Arcturus, α Boötis // Ivan Kuznetcov

having fun with hair styles ft. the artw gang :D (I wanted an excuse to draw them all..)

haha ourple guy

ARCANA TWILIGHT VALENTINES CARDS TO GIVE TO YOUR SPECIAL SOMEONE <3

ARTWOBER inktober day2/3 Mythical Creature and Lyra. (actually 27 too hehe) oh the way i would make it into whole illustration but lets stick with dry sketches. anyway, Lyra, vulture + egret aka Kamargo animal + close ups without colors:d

hello artw nation. I offer polaris doodles and thing. ok gn artw nation o7

ermm. designing clothes is hard o(-(

The lovelies!!!! Been obsessed with trying to improve how I draw faces so I remade an oldish art to show off my progress :3

SPOILERS!!! SPOILERS!!!

Rant on Storytaco's bad writing of dark skinned characters. Specifically Sirius.

I wanna start this out with saying, I do not hate Sirius as a character. He's one of my favorites and I feel like he had wasted potential being in the hands of Storytaco. I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying Sirius as a character either! I believe however that we can enjoy media, and look at it from a critical lense. There are good things about his character and I enjoy a lot of how he was written lore wise!!! Otherwise I wouldn't be so violently obsessed with him since the age of 15 lol. But again. There are a combination of things that I can't really see as a coincidence.

If you have anything to add, or disagree with any of my points, please do not be afraid to say so! I wanna have an actual discussion about this. please I do not bite. I stand pretty firm on my points at this very moment, but I'm entirely willing to listen and change.

Uh. Apologies if my points come across poorly or if my writing is incoherent. There's a reason why I did bad in school lol.

My criticisms are below here. Have fun

Anyways.

Fuck Storytaco?

Uh. This is 100% inspired by recent discussion on the fandoms treatment of Sirius. But I'd like to discuss why this treatment is actively perpetuated by the developers of Arcana Twilight. Which is much more disturbing to think about when you consider their games are often marketed towards minors.(There are other issues with storytaco marketing towards minors too. Uh, idk if those are relevant for this post though. Maybe later cuz it's high key disturbing!!! 😃)

Sirius was written very inconsiderately. Like I know he's a villainous/morally gray character. However I feel like there needs to be a lot more tact when your only dark skinned character is written to be not a good person. Especially in comparison to the light skinned characters. I feel like they just applied every negative trait on earth to him, then turned around and went "jk guys! He's not actually bad. Hes like this cuz he's an orphan." 😭 Like some of these traits would be fine in their own if balanced out with other things, but there's so many combined together that I can't help but feel suspicious of their intentions and bias.

He's the most provocative out of all the love interests. He's consistently initiating suggestive situations, is labeled the "sexyman", and is constantly making innuendos. The game has a lot of fan service in general (even though it's rated E), but Sirius is disproportionately portrayed this way and is just constantly going "hehe sex 😁" Which making him the provocative one is both an issue with him being queer coded and dark skinned..double whammy 😟

He's the dangerous, unpredictable and violent one. He SHOT!!! SHOT the mc within the first few floors. And like. There wasn't even a good reason behind why they decided to write that in other than to make us think he's violent/dangerous/untrustworthy. There are times when it's portrayed that he can't even be trusted alone in a room with the mc, even prior to the villain arc. 😐

He's a pretty much a domestic terrorist.... 😐

He was a wanted criminal for half of the story. Idk if I need to explain what's wrong with that either 😐

He's potentially the only one killed off at the ending depending on your interpretation.

In the clan equivalent of Americans (cough. Guns + eagles + the lazy unlikable rebellious group that just gets into trouble) which is just. Silly. 😭😒

Again he's the "untrustworthy one that nobody wants to be around." This is a point constantly driven in by the characters he's surrounded with. they drill that into the viewers head so so so much.

He's the "party animal" of the group??? Which isn't really portrayed beyond him drinking a lot but was definitely advertised as such.

He's 100% queer coded you cannot convince me otherwise. Which. Now we're falling into queer coded poc villain territory. Double whammy again! Disney is that you?

Going off the queer coded point, he's falling into "predatory gay man" territory. Hes shipped with basically every man in the game by storytaco for promotional and bait reasons. But it's always displayed as Sirius making the other party uncomfortable and getting in their personal space. Making unwanted advances. Like... Y'all don't got a do that

Ok this is possibly nitpicky but deadass why'd they make him a basketball player in the highschool au thingy. He's a theater kid. Nothing about him reads as liking sports. Please do not wear dangly earrings while playing sports??? It bothers me so much 💀

Okay so the sassy, violent, deranged, perverted terrorist... is the only romance-able dark skinned man in the game. ??? NONONO just think about that for a good moment

HE HAS OTHER THINGS IN HIS CHARACTER. THERE ARE GOOD PARTS ABOUT HIS CHARACTER!!! I LOVE SIRIUS SO MUCH. HES VERY COMPLEX AND INTERESTING.. but this is such a horrible combination of very specific negative tropes that it's hard to ignore. Especially when thinking about how this game is advertised to minors who, more often than not, are easily subjected to subconscious bias in media and are easily influenced due to our lack of ability to critically analyze media we're haphazardly consuming. (Sorry fellow minors. As a senior minor aka 17 yo it's the hard truth y'all gotta accept. we've all been there and we've been influenced by media whether we're aware of it or not. I'm not mad at y'all or belittling. Keep having ur funsies with ur silly star men I'm not stopping you lol? This is legitimate concern and criticism towards a company that is promoting weird stereotypes to us)

And I don't think Sirius is just a one off weirdly written dark skinned character from Storytaco. Thuban (WHO IS GREEEEEY. Big issue on its own 😰😭) is depicted as lazy and rude.???? Like he has a single redeeming moment but again. Just reads as "domineering rowdy black man." Especially when you look at the whole great hero trio .. he's supposed to fall within the fantasy "Fighter" archetype with his big ass mace. Compared to Polaris who is like a Cleric and the Wizard/Ranger Schedar.

