In honor of the holidays, today’s deck is the Halloween Tarot.
It’s still readable as the Waite deck so there’s less problem with trying to mentally translate that bats are swords because the flavor is subtle enough not to obfuscate that.
I also love that every card has a black cat.
Dunno if I’d add it to regular rotation but definitely adding it to seasonal rotation.
Today’s reading feels like a continuation of the rant I had yesterday. It’s saying that leaving you emotional baggage behind will lead to conflict but also to new inspiration.
Now the question here is: what time frame is this reading referencing? Is it an advice for the present? A highlight to the past? A warning for the future?
I personally believe it’s just highlighting a foregone thing and asking me to meditate about it.
Taking it from yesterday’s “I feel unsupported” diatribe, even if I wasn’t feeling that way on a “house” level, I’ve just grown distant to the games industry I’m supposedly a part of.
It’s not even a matter of all the broader picture problems of Current Year like all the layoffs, the live service good rush, the GenAI nonsense or whatever else because I’m gonna be honest, my territory is ultraniche content in a smaller scale and I’m the sort of person that prefers to worry about his immediate worries because otherwise the enormity of the world freezes me.
So what do I have in that immediate context? People that treat single digit teams with the expectations of massive triple A studios and only want their Content. An environment that supposedly puts self expression and artistic values over everything and yet has an appreciation for both that’s scant for how big they talk, creators that have turned their whole identity and values into a singleminded pursuit of a Brand where that brand is I Make Game…
So I feel unsupported from within and unsupported from without. All the magic from gamedev vanished and I’m less by the metrics of the industry because I want to try other things and do other stuff instead of living my life in front of a computer.
And you know, having a job that you love as a job but is, in the end, a job, should be normal. It should be the default. It’s how it works in literally every other context.
But in game development, let alone indie game development? Not living and breathing it is a sign that you’re not built for it. Anything other than blind passion leads people to tell you that maybe you should do whatever else you’d rather do. You’re privileged to be here etc etc etc.
And taking it back to today’s card reading, the irony of me realizing that I’m not a “gamedev” and divorcing myself from everything has in one side caused a few gaps in communication when people don’t read that zealous passion for the craft and I try to strike conversation about Literally Anything Else. But expanding those horizons has led to me improving in my craft even more.
Getting into tabletop games has shown me sides of game design I hadn’t considered, reading books has improved my writing dramatically. Travelling has also given me a lot of ideas both becuse of the experience and from clearing my mind.
And make no mistake it’s not that I hate game development or games for that matter, but that’s my point. Because my interest in it has become more goal-oriented than game-oriented (eg: I’m fine exploring an idea in other mediums) the general stance shifts to “well you’re all in or out”. Maybe that’s why DLsite porn games feel so appealing to me, users are happy just to have content that appeals to their sicko side, and authors are shockingly anonymous.
But also, again. What good is that improvement when I feel like I need to push the cart on my own?
My own conflicting feelings about the industry I’ve dedicated my whole adult life to and my position in it aside…
Today started with me dragging myself out of bed at around 5am. The hotel’s breakfast was from 7 so I killed time in early day routine like showering and checking that I packed everything properly.
My family told me my grandma fell and has to get both her arms operated. She had the balls to say she’s fine and Jose Gregorio Hernandez (Venezuelan saint) will heal her prompting me to go “HE SENT YOU A DOCTOR WITH AN IMMEDIATE SOLUTION AND YOU STILL THINK HE’S NOT PRESENT HELPING YOU????”. Imagine thinking about miracles while you don’t realize getting any decent, let alone immediate care in that country is already a miracle.
Anyway, I went to get breakfast and because I finished fast enough I decided to take a last few pics with Nadeshiko before leaving.
By the way, last night while having dinner there was a lady behind me that spoke by going “uh…” and then spelling in a language I couldn’t properly parse. The thing is that the “uh…” was so consistent in both intonation and use that I kept thinking it was part of whatever language she was speaking.
I packed a whole ass new doll and didn’t try it out… though thinking about it, I actually liked how manageable traveling with just one girl (instead of the usual two) felt like.
I say as I think about which girls, plural, to bring with me next month to Ise…
The checkout process from the hotel was slow. The system was still down and everyone decided to go at the same time. A lot of them were in particular hurt because they have their Shinkansen tickets with specific time on them and stuff.
Then, despite having a reservation for the shuttle bus it was full so I just stood to the side while they put out that fire.
Eventually someone from the hotel staff offered to take us to the station in a car.
“Us” meaning me and the couple that was also left behind.
In Odawara station the station announcer guy got really insistent about everyone staying behind the yellow line, though it’s a station without a barrier of any kind, so…
Once inside there was was a muslim travel group of women and with the usual mess of settling down into seats exacerbated by the amount of people, I had to carry my luggage in my shoulder just to maneuver to the other side of the aisle.
Things went smoothly after sitting down though. I didn’t have anyone sitting besides me and wouldn’t you know it the perfume of the aforementioned travel group made the car smell nice.
After arriving at home sweet home I went through the usual post-travel motions of having a mailbox that’s about to burst and whatnot.
It was the usual stuff. Mats, books, decks, and so forth. Of note is that I got the Unicorn Overlord artbook. But I also got a World Trigger jacket for some reason.
This had me somewhere between intrigued, baffled, and scared. Was this a gift from a fan? Did I order it? Was there a mistake maybe? I even got it into my head that I had a stalker.
I calmed a bit thinking about how the envelope looked like the kind I usually get from small sellers on Amazon.
Turns out that was the case, the seller told me he sent me the wrong thing and to please send it back so that I can get my Nikke playmat.
Then I just tuned out while playing Satisfactory for a while. Because just in case my rant made you think otherwise, I do love videogames, I wouldn’t change my path in life for anything… even if things could definitely improve here or there.