Today’s tarot is Tarot de Carlotydes.
There is no special theme to this one aside from the illustrator of the cards. And speaking of the cards I’m so tempted to have this deck around as a regular because I love the eones that are basically playing cards with something else printed on and just… glide in your hands when you shuffle them.
As for today’s reading, I felt a bit of deja vu. There’s a lot of work-themed readings lately, just like how there were cycle ones when I was stuck in Visa limbo.
The Knight of Pentacles represents that solid consistent worker, while the Page of Pentacles represents the younger rookie eager to develop a skill.
The King of Swords meanwhile is the authority figure that acts quickly not out of rashness but because everything is clear to him.
The inverted court cards can refer to a negative interpretation of the same virtues but can also reflect the inner side of that outer conviction. For example, The Knight of Pentacles is consistent, so the Reversed card can talk of the sort of self-discipline that leads you there but also of a perfectionism that leads to you getting stuck .
And so the King of Swords can be the sort of king that rushes to choices without thinking about the consequences for those he orders around, but it can also be refering to that inner determination that leads to that clarity to begin with.
Since these readings are more of my daily vibe check, this one does line up nicely with how I feel. I’m in that weird period where I wake up and work at a consistent time (relative to my sleep schedule mind you) which does lead to practicing skills that I’m very confident in.
Especially today because I got corrections on the often mentioned contract work I’ve been doing.
Anyway, I woke up at like 9PM. I was originally meant to go to the psychiatrist for the med refilling stuff but I rescheduled while half asleep to the 23rd.
I went out to get food at McDonald’s because it would be the only thing open by the time I headed out. I noticed my right eye was tearing up when the wind hit me and that’s the sign that the weather is getting dry.
The skin around my eyes was so cracked my first winter here, you have no idea.
Apparently the McDonald’s I was thinking about was being renovated until next month so I went to the OTHER one in the station.
For some reason I was remembering this one time in 2020, at my Lowest Point™. I remember McDonald’s got my order wrong (though most likely I grabbed the wrong one in a hurry) and started crying in frustration about it.
I must be in a nostalgic mood today because I was thinking about how that section of the station reminds me of the first couple of weeks after I moved to Osaka.
I was afraid of getting lost so I hung out a LOT in the station, bought books there, bought clothes there. In hindsight it’s kinda wild how many facilities it has.
I wonder if part of what got me into that mood was seeing this gyoza machine. This used to be an apple vending machine, I distinctly remember it sold a pack that included a packet of honey for the apple.
And I remember that, because apples had become a lowkey luxury when I left Venezuela so I was blown away by the fact that there were vending machines with that.
On the way back I saw this sign and I’ve seen that character all year so I decided to check what the deal with her was.
Apparently she’s called Luna Shinsaka and is from a mobile game called Ekimemo or “Station Memories”. When I learned that detail I was like “this is 2013-2017 as hell” and wouldn’t you know it? Released in 2014.
And not only still online but currently having a Monogatari collab. It’s a game where you “check in” at every station you go to and it actually logs what station you visited. I wish I knew about this earlier, I love games that reward my natural tendency to roam everywhere.
I don’t know why I’m surprised though, train geeks are everywhere in Japan, you see so many guys taking pics of specific models of train that there’s warning directed specifically at them the same way you’d warn people with selfie sticks.
On the one hand Luna Shinsaka seems to be the most popular in that game by a long mile which of course makes me proud since she’s named after Shin Osaka Station. But also she’s described as a sleepy but smart night owl and may I remind you: I saw the posters at around 10PM because I woke up at 9PM.
What a way to call me out man…
The posters remind me that right about now or the start of November is when the Illumination Shows start. Basically they put a lot of lights on different parts of the city making it prettier at that time of year when it’s already super dark at 5PM.
Last year looking for a botanical garden that did that I got so lost that I found a McDonald’s with a driverthrough in the process because I went so out of the city.
Mind you, I DID find the garden I was looking for eventually AND IT WAS CLOSED THE DAY I WENT.
Speaking of memory, as I went back home I thought about how one feeling I really enjoy is… basically I have bad sense of direction but good memory. I enjoy trying to remember how a place felt before it became familiar, clinging to that feeling of discovery.
It’s not even nostalgia, I just enjoy not taking things for granted and that includes familiar sensations.
…for as much as I complain about always having the rug pulled from under me, I sure do love reminding myself that it can be pulled at any time.
I played a game today (サキュバスの森~えっちなモンスター娘達に快感まみれにされちゃうゲーム~) that was basically Slay The Spire but porn. It’s actually well thought out, I’ve played so many of these that want to funnel the player into losing because it’s made for masochists (literally, that’s the intended kink, fedom through mechanics). This one has actually an interesting detail where the trash cards you’d get in Slay The Spire are added when your lust bar gets filled.
The shocking part is that it was made in Godot. Japanese gamedev circles took a while to start using Unity, let alone Unreal, and now they’re using Godot.
If the folder is to be believed there’s a good chance it’s because it’s a framework they have though.
Wait, didn’t the Slay The Spire people literally go “yeah we recreated the game in Godot in one day” when Unity did their dumbass policy change last year? I wonder…
Oh by the way, the McDonald’s order had cheese and I cannot eat cheese so I could only eat half of that Big Mac (the top half).
No crying this time at least.
I took a quick nap because my sleep schedule isn’t messy enough as-is and then kept working.
Beyond that, the biggest surprise for me was that they removed a dried up tree in front of my apartment. I wonder if they’ll replace it with something else.
Also you might be wondering where the title of this post comes from.
Check this shit out.
Can you believe lightning hit sand so hard this happened?