Also shout out to storytacos other grey men.....???????? I was only able to find four dark skinned men (not just tanned a bit) including Sirius when I went thru Storytacos game catalogue. Two of them are grey. 😐

Anyways Sirius was a huge motivating factor in why I wanted to make Extraterrestrial... Fucked up potential of a character. There are 100% biases showing through how he was written. These were all conscious decisions made on the writers part and I don't think it can be kept behind "he's a morally gray character who's going thru it" because there were so many good ways to show that and his grief without going to every. single. extreme.

--

Let him cook

ARCANA TWILIGHT FLOOR 13 REACTION SPOILERS ‼️

I. AM. NOT OKAY.😭😭 BRO I AM ON MY. KNEES. PLEASEEE GIVE US A SEASON TWO STORY TACO OML 😭🙏🙏

OKAY NOW FOR DISCUSSION:

FIRST SHOUT OUT TO CONFRONTATIONAL ARKY GOTTA BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE GENDERS 😩🙏

OK

THE THE. THE FRICKEN POLLUX IS CASTOR PLOTTWIST⁉️

I SAT OVER HERE DRAWING THE POLLUX BDAY ART .JUST. COMPLETELY ABSENTED MINDED OF THE FACT THAT POLLUX AND CASTOR LITERALLY PULLED A TWIN SWAP CLICHE ON US THAT IS SO FUNNY TO ME.

HE'S SO TRAGIC ☹️

BTW I ALMOST FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR READING THIS I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS WAS THE CASE THE ENTIRE TIME OH MY GOD

I MEAN THINKING ABOUT IT I SHOULD'VE EXPECTED IT BUT STILL (EVEN SIRIUS WAS STUNNED)

Also teehee the dots are connecting with mythology again UGH it's so smart with what they pulled off I loved this closing arc for pollux

or I mean castor???

I'm not stretching right???

Also did they ever clarify what castor's fate of misfortune was? Unless I missed it, it's gotta be referring to his death right? Deffo gonna reread the story for when my arcana twilight withdrawals kick in to reanalyze EVERYTHING bc that will be fun

MORE MYTHOLOGY‼️

I've would also love to shout out how much of Arky's role of guiding us out of the Boundry can be paralleled to the greek god Hermes and what he symbolizes BUT BRO

CAN YOU HEAR MY UTTER ANGUISH?????? MY UTTER DESPAIR?????? I AM UNCONSOLABLE

I DUNNO IF I'LL EVER RECOVER FROM THIS LINE 😭 SORRY IT'S JUST ME PARALLELING SUMMONER AND VEGA TO ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE AGAIN. AND. AND. HOW RELEVENT IT IS TO THEIR BACKSTORY AND VEGAS TRAUMA OF BEING ABANDONED BUT

THIS IS SUCH A PERFECT LINE. THE BOW ON TOP OF HIS CHARACTER ARC. I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER

THIS MAY OR MAY NOT BE BECAUSE OF HOW MUCH A HADESTOWN FAN I AM SO IGNORE ME

Ok so at the end I was like NERVOUS bc there was the chance they could have MAYBE pulled off two different endings depending on whether summoner personally wanted to stay or go back to Mid Earthium- which would have been a cool opportunity that Storytaco could have pulled,, but I guesss instead they did the thing where the choices triggered the same response, but this time in the sense that the rest is left to your imagination:

*you turn around = you stay back at the Boundry with the boys (this is because if you turn around the portal magic thingy won't work)

*or you listen to arcturus = keep walking until you arrive back home (earth)

Personally I chose to turn around bc ,one, the story never really gave me TOO much reason to want to go back home- however it was back there- and two I WAS YELLING THROUGH THE SCREEN NOO I DONT TO LEAVEEE 😭😭 THE WHOLE TIME

Also the voice we hear at the end says

"Can you hear? I have a story I desperately want to tell."

And I?? Can't exactly tell what it means?..OTHER THAN A TEASER FOR MORE CONTENT?? MAYBE PONTENTIALLY?? But if it's actually obviously something else I missed please tell me 😭

Anyways end of lecture:

Pollux and vega ending arc top tier.

Arcturus hmm I wish they didn't gloss over the void arc so quickly 🤔

If they could have fitted it in there I would have loved if they had just a BIT more of a satisfying conclusion for spica and alpheratz yknow? :( just me??

And finally. I can be slow,,, so if there's anyone out there that can explain Sirius's whole spiel with polaris and everything with the time travel.,,,,,,, I really would appreciate it bc I'm still trying to understand 😭

(Story taco if you're reading this please make more story I love these characters too much ☹️)