVERY ANSWER. Each big llm is equal to 300,000 kiligrams of carbon dioxide emissions.

LLMs are killing the environment, and when we generate answers for the lolz we're still contributing to it.

Stop using it. Stop using it for a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g. We need to kill it.

Sources:

[captainjonnitkessler]

>Join a union

>Hear people constantly complaining that the current union leadership is super corrupt, it's all just the same ten guys making all the decisions in secret and nobody else in the union ever gets to know what's going on

>Go to the monthly union meetings that are completely open to all 1200 union members

>The only attendees are the same ten guys every month, giving detailed reports about everything that's going on

[canonkiller]

I just think everyone should take a moment to consider the question "what is your visual shorthand for cruelty?" and then follow it up with a critical "and who taught you that?"

specific examples include but are not limited to

why is an evil timeline character design disabled? (why do the heroes go through equally punishing battles and never lose an arm, a leg, an eye?)

why are the futuristic scifi terrorists uniformly darker skinned? (why are the heroes so much lighter?)

why is the greedy boss fat? (why are the heroes skinny?)

why is the criminal mastermind heavily scarred? (why is the brooding, traumatized hero unscathed?)

why is the predatory creep a bearded person in a dress and makeup? (why are none of the heroes trans women?)

who taught you that this is how things are?

how long do you plan on repeating it?

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

[sabellart]

yeah so i had to draw that

[stimmingandstruggling]

more good news from tiktok: they’ve started blocking celebrities.

they’re calling it block party 2024. just blocking and ignoring countless celebrities who havent said shit about palestine. influencers, actors, anyone who went to the met gala, whatever, they’re getting blocked. and people keep talking about how cathartic it is, how good it feels, how they never realized they could DO that. there was some kind of subconscious law against blocking famous people, but it’s broken, and people are LOVING it. and it’s WORKING. a social media/digital advertising coordinator was talking about how ad companies are PANICKING, because they can’t accurately target anymore. so many big influencers, including fucking LIZZO started talking about palestine the MOMENT their follower counts started going down. and the best part? no one is forgiving them. lizzo posted a tiktok asking people to donate to palestinian families, and all the comments just said you’re a multimillionaire. put your money where your mouth is. blocked.

i feel like i’m witnessing the downfall of celebrity culture, right here right now. people are waking up.

[fly-chicken]

A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

[unsung-idiot]

don't show him modern technology; it won't end well

bonus under the cut:

[cloud-ya]

outcast of the village

[oncorhynchus-nerka]

VERY IMPORTANT a dam in the Netherlands, the weerdsluis lock, is directly on a migratory path for spawning fish. They have a worker stationed there to open the door for the fish, but they can take a while to open it. So to keep the fish from getting preyed on by birds they installed a doorbell. Only, the fish don't have hands to ring the doorbell. If you go to their website, they have a LIVE CAMERA AND A DOORBELL that YOU RING FOR THE FISH when they're waiting, and then the dam worker opens the door for them! I can't express how obsessed I am with this. look at this shit. oh my god.

Please check on the fish doorbell once in a while :)

[12neonlit-stage]

you're allowed to discuss and work together, reblog for a higher sample size or something

You have 1 week, good luck!

[golyadkin]

you'll get the urge as an artist or a writer to say out loud the things you're worried about "the proportions are off" "kind of out of character" "i'm not good at summaries" "didn't get as much detail as i wanted" "i made a mistake and here's how" and that's the self-conscious part of your brain telling you "it's bad and if you don't tell them you know it's bad then they'll think you're stupid" but you've got to ignore that little voice and pretend you think it's good or else that little voice is going to ruin your life

[tawnysoup]

Finally now that the comic is fully public on comicfury, I get to share it with all of you here, too <3

If you enjoyed, please consider supporting by buying a PDF of the comic on itch.io: https://tawnysoup.itch.io/home-in-the-woods